00:01 hey my name is Isaac Oster I'm a lead
00:03 

00:03 technical artist in the games industry
00:05 

00:05 I've been doing a deep dive on
00:06 

00:06 everything landscape in unreal 5.5 and
00:09 

00:09 guia 2 and I'm excited to share a few
00:11 

00:11 helpful tips and tricks with you this
00:12 

00:12 tutorial series covers everything you
00:14 

00:14 need to know to begin building
00:15 

00:15 Landscapes with Gaia and unreal it
00:18 

00:18 covers how to generate both hype maps
00:20 

00:20 and tiling static meshes in Gaia how to
00:22 

00:22 set up a landscape actor and how to
00:24 

00:24 build a layered landscape material with
00:26 

00:26 nanite displacement using quickel Mega
00:28 

00:28 scans the texture graph and Gaia texture
00:30 

00:30 data let's jump in all right so here we
00:33 

00:33 are in Gaia 2 you can see the license
00:35 

00:35 here I'm at
00:37 

00:37 2.0.4 two Indie what that means is I can
00:40 

00:40 export textures at a resolution of up to
00:42 

00:42 4K the free version is limited to 1K and
00:47 

00:47 that's a little bit important but uh you
00:49 

00:49 can make a decision whether or not it's
00:51 

00:51 worth upgrading if you haven't already
00:52 

00:52 uh you can export height Maps up to 4K
00:55 

00:55 with the free version so you can
00:56 

00:56 actually get a lot of important data out
00:58 

00:58 without having to spend any extra money
01:00 

01:00 so down here this is our graph area we
01:03 

01:03 have some attributes that we can modify
01:06 

01:06 for each node that's selected this is
01:08 

01:08 another way of looking at the graph when
01:10 

01:10 you're ready to export stuff you can
01:12 

01:12 look at your build settings here this
01:14 

01:14 little button right here will give you
01:15 

01:15 access to how you want to export the
01:17 

01:17 various nodes and you can look at your
01:21 

01:21 your data that you're generating here so
01:24 

01:24 you can see I click on this little green
01:26 

01:26 circle there I can go to visualize data
01:28 

01:28 and it's going to look a little bit
01:30 

01:30 different because because right now I
01:30 

01:30 have this color node selected if I
01:32 

01:32 wanted to grab one of these geometry
01:35 

01:35 nodes down here you can see that data is
01:37 

01:37 represented as a gray scale image
01:38 

01:38 because it's actually showing the height
01:40 

01:40 displacement here so we'll get into some
01:42 

01:42 of this in a little more detail shortly
01:43 

01:43 you can toggle the sky off and on and
01:46 

01:46 you can change the position and
01:48 

01:48 brightness of the sun without the
01:50 

01:50 realistic render though that's not
01:52 

01:52 really going to be showing it too much
01:53 

01:53 you can also change the resolution this
01:55 

01:55 is actually has a significant impact on
01:57 

01:57 performance so while I'm doing the demo
01:59 

01:59 I'm going to leave it at 1K
02:00 

02:00 and then if you want to see what the
02:02 

02:02 final result is you can bump it up to 2K
02:03 

02:03 or 4K so let's go ahead and build
02:05 

02:05 something from scratch now to explore
02:08 

02:08 how some of this stuff fits together
02:10 

02:10 down in the graph section we're going to
02:12 

02:12 begin by looking here in terrain and
02:15 

02:15 then
02:16 

02:16 landscape and Canyon it's going to add a
02:19 

02:19 canyon node once that loads in I can
02:22 

02:22 also just right click over here and type
02:24 

02:24 in part of the word Canyon and it'll pop
02:27 

02:27 up let's zoom in just a bit
02:34 

02:34 so I have two Canyons here and if you
02:37 

02:37 look over here in the parameters what
02:39 

02:39 you'll notice is they are almost
02:41 

02:41 identical the only thing that's
02:43 

02:43 different between the two is the seed so
02:45 

