GPU-accelerated Procedural World Creation: Compute Shaders, Virtual Heightfield Landscape, Ocean, GPU foliage system.
Shader World is an alternative to Unreal Engine Landscape, which can be edited at runtime, in packaged games, while Unreal Engine Landscape is completely static once the game is packaged.
Shader World is currently the only fully GPU accelerated tool for procedural world generation available on the Unreal Engine marketplace, and was built by qualified engineers.
World, collisions, asset spawning are all generated on GPU deterministically. It means that you don’t need a great CPU at all as any entry level GPU supporting Compute Shaders (any GPU since 2013) is enough, which includes most entry level Smartphones (any OpenGL ES 3.1 mobile device).
Shader World plugin is a high performance modern procedural Landscape generator.
It allows the creation of infinite oceans and landscapes with fast iteration and instant feedback.
From world creation to the spawning of instanced mesh or actors, the toolset is extremely power efficient on the device it is running on, reaching similar performance on CPU only would require managing an intensive multithreaded CPU workload , taking away resources that could otherwise be used for Gameplay (AI,.. ), while computing at runtime on GPU delivers unmatched performance, and high quality artist driven output.
Technical Details
Tested and compatible with : Windows 10, Mac (arm M1), iOS(IPad mini), Android (S9 OpenGL&Vulkan)
Features:
- World creation from a Material function and Blueprint Brushes : fast iteration, instant feedback
- Modern Virtual HeightField as a Geometry clip map representation
- Landscape data layers : runtime computed equivalent to traditional UE4 Landscape layers
- Mesh and Actor spawning with custom density functions : GPU Driven, using Data layers
- BP Brushes can write into landscape layers : Heightmap Brush demo writes flowmap
- 16 Bits Heightmap import using a blueprint tool (raw/png 16bits)
- Compatible with mobile (Android & iOS) and desktop devices (Windows & Mac)
- Spawnable Meshes can enable collisions only at proximity for optimal performance
- Replace Tessellation
- Scalable Landscape Material: Clean and Commented, Manage Multi Biomes and feature performance options
Code Modules:
- ShaderWorld, Type: Runtime
Number of Blueprints: 15+
Number of C++ Classes: 40+
Supported Development Platforms: Windows, Linux, MacOS
Supported Target Build Platforms: Windows, Android, iOS, Linux, Oculus, PS4, Xbox One, Steam VR, Gear VR
Original_Link: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/shader-world-free-procedural-landscape-and-ocean
Download Links:
Asset Version v2.7.1 (5.1, 5.2)
