I also attempted to create a JPG Virtual Texture that was 65535x65535 since that is the JPG maximum supported resolution, but Photoshop just crashes trying to write out the file. EDIT: Seems the Photoshop crash was because it wanted 192GB+ of memory to edit the file. So I used my Xeon W7, 512GB DDR5, RTX-3090 system and I was able to save the 65535x65535 JPG. However, UE5 just fails with an error when trying to import the 65535x65535 JPG. So it looks like the largest Virtual Texture is going to be 32768x32768.
The Satellite Texture was downloaded in TerreSculptor 3.0 as it has a complete set of various map downloading tools. The Detail Texture is one that I downloaded from a free texture website. 3D Textures I believe.
Great tutorial! One question, though. I just purchased the software and with the Mapper Topography, is there an easier way to obtain the exact locations that you want ? Everything that I've seen thus far is narrowing it down through the Zoom level and directionals, which makes it a bit of a challenge since you don't have a clear view of the region once you start zooming in. Thanks!
If you want a specific earth location in the Mapper Explorer or Topo Explorer, you can always search in Bing or Google for the Latitude and Longitude of the ground feature, such as Mount Hood Oregon, and then enter those Lat/Long values into the Explorer dialog, and it will take you right to that location. Lat/Long work at any Zoom level, so if you know what zoom level you want the data at, such as 16384x16384 size, then enter the Lat/Long at that zoom and it will take you right to the earth object. You can also use the other Topo Sources that show named earth objects to scroll around and find their Zoom and Tile values. Sources can be changed at any time without affecting the current Zoom and Tile. The Zoom tile is always the top-left tile, so when you are zooming in and out, it is based on the top left dialog viewport coordinate. You can save favorite locations in the Favorites, and the Favorites are shared between the Mapper and Topo Explorers. There is also a free set of Favorites that you can import available on the Free Google Asset Drive, link on the Help menu. If you are using any XYZ Tile based online system as well such as Google Maps, those tile numbers are also the exact same tile numbers as the Mapper and Topo Explorers. So you can easily get to locations that way as well.
@@demenzunmedia Hi, thank you. So, I took the Lat/Lon from google maps today and put those coordinates into the mapper and topography explorer and I have it figured out now. What I wasn't doing yesterday was accounting for the zoom level when it was on the default world view. So if I'm understanding it correctly, the zoom is the primary key to getting whatever imaging size of the coordinates that I want. Its a great tool and it'll take me a bit to get used to moving around in it.
@@Creativo1973 - The Mapper Explorer uses the industry standard "XYZ Tile System". Most other earth data sites also use XYZ, such as Google Maps, OpenTopology, etc. The XYZ Tile setup has the entire earth in 15 Zoom levels as sets of XY Tiles. So as you start at Zoom level 2, that gets you the entire earth in a 4x4 XY tile set. As you move down to Zoom level 15, that has the entire earth in a 16384x16384 tile set, so each tile is much higher resolution for each area of the earth as you go higher in Zoom. When you are using Mapper, the XYZ Tile is the top-left tile in the viewport, so as you Zoom up to the next detail level deeper, it zooms based on the top-left corner. This means that if you have the region that you want in the center of the viewport, then you will have to adjust the viewport centering again with the right and down buttons after zooming in. It takes a little getting used to but is quite easy once you have searched for data a couple of times. The Tile X and Tile Y numbers are industry standards, so when you go to any of the earth locations on the Topography Explorer, every one of those map areas use the exact same tile for the same world location, and also the same for Mapper. And if you go to any online earth maps that use XYZ Tiles, those also use the same numbers. There is a Favorites feature on both of them and the Favorites items are shared between them since the Tiles are the same values. You can also download a csv list of Favorites from the TerreSculptor Google Asset Drive, link on the Help menu.
The Mapper Explorer and Topology Explorer have a shared Favorites database list that can be written to, that is where I chose the Henry Mountains favorite from. But I didn't want to write the quick change that I did for this download into the Favorites list, I could just as easily have saved it temporarily and then deleted it after if I wanted to.
Great, thanks, another way to import real world data :) I have 3 questions need your help: 1. The actual landscape size acquired in TerreSculptor is 32km by 32km, and you shrink it down to 16km by 16km. So the final result in Unreal is not 1:1 to the real world, it is packed by x and y direction. Am I correct? 2. If above point is true, does that mean I need to set x/y scale in Unreal to 200 when importing the landscape ? 3. Could you explain more when making landscape materail for landscape coord. mapping scale: 16321 for Sat. and 127 for rock. Thanks a lot!