02:45 the seed is going to be a random number
02:47 

02:47 that gives you a a similar but different
02:49 

02:49 result so if you if you want to if you
02:52 

02:52 like how something looks and you want to
02:53 

02:53 just give it a little bit of a a
02:55 

02:55 different output then you can just
02:56 

02:56 change the C to some other number and
02:58 

02:58 you will get a different value right
02:60 

02:60 right okay so there are a variety of
03:03 

03:03 different things that we can modify with
03:06 

03:06 the the canyon node here we can change
03:08 

03:08 the
03:09 

03:09 scale and if I modify that you'll see
03:13 

03:13 what the result is a very low value
03:15 

03:15 gives you basically a straight line with
03:17 

03:17 a whole lot of stuff going on on that
03:19 

03:19 line and a larger value is going to give
03:20 

03:20 you a much more diffused Canyon right so
03:23 

03:23 something in the middle might make sense
03:25 

03:25 there if I wanted to reset any of these
03:27 

03:27 values I can rightclick and then either
03:30 

03:30 type a value IND directly or I can hit
03:32 

03:32 this little icon here which will set it
03:33 

03:33 back to its default value we can look at
03:35 

03:35 the effect of reducing the slot value
03:38 

03:38 that's going to basically make
03:40 

03:40 everything a little more level on the
03:41 

03:41 top if I increase the slot value it's
03:43 

03:43 going to spread it out a bit all right
03:46 

03:46 so this is kind of a nice look because
03:47 

03:47 you can you can get this uh flat plane
03:50 

03:50 with a a ring of sort of mountainous
03:52 

03:52 stuff around it let's go back to
03:54 

03:54 something a little closer to the
03:56 

03:56 default we can get a similar look here
03:58 

03:58 playing with Valley
04:01 

04:01 right start to get that same kind of
04:02 

04:02 idea all right and there's some other
04:04 

04:04 things in here you can play with depth
04:05 

04:05 and and see whater talked about so a
04:07 

04:07 very important thing that you can do
04:09 

04:09 here I'm just going to duplicate this
04:10 

04:10 node just a control D there and I'm
04:12 

04:12 going to change the seed so now I have a
04:15 

04:15 similar but different result I want to
04:17 

04:17 combine these but before I combine them
04:19 

04:19 I want to rotate this one so that the
04:20 

04:20 mountains are on this side and the flat
04:23 

04:23 area is over here so I can pull off from
04:26 

04:26 out and type in transform
04:31 

04:31 and in the transform node I have this
04:33 

04:33 option here of setting the angle so I'm
04:34 

04:34 going to right click and type in
04:37 

04:37 90 you can see on the very edge we're
04:40 

04:40 going to get a little bit of stretching
04:41 

04:41 but we don't need to worry too much
04:42 

04:42 about that so now I need to combine
04:45 

04:45 these so I'm going to pull off of the
04:47 

04:47 top one type in the word
04:51 

04:51 combine and then plug from the out of
04:55 

04:55 the transform into the the bottom here
04:57 

04:57 of combine and you can see now I'm
04:59 

04:59 getting average of those two inputs
05:03 

05:03 there are a lot of different ways that
05:04 

05:04 you can change the result that you're
05:07 

05:07 getting and it a lot of it is going to
05:09 

05:09 look a little bit similar to photoshop
05:11 

05:11 if you're comfortable with that tool I'm
05:13 

05:13 going to go ahead and set this to
05:14 

05:14 visualize
05:16 

05:16 data so we can see what this looks like
05:20 

05:20 for the first Canyon where it's lighter
05:22 

05:22 the geometry is going to be displaced
05:24 

05:24 upwards and where it's darker it's going
05:26 

05:26 to be lowered middle gray is going to be
05:28 

05:28 left alone so you can see we have have
05:30 

05:30 these two very similar results we do our
05:33 

