WM to Unreal - World Dimensions, Scale and Resolution.

Help! How do I...
#1

Hi there,

Hoping to get a better understanding on how to export world machine maps with pristine quality. Thanks in advance.

  1. In project settings under World Dimensions where it says width and breadth, if I make this larger, does it reduce the quality of the exported map even if the build is tiled?

  2. If I wanted to make a fairly large world with high resolution quality, what would be the most ideal width and breadth assuming it reduces quality?

  3. What is the best practice in general when working with world dimensions. Should I always try to simulate the size of the world based on real world values or should I drop width and breadth to a small value and try to make my large terrain fit within those small bounds?

  4. I understand that for Unreal, the scale of the map is based entirely on the resolution correct? Main question here is under dimensions in tiled build under build information, does the scale represent the size of the map?

Thanks!

#2

No time to answer all, will come back later.

  1. Yes! If you increase the dimensions of your world, the amount of terrain is covered by each pixel. For example: a 1000 by 1000 meter terrain, rendered at a 1000 by 1000 resolution, will have each pixel represent 1 squared meter of terrain. Then, if you increase the world’s dimensions to, let’s say, 4000 by 4000 meters, each pixel will now represent an area of 16 meters squared, thus decreasing your quality. So, to counter this, increase the export resolution as well.

  2. I always suggest to use a 1:1 scale, as it makes more sense to your brain or when using references. Also, instead of looking at “what size for what resolution”, think about what level of detail you want your terrain to be. Is it okay to have a 1px/10m^2 or do you need a finer 1px/1m^2 level of detail.

  3. I think it is best practice to use a 1:1 scale, however, for Minecraft for example, it is recommended to use a 10:1 scale.

  4. Will come back to this later, gtg

1 Like
#3

Thanks HYLK! I think part of the issue is making sense of what is 1:1 and how to define it in unreal engine. Easiest way for me to understand it is skipping to the end result. If I export a map at 16km x 16km Width and Height in World machine at 8k resolution, how would I properly define it in Unreal?

TY

#4

Sadly I’m not familiar with Unreal :frowning:

If it is possible to enter distances in meters, I suggest importing it in a 16Ă—16 Km scene with the same world height as in World Machine.

Regarding your 4th question:

image

I suppose you refer to the Total dimensions part? It tells you what the final resolution and pixel density of your map will become. So in this case, all the tiles together will form an image with a resolution of 512Ă—512 pixels, at a given level of detail.

1 Like
#5

I work in Unreal quite often and use World Machine for terrain builds. The general consensus is, “512m = 100% Z-Scale in Unreal Engine”. So for your project height scale, if you set it to a multiple of 512 meters, you convert km to m (As needed) and divide 512 from it. As an example: 2.048km = 2048m /512m = 4 * 100 = 400% (The Z-Scale you would set in Unreal Engine on the landscape creation, for instance)

And I did not realize this was 3 months old. It showed up as a recommended topic for me, haha. Leaving this here in case someone stumbles on this in the future in search of answers. Sorry!

2 Likes