Is planned improvment of support for larger outdoor? -Imho the biggest problem of UN.

[RuThaN]

Hi all,
I would like to use UDK for your project, but support of outdoors is very bad. In my experience (in March or earlier release), the editor when working with larger terrain level (3x2 kilometer) and only maps saving takes maybe a minute and light generation and the worst quality of the hour.

Between the sectors is impossible change code parameters (afaik) and letting the enemy move easily between sectors, plus I think the sectors still must, be defined in one big map. Moreover, thanks to this is not possible good outlook (view distance) and must use a stupid fog. Simple tool Unity havent such sort of problem, big island works properly.

I think this lack also prevents attempts to MMO in Unreal, create game as Oblivion or Fallout are in Unreal impossible.. Small Mass Effect levels look as bad joke.

Therefore, I ask if Epic plan a significant improvement in this area, because otherwise I'll have to look for another engine, which have majority of features worse, but big map is possible.

Edit: Streaming volumes are not the solution, it is an emergency solution, in addition according to the documentation last upgraded in 2007. Unreal is in general nice technology all, but some things are as from stones age. It looks that Epic is affraid touch this old code.
Actors transfer between levels is done very poorly.
Streaming also have to working inside editor for basic work in 1 big map.

[Exetus]

Did you do streaming levels?

Also do you have a swarm or only 1 pc rendering the large map? What obstructions to view do you use in your map? Almost no maps can just have flat land with unlimited views, at least none that I have seen and had them be good for fps, etc.

[iniside]

Did you do streaming levels?

Also do you have a swarm or only 1 pc rendering the large map? What obstructions to view do you use in your map? Almost no maps can just have flat land with unlimited views, at least none that I have seen and had them be good for fps, etc.

I saw Oblivion, Morrowind, WoW, WAR, AoC, MO (Mortal Online). While WoW, WAR and AoC are splited in zones, those zones are still huge, at least for unreal it's something between 512 and 1024 terrain.

I have to agree that terrain is biggest problem of unreal by now. It's quite obslote and simply do not fite large outdoor maps by default (which means without writing your own terrain system from scratch).

Another problem is tezturing which is completly unfriedly and need tons of work and planing ahead. And at last when you come with changes you need to make lots of thing again.

As far as i can tell there someone metion on forums that some guy in Epic mention (eh), they are going to make completly new terrain. Although nothing else is know.

[StingReay]

Exploiting the maximum and zoning would simulate the effect really well, just use streaming of the max-sized levels and you're good.

Also, if it's possible to do such a thing in Java, the most top-heavy programming environment on the planet (I'm looking at you, RuneScape), then it's sure as hell possible in Unreal.

[Wormbo]

The Unreal Engine is heavily restricted by its float data type which is used for vector components. When a value becomes larger, regardless of sign, it starts losing precision on the less significant digits. That effect begins to affect slower movement somewhere above +/-100000UU. As you gain distance from the origin, the effect increases, up to the point where slow movement isn't possible at all anymore.

The only good way around that would be to upgrade the float type to double, but that would slow things down

[Blade[UG]]

I've seen some fairly monstrously sized terrains in UT04 and UT3..

There is a revamp in the Terrain system (the Landscape system), but from what I hear from people who've tried playing with it in the June/July builds, it's really not ready for prime time yet.

[iniside]

I've seen some fairly monstrously sized terrains in UT04 and UT3..

Yes but no way they erer done on default terrain system from unreal. It's simply not made to support huge pices of terrain. Let's say it lack of very important feature like terrain occluding. You always render entire terrain no matter you cant se half of it. While the triangles should be automatically culled.

[Blade[UG]]

What? In UE2, if you had an occluder setup, terrain quads would not be rendered if they were behind it from your point of view. Pretty sure that's same in UE3, but the occlusion is automatic ..

[iniside]

From what i have seen terrain is alawyas rendered as single mesh, and can't be occluded partially. Just like other meshes.
It also do not self-occluding (cliffs, mountains).

[Blade[UG]]

It's not really well suited for that type of thing, anyway, although that hasn't stopped people from doing it..

[iniside]

Yes it is not. But when yu have access to source code, nothing really stop you to write this part on your own.

