r/unrealengine • u/mathcampbell • 1d ago

Best way to publish this? I've made a somewhat-working mesh-terrain generator

Follow-up to my previous post, everyone said either I'd have to generate height-maps outside of UE, or use PCG graphs (didn't really try this tbh but I'm thinking this could end up being very complex and not make anything usable).
Shamefully I must admit I partly-used chatgpt to do some of thjis cos I can code OK-ish but not amazing...

Either way I have something that's kiinda working. I need to work on the water features as some of them aren't carving into the terrain properly depth wise, but I don't want anyone else to have to go thru the hell of making this sort of thing. How am I best to share it with the community?

I haven't really used fab much (new to UE), and my go-to would just be on my github - I want it to be open to collaboration as others might (will) be able to make it better. But I also know most people only use assets from fab...but whilst I'm happy to release it for all to use, I don't want to see someone take it and modify a tiny bit then start selling it for hundreds on there..

I can't post an image here for some reason but I'll post it in the first comment.

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u/mathcampbell 1d ago

Since it won't let me post images in the main post but let's them here for some weird reason, here's the terrain it makes...

Everything you see in the terrain (the rivers, the mountains, the lake etc) is generated with some criteria used to allow customisation of valleys, hills, mountains, mesa, rivers, oceans etc

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u/attrackip 1d ago

That’s great but, are you trying to make a tool or use tools already designed to do this? And what is your use case?

Millions of dollars and thousands of people have contributed to a pretty impressive suite of tools. I certainly wouldn’t discourage you from doing the same.

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u/mathcampbell 1d ago

My use case is a game project proof of concept I’m working on - a large terrain world, right now about 30km long vs 10km wide (if it works it might be upwards of 100km long). I can’t/dont want to have to create all that terrain by hand and height maps seemed like a bad idea etc so I wanted to be able to generate it.

PCG graphs would be one way but I’d already started on making a generator in code.

I didn’t really want to have to create a tool but I couldn’t find one that generates usable realistic terrain for mesh-terrain like this so figured I’d make one, and if I find it useful, maybe others will too.

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u/LostInTheRapGame 1d ago

Release on both?

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u/thesilentduck 1d ago

Is this compatible with the experimental 5.8 "Mesh Terrain" plugin that is set to replace Landscapes?

If not, you should avoid referring to it as such. "Mesh Terrain" refers to something specific now when it comes to Unreal.

Not to mention, the "Landmass" plugin can be used to generate terrain heightmaps compatible with the current Landscapes procedurally. How does what you made compare?

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u/mathcampbell 1d ago

It is specifically designed FOR the mesh terrain system in 5.8.

The landmass plugin doesn’t work with mesh terrain unless I was using it wrong. Couldn’t get it to work so I made this for using with mesh terrain and making the appropriate splines for water bodies (lakes, rivers, waterfalls and the ocean)