UI Overview

This is for legacy versions of the Landscape Material Tool before the 2.0 update.

The UI for the Landscape Material Tools Editor Mode is user friendly and split into three main tabs.

Material

For Nanite Displacement/Tessellation see here Setup and Using Nanite Displacement

The material tab is used to generate a landscape material, the subtab bar has standard options for generating a new material "New", opening the referenced landscape material "Open", and compiling the referenced landscape material "Compile".

The "Landscape Master Material" asset entry is used to edit the landscape material, it has three different states, as shown below.

Valid Material:

A valid material will display when a verified and current Shadersource landscape material is selected. It should be displayed with a green outline.

This should also enable the "Open" and "Compile" sub tab buttons.

Invalid Material:

An invalid material will display when a none Shadersource verified material is selected, "Open" and "Compile" sub tab buttons will remain disabled.

Deprecated Material:

A deprecated material will display when a material made from a previous version of the plugin is selected, compiling the material should update to the latest version whilst keeping all the previous settings.

Layers

This tab will be used for creating landscape material layers. It has a similar layout and validation system as the Material tab, shown previously.

The layers sub tab bar has five buttons:

• New (used to create a new blank layer)

• Reset (will reset the current selected layer to the global defaults but does not reset texture parameters)

• Save (used to save the current layer)

• Save As (this will create a new asset using the settings from the current layer selected)

• Gather (gathers parameters from the selected content browser layer asset and applies to the selected reference layer, does not transfer texture parameters)

The "Landscape Layer Reference" asset entry is used to select landscape layer material functions, it has a validation system similar to the material reference.

Valid Landscape Layer:

A valid Landscape Layer will display when a verified and current Shadersource landscape layer is selected, It should be displayed with a green outline.

This should also enable the "Reset", "Save" and "Save As" sub tab buttons.

Deprecated Layer:

A deprecated landscape layer will display when a landscape layer material function made from a previous version of the plugin is selected, saving the landscape layer should update to the latest version whilst keeping all the previous settings.

Tools

The tools tab is used for overall landscape material settings. However its main use is to assist with landscape material creation.

Reload Level

To make life easier there's a "Reload Level" button which will ask to save and then reload the current level. For example, when applying paint layers in order for them to populate you will need to reload the current level.

Gather Materials

The "Gather Materials" button will enable when you have a landscape actor reference selected. It will gather the master material and material instance from the landscape and set them to the references within the editor mode.

The "Material Instance Reference" will enable once a verified master material is selected under the Material tab.

"Use Material Instance Live Link" is used together with the "Material Instance Reference"

To enable quick modifications, when a parameter is changed within the editor mode tool it will populate to the selected material instance. This means if you have a material instance on your landscape you will see the changes happening live. This will also enable gathering parameters from the material instance which have had changes to the landscape layers.