[Blade[UG]]

right, but i'm just sayin, that it seems to me better to model things like mountains and cliffs in some other program, unless you enjoy having your visuals look like something out of Postal 2 or Deus Ex

[iniside]

right, but i'm just sayin, that it seems to me better to model things like mountains and cliffs in some other program, unless you enjoy having your visuals look like something out of Postal 2 or Deus Ex

i can;t agree. In Crysis all cliffs, mountains and other terrain features are done with terrain (heightmap), not even using voxels for that. A this look amazing as it should it's matter of good texturing.

[StingReay]

While vertical isn't possible, it is possible to get pretty damn close with heightmaps. Look at the way RCT3 heightmaps worked: You could have standard RCT2 hard raised land, but for realism there was the option to raise and flatten out terrain on top, effectively making cliffs.

[RuThaN]

My streaming note added to my first post.

[Brexer]

Yeah only thing on hold right now here is the terrain, as i need a huge landscape (to prevent map loading wich is bad for my game plan).

I like the terrain system in Esenthel for exsample, where you add the map blocks as you go, you need more, then you just insert 1 at one of the other blocks end, and it simply streams it, you dont have to sit and cut up maps, you simply delete a block or add a block.

I do think the terrain system in UDK really needs a huge overhaul, before we can do these "limitless" terrains.

As my plan is to start small, and just patch as i go with new content, increased/new terrain without loading screens for each new "zone".

[iniside]

The biggset thing I miss there is Texture paint directly on terrain. Just like in Unity or CE2. The current metrial system for terrain is very time consuming if you don't have exact plan how the terrain should look (I think it's really hard to have idea on begining how exactly terrain will look at end).

also Unigine have nice Terrain tesselation where plain area can be replaced with few quads and smal details on terrain are higly tesselated.

[Xendance]

The biggset thing I miss there is Texture paint directly on terrain. Just like in Unity or CE2. The current metrial system for terrain is very time consuming if you don't have exact plan how the terrain should look (I think it's really hard to have idea on begining how exactly terrain will look at end).

also Unigine have nice Terrain tesselation where plain area can be replaced with few quads and smal details on terrain are higly tesselated.

You can paint textures on terrain, just like in Cry Engine 2, and terrain supports tessellation

[Angel_Mapper]

I'm not reading this as the Unreal Engine being inadequate, only as you being unable to creatively work around its limitations to get what you want.

[iniside]

You can paint textures on terrain, just like in Cry Engine 2, and terrain supports tessellation

I can paint maximum of 4-5 MATERIALS (and assume that each material have one texture) on single place. It is nothing to campare to CryEngine 2 or Unity where you can pain any amount of textures you and they are compiled later to texture map that cover terrain.

And i said about detail tessellation. Terrain in unreal is loded but not detailed tessellated. Detail Tessellation means adding more polygons in places that are need (let's cliff with smooth transition to terrace), and less polygon where are not need (flat plane you do not need same amount of polygons like mountain or pebbles).

You just should see it for yourself to see how obsolete terrain in Unreal is ;p.

I'm not reading this as the Unreal Engine being inadequate, only as you being unable to creatively work around its limitations to get what you want.

You mean writing some things from scratch. Sure thing, just give me source code ;p.

[RuThaN]

I could write very long list of games, tools and middlewares which have good streaming mechanism and terrain creation tool, this is standart feature for these days, it should be issues for Epic.
Even, but none of them as good a license as UDK.
Epic maybe are affraid from streaming on consoles, but it works (i know, its harder too implement) and UDK is for now only for PC.
Borderlands show maximum of Unreal outdoors performance - seamless world would be better. Its also designer issue, because Unreal havent multiuser level editor - as i said, some parts of Unreal are from Stone Age.

List:
Unigine
Gamebryo
Unity3D
Chrome (Poland)
Renderware
ID tech 5 (probably)
etc..

[Xendance]

I can paint maximum of 4-5 MATERIALS (and assume that each material have one texture) on single place. It is nothing to campare to CryEngine 2 or Unity where you can pain any amount of textures you and they are compiled later to texture map that cover terrain.

And i said about detail tessellation. Terrain in unreal is loded but not detailed tessellated. Detail Tessellation means adding more polygons in places that are need (let's cliff with smooth transition to terrace), and less polygon where are not need (flat plane you do not need same amount of polygons like mountain or pebbles).

You just should see it for yourself to see how obsolete terrain in Unreal is ;p.


You mean writing some things from scratch. Sure thing, just give me source code ;p.

But you said "paint on", and that is exactly what UE 3 lets you do. I only responded to that.

