UE4 World Composition w/ Houdini

   23555   30   12
User Avatar
Staff
553 posts
Joined: Sept. 2016
Offline
Hi,

Version 2 of the plugin supports baking landscapes/HF Tiles to World composition.
When baking to WC, the appropriate sub levels/streaming proxies are generated (or updated if already present).
User Avatar
Member
8 posts
Joined: March 2017
Offline
does this mean i can use HDA asset with WC in unreal? or are you referring to the heightmap approach?
User Avatar
Member
1 posts
Joined: May 2020
Offline
dpernuit
Hi,

Version 2 of the plugin supports baking landscapes/HF Tiles to World composition.
When baking to WC, the appropriate sub levels/streaming proxies are generated (or updated if already present).

Tried it and it's working really nice, just have one question:
I have to keep HDA e.g. on persistent level to be able to edit it's parameters and inputs and I have to rebake it every time I have edited it to get it working with World Composition system. Am I understanding this workflow right?
User Avatar
Staff
553 posts
Joined: Sept. 2016
Offline
Yes, baking is the only way to update the WC levels/landscapes.
The idea is that you can come back to the HDA, make some changes to the generated terrain, and once satisfied with results, bake again. The second bake will update the landscape actors in the level, and update the WC system.

In the plugin “cook” outputs are generally considered temporary, and owned by the HDA, so it made little sense in having the WC levels and landscapes being “owned” by an HDA.
A similar logic applies to PDG Outputs, which remained owned by the HDA until baked.
In both cases, deleting the HDA will delete the cooked/temporary outputs.
User Avatar
Member
42 posts
Joined: Feb. 2018
Online
Hi, having read through this thread I am still confused as to what state World Composition with height-field tiles is in with Houdini Engine 2 (alpha3.2) for Unreal Engine. I am trying to build an HDA that will load tiled height-fields into UE4, but I am not getting expected results.

Currently, I am creating a height-field that is 6051x6051 with a grid spacing of 1. (i.e each voxel is 1 meter.) This is then split into tiles with a Height-field Tile Split Node with tile count set to 3x3, voxel padding 0, Tile Lower Overlap 0, Tile Upper Overlap 0. This results in 6 tiles each 2017x2017 and voxel size 1. 2017x2017 is one of the allowed sizes specified in the Unreal Landscape Technical Guide [docs.unrealengine.com] and the Houdini Engine Docs [www.sidefx.com]. However, this results in a visible gap between each tile.

From here, I then write these tiles to .bgeo, and make an HDA that loads the .bgeo tiles inside a for loop. In Unreal, with Houdini Engine 2 loaded I can load the HDA and the tiles will load correctly, and will bake to individual levels fine, however there is still a visible gap between each tile.

I have tried changing the settings on the Height-field Tile Split to have voxel padding or upper/lower overlap to 1, but this results in individual .bgeo tiles that are bigger than 2017x2017, which then fail to load via Houdini Engine 2 in Unreal.

Is this expected? Could some one give a step by step guide for creating height-field tiles for World Composition with Houdini Engine 2? Given the need to end up with individual tiles that conform to the Unreal Landscape Technical specifications, how do you figure out the original height field size and resolution, and then split them into tiles for UE4 so they line up and load into world composition correctly?
User Avatar
Member
54 posts
Joined: Sept. 2013
Offline
Hi, I'm getting those gaps between tiles as well.

I have a terrain of size 4033x4033 which reflects the recomended size by unreal:




Then I use the hf tile node to split it into tiles 4x4:




That gives my 16 tiles of 1009x1009 terrains



After cooking all tiles through PDG in Unreal. I'm getting 16 landscape actors with



But there are small gaps between landscapes:



It's seems like a bug, but wanted to double check with you guys?

I've treid to change geometry marshalling but that didn't helped at all.

Thanks for the help.

Attachments:
hue_wc_big_landscape.PNG (83.7 KB)
hue_wc_gap.PNG (495.4 KB)
hue_wc_tile_landscape.PNG (91.5 KB)
hue_wc_unreal_size.PNG (217.3 KB)
hue_wc_tile_sop.PNG (11.9 KB)

User Avatar
Member
54 posts
Joined: Sept. 2013
Offline
After upgrading UnrealEngint to 4.26 gaps between tiles disappeared but now Editor crashes when trying to bake PDG output.
World composition is enabled in world settings.

Pdg network:


Geometry spreadsheet for one of the items:


Content browser:


World composition node:


Outliner


Bake:



And crash:



Any suggestions?
Edited by hektor - Jan. 25, 2021 18:53:13

Attachments:
wc_crash_bake.PNG (49.5 KB)
wc_crash_bug.PNG (65.9 KB)
wc_crash_compNode.PNG (56.5 KB)
wc_crash_contentB.PNG (41.2 KB)
wc_crash_pdg.PNG (59.6 KB)
wc_crash_spreadsheet.PNG (51.3 KB)
wc_crash_worldO.PNG (143.9 KB)

User Avatar
Member
54 posts
Joined: Sept. 2013
Offline
BTW. that issue with crashing while baking PDG output has been fixed in 18.5.480
User Avatar
Member
1 posts
Joined: May 2017
Offline
im facing a normal seam issue when using the tile split node do you guys know how to fix this type of issue
in houdini (visible seams) -> https://i.imgur.com/jR6t01p.png [i.imgur.com]
in unreal (even more pronunced visible seams, wold normals are incorrect at the edges of the tiles) -> https://i.imgur.com/xtXBDJz.jpg [i.imgur.com]
the setup is identical to the one used by hektor (using a pdg network to drive the tile number of the tile split)
User Avatar
Member
3 posts
Joined: April 2021
Offline
Hi, how to bake foliage correctly. I always bake plants at other levels with PDG, but using instance is correct.
User Avatar
Member
44 posts
Joined: Dec. 2010
Offline
darkimage
im facing a normal seam issue when using the tile split node do you guys know how to fix this type of issue
in houdini (visible seams) -> https://i.imgur.com/jR6t01p.png [i.imgur.com]
in unreal (even more pronunced visible seams, wold normals are incorrect at the edges of the tiles) -> https://i.imgur.com/xtXBDJz.jpg [i.imgur.com]
the setup is identical to the one used by hektor (using a pdg network to drive the tile number of the tile split)

Hi darkimage,
Sorry to bring up and old thread, but I am also getting normal issues at the seams between my heightfields in Unreal, I was wondering if you found a fix?

Basically I am using a Houdini Engine HDA in Unreal to import a landscape I have split into 4033x4033 resolution tiles in Houdini.
The edges of the landscapes align perfectly without overlap, but there is an ugly dark line in the lighting at every seam, so it seems like a lighting/normal issue on the Unreal side.

In this case I can't just make one huge landscape but have to divide it up into multiple landscape actors, each with multiple landscape streaming proxies.

If anyone has any ideas on how to make the seam between 2 landscape actors "seamless", that would be great to know.
MC
  • Quick Links