PLEASE NOTE: This is also available on Unreal Marketplace, I recommend you get it there if you plan on using the assets in Unreal. I only provide it here as a way to offer a bit more free licensing, if you want to extract the assets and use them in another engine for example. But please note, I am unable to provide any support in getting the assets into other engines.
Update 1.2 : Imposters now work correctly with UE5.
UPDATE 1.1 : Content Update
Trees now have Octahedral Imposters(Billboards) set up.
This bumps the required engine version to 4.26, previous version is still available to 4.25 users.
This contains the full Unreal Engine 4.25.4 project for my procedural forest scene, along with all models, textures, shaders and procedural rules used to create the scene.
Performance Video of the scene running with the FPS template on a regular GTX1080:
So why should you get it?
It's great if you want to dissect my work, see how I set up my shaders and build content to be optimized for dense usage like in this scene, and still get it to run at a good framerate. Or you can just use it to get some sweet sweet nature models and textures that are ready for use in game/scene! All models are set up with collision and LODs where needed. Most by Unreals automatic LOD feature, but some models, like the vegetation, have custom LODs where needed.
Included are: 4x Trees ranging from sized Small to Large
Level containing the scene used in all screenshots and video. Complete with all camera angles used) in the level you can also see how I set up all the spawning rules using Procedural Foliage Volumes
A simple and cheap way to dynamically add snow cover to the entire scene.
Included is only the actual Unreal project, but if you want to bring any models or textures out of Unreal, it's as simple as exporting them from the Asset Actions menu.
Release Notes
Imposters now work correctly with UE5.
Trees now have Octahedral Imposters(Billboards) set up.
This bumps the required engine version to 4.26, previous version is still available to 4.25 users.
00| Release v.1.0 | Standard License | over 1 year ago
Really impressive work Robert! Great reference example for junior artists on how to make environment art with performance in mind, which I really respect as a technical artist. I'm more impressed by this than Epic / megascan's medieval town demo in that regard.
For those with performance issues, try tweaking your scalability settings (sg.viewdistancequality 2, sg.shadowquality 2, ...). I also turned off shadow casting on the ground cover lod 1 / 2 (contact shadows work well) and set up some of the rock and tree meshes cull distances more aggressively. I'm now staying within 5 million triangles rendered and am close to 60 fps at 1080p on my seven year old 980 gtx.
Performance is exactly as stated, there is even a video included which shows how it running at 60-80fps on a GTX1080.
So this should come to no surprise.
I'm sorry that you expected anything else.
10| Release v.1.0 | Standard License | over 1 year ago
Looks good but needs more work:
* Tree_L_01 has UV issues near the roots so 2k textures look low-res while they're not. Also textures space is used suboptimally.
* Scene itself is rather heavy and uses experimental SSGI feature, so this package is definetly not game-ready
* Water shader has nice shoreline feature but needs more care. With the current appearance is should be made opaque.
* Rocks, twigs and smaller trees are placed in scene with 'No collision', Spawners also need some tuning as placement is too dense in some areas (that should help with performance too). Rocks are not closed meshes but sometimes are placed in their sides or even upside down.
* Snow feature is very basic. Looks good on bark of trees but not so on landscape coverage, also eats extra performance.
Hello.
Thanks for taking the time to write the review
No where does it state that the scene itself is game ready, the scene is a visual display of the assets, nothing more. The assets/meshes, are very much game ready, and they do have collision, even tho its turned of on the spawner in the demo scene.
You say the UV usage is sub optimal, the UVs the way it is to create a seamless blend between the base and the tiling trunk texture. To do this, some sacrifices have to be made.
The bad placement of some rocks is an unfortunate side effect of the procedural placement, I have not gone over every square inch of the scene, this is a test of what can be done, not a fully QAd game scene.
The snow is basic for a reason, that is the whole point, its basic, cheap and looks ok. Performance impact is minimal.
I'm sorry if you expected a game ready complete environment, I will make that even more clear in the description next time.
10| Release v.1.0 | Standard License | over 1 year ago
Frankly, for this price, the shaders only are a steal. The assets are top-notch: clean topology with spot-on silhouettes and polygon density distribution. Textures hold texel density even on big assets. The environment looks like a proper forest, the shaders are cheap, spawners work well, the assets are optimized.
This is as good as it gets. Get the pack.