[Solved] HDA -> UE4 -> Landscape Grass Type density

[sant0s81]

Hey everyone,

I am a bit lost about the grass density with the foilage creating tool in UE4.

When creating a Heigthfield with standard 1000 units and create grass in UE4 with the Landscape Grass Type, I get all the landscape nice and dense with grass.

As soon as I change some parameters like scaling, i get super patchy results.

Is there a recommended workflow, to have nice and dense grass?

In UE4 the limit of grass density is 1000. So I read that I can change the density in LandscapeGrassType.h.
But when rising the limit in that file, nothing is changing in-game.
Since I dont need the final result for real time rendering, it doesnt matter if the frame rate drops.

Here are two screenshots of grass okay and grass not okay.

Thanks alot,
sant0s

edit: I also realised, that if I resample the Heightfield to a lower resolution, I get a more dense grass.
But somehow that makes no sense to me. The scaling of the landscape itself is not changing.
And scaling the landscape in Houdini to 0.25 for example, doesnt change anything, too.
The density of the grass than just scales with the scale of the landscape... very strange.

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by sant0s81

[sant0s81]

Hey friends,

found the solution.

Just add a "HF Tile Split" and the grass is super dense

Cheers,
sant0s

 

[ryew]

Thanks for following up to provide a solution to the original problem, sant0s81.  No doubt it will be a welcome tip for others that run into this problem and start scouring the 'net for an answer, so kudos to you for helping make odforce an invaluable treasure trove of useful info! 

[sant0s81]

little update:

when changing the Heightfield resolution (for example from 2017 to 4033), you also have to double the splits to get the same dense grass.
I dont understand the technique behind it, maybe someone can enlighten me

My guess is, that with higher resolution on the HF, the grass foilage tool understands "bigger landscape" even when the dimension itself is not changing.
Okay, actually it makes sense... somehow ^^
 

Edited August 12, 2020 by sant0s81