[Feature request] LandscapeGrassOutput and GrassType features and bugfixes

Hello!
My name is Dmirty, I’m developer of Landscape Auto Material

It would be great to add features \ solve problems with Landscape Grass Output and GrassType:

  1. Add parameters of random min\max scales and bNormalAlign for meshes in GrassType options (like we are using in Foliage painting mode).
  2. Add master scale (for all autogenerated meshes) input node for LandscapeGrassOutput.
  3. It would be great to have an opportunity to switch grass output references in material instaces
  4. Need to fix the Bug: Parameters that linked to LandscapeGrassOutput in master material instance do not updates automaticaly in viewport. After parameters change you are have to modify any of your using GrassType object to update the scene
  5. Need to fix the Bug: Parameters that linked only to LandscapeGrassOutput are invisible on material instance
  6. Collision gerneration tool for Landscape Grass Output meshes with collisions.
    No need to do it dynamicaly, for example it could be baked in the map.

Thank You!

Hey SDVenom,

Let me preface by saying I really enjoyed the video and work you put into the ‘Landscape Auto Material’ pack. It looks wonderful, and when I get the chance I will play around with it myself :slight_smile:

I took all the information you have provided and put it together in a unified feature request to improve the workflow for procedurally generate landscape foliage (UE-25743). I have also come across a few of these issue myself where I would like greater control of things like min and max scale as well as material instancing options.

Thanks for taking the time to enter these requests and hopefully they are addressed soon so we can improve this feature. I cannot give you a specific time frame when these requests will be considered and implemented as resources are dedicated elsewhere at the moment. Once they have been addressed, we will either kick them back or begin integration.

Cheers,

Thank you Andrew!

HI! How to make scale 1:1? Here the model of base of a chair imported from Max in centimeters in scale 1:1, and under him the automaterial https://yadi.sk/i/58c8l-LspeFM3. It is more when in 2 size. Scale doesn’t affect it.
Thanks!

Hello Andrew!
Any ETA for improving landscape works?

Looking forward to above suggested additions.

Update: The request has been addressed and we are still looking at integrating the features.

‘Collision isn’t going to be practical as instances are placed on the fly and only near the camera.’ This was the only one that might not become a part of the landscape/foliage features.

Cheers,

Update There have been some updates and improvements made to the landscape actor which you will be able to see with the full release of 4.12 in the release notes.

I would love to see these features implemented in the future, especially the collisions, it would make making landscape that much less tedious and time consuming, I look forward to seeing these added in the future. Keep up the good work guys!

I’d like to add to this also:

  1. Grass scale influenced by layer alpha - so as the layer the landscape grass type fades to 0, the scale also is multiplied by a number; i.e. 0.25 = the grass scale is reduced as the layer alpha reached zero. This would allow for smoother transitions between layers and more variation from the same grass type.

  2. This is a big one: The ability to spawn Landscape Grass on any static mesh. This is useful for a number of reasons - firstly to save on memory for lightmapped scenes since landscape grass can use the underlying objects lightmap instead of needing it’s own. Secondly for convenience - I could have meshes that blend better with the landscape as they would spawn the same grass output type, the distribution of which could be defined in the material with a vertex color.

The LAM (Landscape Auto Material) marketplace asset Developer told me, that this is a UE4 lacking feature which makes LAM lacking that auto generated trees and such things have collision. That is really a big problem and I hope Epic can follow this feature requests to make it possible to spawn trees (of course with collision!) with such auto generating functions! Of course grass normally need no collision, but when this functions are used to auto generate also trees in a good way that LAM is doing it, it should be possible with collision!