1. Yes, in this example I downloaded the Mapper earth data and the Topo texture both at the resolution of 32768x32768. This was so that the extents of the two assets perfectly matched up in alignment for the overlaying of the texture on the landscape. I am working on adding a feature to both the Mapper and Topo Explorer so that any Zoom Level for the current viewport tile set can be downloaded, this way you can download the 65536x65536 resolution for the Topo texture and the 16384x16384 res for the Mapper heightmap and both will be the same extents so that they overlay correctly as landscape and texture. That update to TerreSculptor is coming soon. I had to resample the heightmap from 32768 since UE5 Landscape has a maximum resolution of 16321x16321 so the 32768x32768 heightmap would never have imported. This will change the apparent resolution of the Mapper earth data from 6 meter to 12 meter. The final result in UE5 is not 1:1. My goal is to perform more work on this system where I am working with 1 meter DEM data, where I have matched up some Topo textures to the 1 meter DEMs, I am still working on the pipeline for achieving this. You could also use TIN terrain instead of Landscape, that way the 32768 size is easily achievable. 2. The Mapper data that I downloaded was 6 meter data, which was then resampled by 50%, which would make it equivalent to 12 meter data, so the Landscape Scale XY should be set to 1200 to get the terrain back to real world dimensions. 3. When I created the Material, the Topo texture gets overlaid at 1:1 to the heightmap, so its Landscape Coord value will be 16321 which is the heightmap resolution. That way the texture stretches across the entire terrain from edge to edge. If you were using a Texture Coord node instead, it would simply be set to 1.0 on UV. The rock texture was simply a detail texture to make the material less blurry up close, so I set it to be tiled at a resolution of 128, this value can be adjusted to whatever looks best to you.
@@demenzunmedia I'm learning in this area, any mistake pls. help me point it out, thanks. In point 1, you mentioned "I had to resample the heightmap from 32768... This will change the apparent resolution of the Mapper earth data **from 6 meter to 3 meter**." Is it a typor? I think the resolution should be changed from 6 meter to 12 meter, just as you mentioned in point 2?
@@demenzunmedia for terrain size showed in "Mapper Explorer" after setting zoom level/tilex/tiley, the unit is meter or pixel? I guess it is pixel, right? So if I am using 6-meter data, and terrain size is 32768 pixel by 32768 pixel, the real landscape size should be 196608 meters by 196608 meters? 196608=32768*6
@@MrLyonliang - The Mapper Explorer Size property is in Pixels. This is because the heightmap data for UE5 and Unity and Godot etc for their heightmap importing is in Pixels, not Meters. So you need to know how large the heightmap you are downloading is in pixels to know if it has to be changed to be able to be imported into any game engine. for example UE5 has a maximum 16321x16321 pixel heightmap size. So pixels is important here. To get the Terrain Properties to show meters and kms after you download, you use the GeoScale button. BUT the source DEM file MUST contain GIS information. File formats like BMP and PNG and JPG and other images and such don't contain GIS information, so they don't contain GIS scale properties. Automatic real-world sizing requires that the files you are working with be DEM files that contain GIS information. If they don't, then you have to calculate the real-world sizing yourself as it cannot be done automatically.
Do you mean that you used TerreSculptor 3.0 in Demo Mode? It runs as a time-limited demo when no license key is entered in. Or do you mean that you tried TerreSculptor 2.0? TS 2.0 is not a demo, it is an old discontinued previous version that has way fewer features because it was developed and released years ago. Only TS 3.0 has the Mapper and Topography Explorer features. TS 2.0, the free version of the software, is multiple years old already. TS 3.0 has at least 10,000 new features and updates in comparison to 2.0.
@@demenzunmedia I had 2, download 3. In 3 I tried to open up the topo thing and nothing loads. Just sits there. I assumed I needed to purchase it to access those features?
@@cyberaxe_lznj - I just tested the Mapper and Topo Explorer and all of the sites are coming up for me. The sites are open source public sites, so they may have access times that are long or they may be unavailable in some world regions. Did you try any of the other Sites on the Topo Explorer? Do all of the ArcGIS and Google sites not work for you? Does Mapper work for you? Version 3.0 when running in Demo Mode has the full features.
I also attempted to create a JPG Virtual Texture that was 65535x65535 since that is the JPG maximum supported resolution, but Photoshop just crashes trying to write out the file.
EDIT: Seems the Photoshop crash was because it wanted 192GB+ of memory to edit the file.
So I used my Xeon W7, 512GB DDR5, RTX-3090 system and I was able to save the 65535x65535 JPG.
However, UE5 just fails with an error when trying to import the 65535x65535 JPG. So it looks like the largest Virtual Texture is going to be 32768x32768.
