UE4 and Terragen

Started by rcallicotte, April 04, 2014, 10:15:41 PM

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rcallicotte

So...why not? Would this work? Create some beautiful scenery in Terragen and import it into UE?
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

Oshyan

Import what, exactly? Terrain? Skybox? (yes to both) Entire scene? Not so much the latter...

- Oshyan

rcallicotte

Which is better or done more frequently? Skybox or terrain? Not worried about the whole scene, of course. But, terrain and skybox would be interesting.

With the new UE4 offering, this might be an excellent thing to get done and done well.  It could be cool!

So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

Oshyan

I'm not sure what you mean Rob. You can already export both terrain and "skybox" (spherical camera output, or manual 6 view camera output).

- Oshyan

rcallicotte

Because I've done neither, I was wondering what the precedent was / is for either way - export terrain or creating a skybox. I'll eventually try both, but if one is glitchy or has problems more than another, I'll steer clear. Too many other things to deal with if there are 15 steps to get something done.

That's what I meant.


Quote from: Oshyan on April 07, 2014, 11:33:27 PM
I'm not sure what you mean Rob. You can already export both terrain and "skybox" (spherical camera output, or manual 6 view camera output).

- Oshyan
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

Oshyan

Both are pretty easy in terms of getting data out of Terragen. There are challenges with each depending on the capabilities of your destination program though. An exported Spherical Camera render can be used immediately by most 3D software as an environment map with Spherical projection, but many game engines want a "skybox", i.e. a 6-sided box with images (or image sections) mapped to each side, and in this case you'd need something that could convert a spherical camera output to skybox format, or to manually render out the 6 faces yourself (6 different camera views at 90 degrees to each other). Some game engines natively support spherically mapped images anyway.

Geometry exports in OBJ or FBX so as long as your destination software supports one of those, it can load the geometry. The main challenge comes into play due to geometry density/object/file size. But this is just a fundamental reality of the level of geometry Terragen generates to create the detail that it does and is one reason why we generally recommend rendering high detail terrain in Terragen rather than trying to export it and render elsewhere. Exported terrain is generally better used as a shadow-receiving object, for occlusion, camera path creation/reference, etc.

- Oshyan

rcallicotte

Thanks Oshyan. Very helpful, as always.

Hope everything is going your way in the best of ways.
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?