UE4 Landscape Editor Introduction

Landscape editor mode in UE4

In this tutorial I will be showing the basics of the Landscape Tools in Unreal Engine 4 and what they are used for.

Once you create a new level in Unreal Engine 4 you have to choose the landscape's size and material.

Landscape 

For this tutorial I am going to be using the default grass material, witch can be found in the content browser in Unreal Engine 4. After choosing the material and clocking Create you level will be filled in with the material you chose and the size you wanted also.

Landscape after creating

After your landscape has been filled in you can use the selection tool to select certain areas of your level.

The Landscape Tools

The Selection tool, selects Landscape components, one at a time for subsequent use with other tools, such as moving components to streaming levels and deleting components.
Controls- Left mouse click to select components, Right mouse click to de- select components.

The Add tool, adds new components to the landscape one at a time.
Controls- Left mouse click to add new component.



The Delete tool, deletes selected components from the Landscape
Controls- Left mouse click to delete selected components if there are none selected it deletes the components that are highlighted by moving the mouse over it.

The More Level tool, moves the selected components to the current streaming level. This makes it possible to move sections of the Landscape into a streaming level so that will be streamed in and out with that level, optimizing the performance of the Landscape.


The Change Component Size tool, Changes the size of the whole Landscape not individual components. With this tool you can change the size of the Landscape components and adjust how many sections each component has in the Change Component Size.


The Edit Splines tool, Landscape Splines are a flexible system for creating any linear feature that needs conform to a Landscape, and can even push or pull the
terrain to better facilitate building these features. They are created and edited using the spline tool in the Landscape toll.


The next Tab of the Landscape tools are the Sculpt tools.

Inside the Sculpt Tool bar there are a number of different tools, I will be talking about all of them in this tutorial.

The Sculpt tool, Increases or decreases the heightmap height in the shape of the currently selected brush and falloff
Controls- Left mouse click, heightens or increases the selected layers weight.
                Shift + Left mouse click, Lowers or decreases the selected layers weight.

                                        

  Showing Increase

                                     

Showing Decrease

The Smooth tool, Smooths the heightmap. The strength determines the amount of smoothing.
Controls- Left mouse click to Smooth.

                                                                             

 Showing Smoothing tool

The Flatten tool, flattens the Landscape to the level of the Landscape under the mouse cursor when you first activate the tool.
Controls- Left mouse click to Flatten


                                                                           

Showing the Flattening tool

The Ramp tool, enables to select two different locations on your landscape and create a flat ramp between them with a falloff you specify on the sides.
Controls- Ctrl + Left mouse click on two locations marking the start and the end of the ramp.

                                                                                 

 Showing unfinished ramp

                                             

Showing done ramp

The Erosion tool, uses a thermal erosion simulation to adjust the height of the heightmap simulating the transfer of soil from higher elevation to lower elevations. The larger the difference in elevation, the more erosion will occur.


                                                                                       

 Showing Erosion

The Hydro Erosion toll, uses a hydraulic erosion simulation to adjust the height of the heightmap. A noise filter is used to determine where the initial rain distributed. The simulation is calculated to determine water flow from that initial rain as well as dissolving water transfer, and evaporation. The result of that calculation provides the actual value used to lower the heightmap.

                                                                                   

Showing HydroErosion

The Noise tool, applies a noise filter to the heightmap or layer weight. The strength determines the
amount of noise. Also the noise filter is related to position and scale, which means if you do not change Noise Scale, the same filter is applied to the same position many times.

                                                                                       

Showing Noise Tool

The Visibility tool, lets you create holes in your ladscape for such things as caves.




The Region tool, selects regions of the landscape using the current brush settings and tool strength to be used to fit a landscape gizmo to a specific area or to act as a mask for copying data to/or pasting data.


                                                                                 

 Showing Selection Tool

The Copy/Paster tool, is used to copy height data from one area of the landscape to another through the use of Landscape Gizmo.




I hope this is really helpful for first time users or if anyone wants to brush up on the Landscape Tools.

Importing Sounds and Audio into UE4.

What is the benefits of having Background music?