Here's me wondering what the largest is for Creation Engine 2
this is kind of tutorial that is rare in unreal engine! thank you very much for your post! Keep anything related to this keep coming!
Finally a tutorial on real world DEMs! so grateful for these new tools, makes working with cultural heritage so much easier! thank you! :)
thanks this was interesting
Very nice video buddy :)
Where did the rock detail virtual texture that you dragged from your disk come from?
The Satellite Texture was downloaded in TerreSculptor 3.0 as it has a complete set of various map downloading tools.
The Detail Texture is one that I downloaded from a free texture website. 3D Textures I believe.
@@demenzunmedia Thanks!
Great video.
Great tutorial! One question, though. I just purchased the software and with the Mapper Topography, is there an easier way to obtain the exact locations that you want ? Everything that I've seen thus far is narrowing it down through the Zoom level and directionals, which makes it a bit of a challenge since you don't have a clear view of the region once you start zooming in. Thanks!
If you want a specific earth location in the Mapper Explorer or Topo Explorer, you can always search in Bing or Google for the Latitude and Longitude of the ground feature, such as Mount Hood Oregon, and then enter those Lat/Long values into the Explorer dialog, and it will take you right to that location. Lat/Long work at any Zoom level, so if you know what zoom level you want the data at, such as 16384x16384 size, then enter the Lat/Long at that zoom and it will take you right to the earth object.
You can also use the other Topo Sources that show named earth objects to scroll around and find their Zoom and Tile values. Sources can be changed at any time without affecting the current Zoom and Tile.
The Zoom tile is always the top-left tile, so when you are zooming in and out, it is based on the top left dialog viewport coordinate.
You can save favorite locations in the Favorites, and the Favorites are shared between the Mapper and Topo Explorers. There is also a free set of Favorites that you can import available on the Free Google Asset Drive, link on the Help menu.
If you are using any XYZ Tile based online system as well such as Google Maps, those tile numbers are also the exact same tile numbers as the Mapper and Topo Explorers. So you can easily get to locations that way as well.
@@demenzunmedia Hi, thank you. So, I took the Lat/Lon from google maps today and put those coordinates into the mapper and topography explorer and I have it figured out now. What I wasn't doing yesterday was accounting for the zoom level when it was on the default world view. So if I'm understanding it correctly, the zoom is the primary key to getting whatever imaging size of the coordinates that I want. Its a great tool and it'll take me a bit to get used to moving around in it.
@@Creativo1973 - The Mapper Explorer uses the industry standard "XYZ Tile System". Most other earth data sites also use XYZ, such as Google Maps, OpenTopology, etc.
The XYZ Tile setup has the entire earth in 15 Zoom levels as sets of XY Tiles. So as you start at Zoom level 2, that gets you the entire earth in a 4x4 XY tile set. As you move down to Zoom level 15, that has the entire earth in a 16384x16384 tile set, so each tile is much higher resolution for each area of the earth as you go higher in Zoom.
When you are using Mapper, the XYZ Tile is the top-left tile in the viewport, so as you Zoom up to the next detail level deeper, it zooms based on the top-left corner. This means that if you have the region that you want in the center of the viewport, then you will have to adjust the viewport centering again with the right and down buttons after zooming in.
It takes a little getting used to but is quite easy once you have searched for data a couple of times.
The Tile X and Tile Y numbers are industry standards, so when you go to any of the earth locations on the Topography Explorer, every one of those map areas use the exact same tile for the same world location, and also the same for Mapper. And if you go to any online earth maps that use XYZ Tiles, those also use the same numbers.
There is a Favorites feature on both of them and the Favorites items are shared between them since the Tiles are the same values. You can also download a csv list of Favorites from the TerreSculptor Google Asset Drive, link on the Help menu.
Would it be useful to have an option to store the settings for the Topography and Mapper in a log file - that way the user could recall older settings
The Mapper Explorer and Topology Explorer have a shared Favorites database list that can be written to, that is where I chose the Henry Mountains favorite from. But I didn't want to write the quick change that I did for this download into the Favorites list, I could just as easily have saved it temporarily and then deleted it after if I wanted to.
Thanks!
Great, thanks, another way to import real world data :) I have 3 questions need your help: 1. The actual landscape size acquired in TerreSculptor is 32km by 32km, and you shrink it down to 16km by 16km. So the final result in Unreal is not 1:1 to the real world, it is packed by x and y direction. Am I correct? 2. If above point is true, does that mean I need to set x/y scale in Unreal to 200 when importing the landscape ? 3. Could you explain more when making landscape materail for landscape coord. mapping scale: 16321 for Sat. and 127 for rock. Thanks a lot!