05:33 transform and then when we combine them
05:35 

05:35 we can either blend them we can add them
05:37 

05:37 together we can do a screen we can do a
05:40 

05:40 multiply subtract and so on and if I
05:43 

05:43 actually set this to realistic render
05:45 

05:45 you can begin to get a sense for what
05:47 

05:47 those results look like you can get a
05:48 

05:48 little bit of clipping here do an add do
05:51 

05:51 a blend so on and so forth right you can
05:53 

05:53 also change the relative
05:56 

05:56 impact of the inputs so if you want a
05:58 

05:58 little bit more from one than the other
05:60 

05:60 then you can go ahead and set that up
06:01 

06:01 very easily here by modifying the ratio
06:04 

06:04 value I'm going to set this back
06:06 

06:06 to.5 so there are a variety of other
06:09 

06:09 options here in our terrain we have a
06:12 

06:12 crater
06:14 

06:14 field I'll just add a few to show you
06:17 

06:17 kind of what they look like or we can do
06:20 

06:20 plates and sort of the nature of this
06:22 

06:22 tool is you kind of got in and play with
06:24 

06:24 a little bit I'm not going to be able to
06:25 

06:25 cover everything here got rugged and
06:28 

06:28 they all have their own their own PR
06:30 

06:30 that you can modify we'll look at one
06:32 

06:32 more here the
06:36 

06:36 slump so it's just some bumpy mountainy
06:39 

06:39 looking thing right and these are all
06:40 

06:40 again here in terrain landscape they've
06:43 

06:43 got Primitives as well uh you can do a
06:46 

06:46 crater which looks a lot more simple
06:49 

06:49 because again it is a primitive and then
06:50 

06:50 we can do oh Mountain
06:53 

06:53 Side so the mountain side has got a lot
06:55 

06:55 going on you can play with some of the
06:57 

06:57 the style stuff here and this is is
06:60 

06:60 actually how I built the piece of
07:02 

07:02 geometry that's a static mesh as opposed
07:04 

07:04 to a height map so let's go ahead and
07:07 

07:07 get rid of some of these I'm actually
07:09 

07:09 going to keep Mountain Side
07:11 

07:11 around get rid of slump and we don't
07:14 

07:14 need the stuff
07:16 

07:16 anymore so once you've got a piece of
07:18 

07:18 geometry that you are kind of happy with
07:21 

07:21 in terms of the overall shape the next
07:23 

07:23 thing we can look at here is going to be
07:25 

07:25 surface and surface there are going to
07:28 

07:28 be a lot of interesting things things
07:30 

07:30 that you can do so I'm going to go ahead
07:32 

07:32 and we will look at we can do
07:36 

07:36 craggy and what you notice is if I just
07:39 

07:39 add a craggy node it doesn't do anything
07:41 

07:41 because it needs an input so I'm going
07:42 

07:42 to plug from Mountain Side into Cragie
07:46 

07:46 let it process and here you can see the
07:48 

07:48 result kagie is an excellent name right
07:51 

07:51 this is exactly what it looks like so
07:52 

07:52 with kagie again there's going to be
07:55 

07:55 some things that you can modify if I
07:58 

07:58 want to make them a little bit smaller
07:60 

07:60 less deep change the shape a little bit
08:03 

08:03 whatever but if I wanted them to only
08:05 

08:05 occur at a certain height or certain
08:08 

08:08 slope there's an easy way to control
08:11 

08:11 that I'm going to click down here on
08:13 

08:13 this little icon and you can see uh
08:15 

08:15 there's a mask by slope and a mask by
08:17 

08:17 height option so I'm going to select
08:20 

08:20 height and you can see here it's only
08:22 

08:22 showing up in kind of the middle space
08:24 

08:24 right and that is reflected by this
08:27 

08:27 window here I can make it you know a
08:29 

08:29 wider
08:31 

08:31 window and I can drag the whole thing if
08:33 

08:33 I hold the shift key you can move it in
08:37 

08:37 pretty much real time which is a neat