Having background music provides your game with more enthusiasm. Depending on the music, it can define a certain situation.

Step 1.

Find a suitable song/track on YouTube. Once you've found a suitable track, copy the link and go to the website "www.youtube-mp3.org".

Copy the link.

Step 2.

Paste the link into the "convert" tab and convert the link into a video. Once the link is converted download your file and go to the website "audio.online-convert.com". Search through the file types until you find "Convert audio to WAV".

www.youtube-mp3.org

audio.online-convert.com

Step 3.

Go to where is says "Upload your audio you want to convert to WAV:" and choose your .mp3 file that you downloaded. When done, go to the bottom of the page and convert the file.

Choose File

Step 4.

Open up UE4  and go to the audio folder and import your .wav file. When uploaded double click and save. Now close.

Step 5.

Right click on the file and chose "create cue". Chose a name for the file and the double click on it.

Step 6.

A window will show up but just click save and close down the window.

Step 7.

Drag the sound cue into the map.

Step 8.

Press play and listen.

Create a Building in UE4

Finished result

BUILDINGS

Step one

The first thing you need to do when making a building on unreal engine is to delete the default stage you receive. After deleting the default stage you will want to go into your BSP folder select a cube and drag it out into your game. Make sure that you select the hollow option when using the cube.

image above shows a cube you can get in your BSP folder

Make sure you select hollow its on the right side 

Step two

For the next step you will want to change the width and height of the cube. You will have to press the space bar twice and scale your cube to whatever size you want to have your building at.

Make sure you press the space bar to scale

Step three

You will design windows and a door. In order to do this you need to go back into your BSP folder and select and drag out a cube. After bringing your cube into your game you will then want to line it up to the part of the building that you want your window to be at. When you have it lined up you will change the cube to subtractive and this will take a part of the wall out. To create the door just scale your cube to a length and width that suits you then change it to subtractive.

this will allow you to put square holes in the building for your windows

when you select subtractive it will come up like this

Step four

In this step you will be adding a texture to cover your building in. In order to get a texture you will first have to go into your materials folder and search it for a material that suits you.

when the texture is placed down on the object it will look like this

when you select apply your textuyre will change and become more realistic

When you find a texture that you like your have to select your texture and drag it out onto your object. After dropping the texture on to the object you will have to click onto the apply option.

STEP 5

In this step we will be creating the roof of the house. You have to change from perspective view to top view. This will send you into wireframe mode. You will then select the bottom part of the house and then in your options select split. After selecting split you will then see a line going down the centre of your roof you will select this line and bring it up.

when making your roof you should go into wireframe mode as it will make things clearer for you

it is important top note that when you pull the top part of the roof the inside is still flat

STEP 6

In this step you will then go onto blend swap and find a window for your house. In order to search for a particular static mesh you have to select the search option above and then type into the search bar.

go to blend swap to find an ideal mesh

you can search for one by typing it in the search option

STEP 7

When you find a static mesh you like you will then download it. After downloading your static mesh you will then want to extract your files somewhere that will be easy to find. After extracting your file you will then want to go open it up in blender.

when you find an ideal mesh click the orange button to download it 

after downloading it you should extract the files

STEP 8

In this step you will then want to import your static mesh into your game. You will want to go into file then export then select autodesk FBX. After selecting this you will then want to go to your side toolbar and select mesh. You will then want to go into your props folder and select import. After selecting import just find your static mesh and click on it this will bring it into your game.

make sure to select mesh

your mesh will be in the props folder

you will then want to select the import option

STEP 9

In this step you will want to drag out your static mesh onto your game. When you drag your mesh out you might have to scale it depending on how big you might want it. After you have your mesh to the right size you will then want to place your window in the hole you made earlier. The same steps are used for the door.

when you have one window done you can just duplicate it

STEP 10

In this step you will make a door for your building. Since my building is a ware house type of building il be making a garage type door for it. It is important that you scale your door to an ideal size for your building a garage type door might not be suited for your building. In order to make a door you need to go into your BSP  folder and then drag out a cube. After you drag out your cube just scale it to whatever size suits you. 

the last thing to do is make a simply plane that looks like a door