Texture the Terrain

In this section, you’ll create the entities and components needed for defining surface types and adding materials to the terrain.

1. Save the level (hotkey Ctrl + S) before beginning this section so that you can reload and revert the steps for texturing with entities if you choose to also work through the Landscape Canvas version of terrain texturing.

Apply a macro material

1. With the Terrain Spawner entity selected, add a Terrain Macro Material component.

2. In the Terrain Macro Material component, select the tutorial_terrain_basecolor macro color texture that you saved in your tutorial level folder, or optionally any other color texture of your choosing. This tutorial doesn’t use a macro normal texture, but if your terrain authoring software supports generating one, you can select it here as well.

Important:

If you use a macro normal texture, the terrain area size must exactly match the size of the terrain in the terrain authoring software or else the normals won’t point in the correct directions.

At this point, the terrain is colored, but up close it lacks any surface details:

Apply detail materials

To apply the materials to the terrain as detail materials, do the following:

Add a default surface material

Start by adding a default surface material to verify that the terrain detail materials you created earlier are working and provide the look that you expect.

1. With the Terrain Spawner selected, add a Terrain Surface Materials List component.

2. To the right of the Default Material property, click the File button and select the rock_boulder_dry material asset. The entire terrain is redrawn with the rock material you created.

3. Now set the Default Material property to the forrest_ground_01 material asset. This changes the entire terrain surface to grass.

At this point, the terrain has height variation, color variation, and a grass texture:

Create gradient entity for the grass surface weights

This process is the same as creating a gradient entity for a heightmap. Each gradient entity has three components:

• An Image Gradient component that references a gradient image. Other gradient types can be used, but image gradients offer the most control and are used in many scenarios when creating terrain.

• A Gradient Transform Modifier component that places the gradient in the level.

• A shape component. Most often, this is a Shape Reference component that references the Axis Aligned Box Shape component in the Terrain Spawner entity.

1. Create a child entity of the Terrain Spawner entity named Terrain Grass and add an Image Gradient, a Gradient Transform Modifier, and a Shape Reference component.

2. On the Shape Reference component, click the Picker button, then click the Terrain Spawner entity in Entity Outliner to create a reference.

3. On the Image Gradient, set the Image Asset to the tutorial_grass_splatmap_gsi image that you downloaded into your tutorial level folder.

Create gradient entity for the rock surface weights

In levels that have many different surface types, you will typically use separate images for each surface weight. However, this tutorial only uses two surface types, so the rock gradient can be set to the inverse of the grass gradient.

1. Create a child entity of the Terrain Spawner entity named Terrain Rock and add an Invert Gradient Modifier component and a Shape Reference component to it.

2. On the Shape Reference component, click the Picker button, then click the Terrain Spawner entity in Entity Outliner to create a reference.

3. On the Invert Gradient Modifier component, click the Picker button, then click the Terrain Grass entity in Entity Outliner to create a reference.

Add a Terrain Surface Gradient List

These steps associate the gradient entities with the surface tag names you created.

1. With the Terrain Spawner selected, add a Terrain Surface Gradient List component.

2. In the Terrain Surface Gradient List component, click the Add button to add a new gradient slot.

3. To the right of the Gradient Entity property, click the Picker button, then click the Terrain Grass entity in Entity Outliner to reference it.

4. For the Surface Tag property, select the tutorial_grass surface tag name from the list. Note that the list contains the surface tag names you created in Asset Editor.

5. Repeat steps 2 though 4 to add the Terrain Rock entity and associate it with the tutorial_rock surface tag.

Add surface weights to the Terrain Surface Materials List

This assigns the detail materials to the terrain based on the surface tag names and associated gradient entities.

1. Select the Terrain Spawner entity in the Entity Outliner.

2. In the Terrain Surface Materials List component, clear the entry for the default material. Our surface maps will cover the entire terrain, so the default material will no longer be necessary.

3. To the right of the Material Mappings property group, click the Add button to add a new material slot.

4. In the Surface Tag property, select tutorial_grass.

5. To the right of the Material asset property, click the File button and select the forest_ground_01 material asset to associate with the surface tag.

6. Repeat steps 3 through 5 to add tutorial_rock and associate it with the rock_boulder_dry material asset.

As you add detail materials and surface tag name pairs to the Terrain Surface Materials List component, the materials appear on the terrain surface.