08:39 

08:39 impact there let's add one more I'm
08:41 

08:41 going to just continue on the train
08:43 

08:43 we're going to do a
08:46 

08:46 Sandstone Sandstone is also here in
08:50 

08:50 surface and the Sandstone is going to
08:52 

08:52 give you these striations this layered
08:55 

08:55 effect and you can increase the passes
08:59 

08:59 and the it itations which will take a
09:01 

09:01 bit of time but it's going to punch a
09:03 

09:03 little bit more detail in pick up the
09:07 

09:07 iterations all right and let's go ahead
09:10 

09:10 and do another one of those mask by
09:15 

09:15 height I'm going to hold shift so I can
09:18 

09:18 move the whole
09:22 

09:22 thing and just kind of walk it down so
09:25 

09:25 it's kind of in the middle there so
09:27 

09:27 that's looking interesting the next
09:30 

09:30 thing that's very important here and
09:31 

09:31 there's a lot of other stuff in surface
09:32 

09:32 that's definitely worth exploring well
09:34 

09:34 maybe I'll do I'll do one more so this
09:35 

09:35 rock noise here we'll just throw a rock
09:38 

09:38 noise
09:40 

09:40 in and this one doesn't need anything to
09:43 

09:43 be an input but obviously without
09:46 

09:46 something else this is going to be a
09:47 

09:47 flat plane so I'm going to plug in from
09:50 

09:50 there and that will give us some bumpy
09:52 

09:52 stuff and once again I'm going to add a
09:55 

09:55 mask by height and this I just want at
09:58 

09:58 the top so so we just get a little bit
10:00 

10:00 of break up there at the top and that's
10:03 

10:03 lovely all right so there's a lot more
10:04 

10:04 stuff in here it's all definitely worth
10:06 

10:06 playing with but before we spend too
10:09 

10:09 much more time worrying about the
10:11 

10:11 surface the next thing I want to do is
10:13 

10:13 look at simulate there's a few erosions
10:16 

10:16 there's going to be easy erosion erosion
10:19 

10:19 and erosion two easy erosion once again
10:23 

10:23 is going to require some inputs we'll
10:25 

10:25 just go ahead and plug it in and it's
10:27 

10:27 going to just give you this aodi stuff
10:29 

10:29 doesn't have too many details you can
10:32 

10:32 just pick from some presets hence the
10:34 

10:34 the easy part can take a little bit of
10:36 

10:36 time I'll let that kind of process
10:38 

10:38 whatever you can kind of see the result
10:40 

10:40 there the ones I like are I think
10:42 

10:42 exposed Rocky I don't want it to be too
10:45 

10:45 intense you can reduce the influence
10:47 

10:47 obviously but it's pretty melty right so
10:50 

10:50 we can grab erosion two if you do
10:53 

10:53 erosion one it or just a regular erosion
10:55 

10:55 it'll it'll kind of say like this is an
10:56 

10:56 old node you should you should try
10:57 

10:57 erosion two so I'm going to just grab
11:00 

11:00 the duration and walk it back so you can
11:03 

11:03 kind of get back to effectively your
11:05 

11:05 your original state or very close to
11:08 

11:08 it but you can see we're starting to get
11:10 

11:10 some nice deposits some
11:13 

11:13 erosion all that is very very lovely you
11:15 

11:15 can change the scale if you reduce it
11:18 

11:18 you'll get lots of little rivets and if
11:20 

11:20 you make it larger you'll just get some
11:22 

11:22 some bigger ones down cutting is going
11:24 

11:24 to be like how deep those little
11:26 

11:26 trenches are so that can be a nice thing
11:28 

11:28 to control as well and then there's
11:30 

11:30 other stuff that you can play with right
11:32 

11:32 but uh we're kind of just showing a few
11:36 

11:36 a few options okay so I think we're
11:37 

11:37 probably at about time for this video
11:40 

11:40 and the next one we'll talk about how to
11:42 

11:42 colorize this so stick around for that