1. Yes, in this example I downloaded the Mapper earth data and the Topo texture both at the resolution of 32768x32768. This was so that the extents of the two assets perfectly matched up in alignment for the overlaying of the texture on the landscape.
I am working on adding a feature to both the Mapper and Topo Explorer so that any Zoom Level for the current viewport tile set can be downloaded, this way you can download the 65536x65536 resolution for the Topo texture and the 16384x16384 res for the Mapper heightmap and both will be the same extents so that they overlay correctly as landscape and texture. That update to TerreSculptor is coming soon.
I had to resample the heightmap from 32768 since UE5 Landscape has a maximum resolution of 16321x16321 so the 32768x32768 heightmap would never have imported. This will change the apparent resolution of the Mapper earth data from 6 meter to 12 meter.
The final result in UE5 is not 1:1. My goal is to perform more work on this system where I am working with 1 meter DEM data, where I have matched up some Topo textures to the 1 meter DEMs, I am still working on the pipeline for achieving this. You could also use TIN terrain instead of Landscape, that way the 32768 size is easily achievable.
2. The Mapper data that I downloaded was 6 meter data, which was then resampled by 50%, which would make it equivalent to 12 meter data, so the Landscape Scale XY should be set to 1200 to get the terrain back to real world dimensions.
3. When I created the Material, the Topo texture gets overlaid at 1:1 to the heightmap, so its Landscape Coord value will be 16321 which is the heightmap resolution. That way the texture stretches across the entire terrain from edge to edge. If you were using a Texture Coord node instead, it would simply be set to 1.0 on UV.
The rock texture was simply a detail texture to make the material less blurry up close, so I set it to be tiled at a resolution of 128, this value can be adjusted to whatever looks best to you.
@@demenzunmedia I'm learning in this area, any mistake pls. help me point it out, thanks. In point 1, you mentioned "I had to resample the heightmap from 32768... This will change the apparent resolution of the Mapper earth data **from 6 meter to 3 meter**." Is it a typor? I think the resolution should be changed from 6 meter to 12 meter, just as you mentioned in point 2?
@@demenzunmedia for terrain size showed in "Mapper Explorer" after setting zoom level/tilex/tiley, the unit is meter or pixel? I guess it is pixel, right? So if I am using 6-meter data, and terrain size is 32768 pixel by 32768 pixel, the real landscape size should be 196608 meters by 196608 meters? 196608=32768*6
@@MrLyonliang - That was a typo, it will change the heightmap relative spacing from 6-meter to 12-meter by resampling it to 50%.
@@MrLyonliang - The Mapper Explorer Size property is in Pixels. This is because the heightmap data for UE5 and Unity and Godot etc for their heightmap importing is in Pixels, not Meters. So you need to know how large the heightmap you are downloading is in pixels to know if it has to be changed to be able to be imported into any game engine. for example UE5 has a maximum 16321x16321 pixel heightmap size. So pixels is important here.
To get the Terrain Properties to show meters and kms after you download, you use the GeoScale button. BUT the source DEM file MUST contain GIS information.
File formats like BMP and PNG and JPG and other images and such don't contain GIS information, so they don't contain GIS scale properties. Automatic real-world sizing requires that the files you are working with be DEM files that contain GIS information. If they don't, then you have to calculate the real-world sizing yourself as it cannot be done automatically.
Does this only work in the paid version? I tried the demo and nothing comes up on the explorer
Do you mean that you used TerreSculptor 3.0 in Demo Mode? It runs as a time-limited demo when no license key is entered in.
Or do you mean that you tried TerreSculptor 2.0? TS 2.0 is not a demo, it is an old discontinued previous version that has way fewer features because it was developed and released years ago.
Only TS 3.0 has the Mapper and Topography Explorer features. TS 2.0, the free version of the software, is multiple years old already. TS 3.0 has at least 10,000 new features and updates in comparison to 2.0.
@@demenzunmedia I had 2, download 3. In 3 I tried to open up the topo thing and nothing loads. Just sits there. I assumed I needed to purchase it to access those features?
@@cyberaxe_lznj - I just tested the Mapper and Topo Explorer and all of the sites are coming up for me. The sites are open source public sites, so they may have access times that are long or they may be unavailable in some world regions.
Did you try any of the other Sites on the Topo Explorer? Do all of the ArcGIS and Google sites not work for you?
Does Mapper work for you?
Version 3.0 when running in Demo Mode has the full features.
MAKE THE PROGRAM FULL SCREEN, OTHERWISE IT'S NOT BAD TO SEE!