And about that tessellation, I don't know any engine which would only tessellate areas where it's really needed (ie not flat plains, like you said).

[Angel_Mapper]

You mean writing some things from scratch. Sure thing, just give me source code ;p.

No, I mean instead of wishing in one hand and crapping in the other to see which piles up first that people learn to work within the limitations of the engine. There are ways of accomplishing what people are asking with just a bit of imagination and experimentation.

[Blade[UG]]

No, I mean instead of wishing in one hand and crapping in the other to see which piles up first that people learn to work within the limitations of the engine. There are ways of accomplishing what people are asking with just a bit of imagination and experimentation.

I knew there had to be someone else on earth that used that saying besides me!!! People look at me like i've got a second head, when I say it.

Anyway, yes, someone needs to learn how to operate what they have to it's utmost, because the replacement for the system is at least a couple if not several months away, and who knows if he'll find that suitable as a replacement to the crap that Unity has.

[Hboybowen]

for example you can create a say 4096 terrain in L3dt which would equal 4x 1024 terrain size and split and resize in photoshop and aline and etc using streaming and u have a 31x31 KM map or so....

If to large for u do the math and recreate

[pulse0o0]

The unreal engine isn't horrible and the map size if your doing a flat plane across the entire grid it's 6.6 miles or around 10.5 Km and btw Cryengine 2 only allows up to 15 materials painted on a terrain not a limitless amount and that amount can be reduced with the material complexity same in unreal which is bad because of the already low material count. There are a lot of problems that need fixing for sure such as the dynamic shadows, light rays, rigid bodies falling through the map even with continuous collision on and the "can become dynamic" static meshes can be retarded in some cases where if say you have 2 barrels stacked and the top one is active and the bottom one isn't it will just fall through the one on the bottom, and the only reason I use them is because they don't have the dynamic shadows that go through other objects. The rendering power is nice and you don't need a very good computer to play it. Overall it's a nice engine that needs some fixes hopefully in the next few releases.

[iniside]

But you said "paint on", and that is exactly what UE 3 lets you do. I only responded to that.

And about that tessellation, I don't know any engine which would only tessellate areas where it's really needed (ie not flat plains, like you said).

I know. It's called Unigine. But expect that, it's bit slow and unoptimized unfortunately.

No, I mean instead of wishing in one hand and crapping in the other to see which piles up first that people learn to work within the limitations of the engine. There are ways of accomplishing what people are asking with just a bit of imagination and experimentation.

Well I will be really glad is someone tell me how to make nice terrain texture with grass that fit this texture, because this the only thing that I really can't figure out.

Ok I lied a bit, I figured out how to make desert, but this is not something special really ;p.

[Angel_Mapper]

I knew there had to be someone else on earth that used that saying besides me!!! People look at me like i've got a second head, when I say it.

To be fair I have to credit Mystery Science Theater 3000 for getting that stuck in my head.

[Brexer]

I know. It's called Unigine. But expect that, it's bit slow and unoptimized unfortunately.


Well I will be really glad is someone tell me how to make nice terrain texture with grass that fit this texture, because this the only thing that I really can't figure out.

Ok I lied a bit, I figured out how to make desert, but this is not something special really ;p.

As far as i know, tesselation is a directx 11 only feature, this engine is not directx 11, so how could you even expect that feature (i highly doubt UDK will be updated to use DX11).

Unsure if possible or already in the engine, but perhaps make a brush that increases resolution of terrain where you brush, to give higher quality terrain in zones/places where its needed (eg mountains, rivers corners ect), and only where its needed, while ofcourse still using LOD.

An easier way to add terrain patches would be sweet, without it being total science to figure out to stream the terrain and increase its total size and quality.

I dont know, i just would love to see a better terrain system overall, beside that UDK is an amazing tool.

[iniside]

As far as i know, tesselation is a directx 11 only feature, this engine is not directx 11, so how could you even expect that feature (i highly doubt UDK will be updated to use DX11).

Oh I don't know how they actually implement it, but it works with DX9 ;p. And do not talk about entire scene just about terrain, which is dynamicaly tesselated as needed and ehm detesselated when it's far from camera

[RuThaN]

Similar effect as tesselation could be implemented through OpenGL, this is a bit offtopic.

[TheAgent]

i got no complaint and ive been using terrain since UT2003 i agree with AngelMapper