Landscape

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I wanted to make Journey's Sand in UE4 and I revisited the Sand Rendering Journey talk by John Edwards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt2yYnBRD3U

When I first saw this presentation I couldn't understand how it was made now that I've got a good idea of the Material Editor. I understand some parts of how to make the glitter effects in Journey. I have also seen a similar approach on Twitter by Rob Fichman:

Using the stuff I've learned from making the water material along with the Twitter post, I was able to make this sand in UE4:

Overview of all assets and the landscape material test

One thing that I lack in the landscape is the Oren-Nayer Shading from Journey. But from playing Journey and eyeballing the landscape shader behaviour, I just used fresnel to get a similar look. It's not ideal but it's a workaround to run with. I also played around with the procedural textures to make the height and the Normal maps from Substance Designer and imported it into UE4. I also added in a grass layer which is basically the Moss from the Rocks I made earlier. I didn't spend too much time trying to make the landscape as the main focus is to try and get the environment done.


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