Blend objects into landscape like Unreal

[markus_s_cg]

Hi!

This workflow in Unreal looks incredibly useful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYuIDFzKaF4 (You only need to watch the first 45 seconds to see what I mean).

Basically, you can blend an object into a landscape by using a virtual texture that samples an objects material (and normals I think), then project it, and blend it into another.
I wish there was a way to achieve this in 3dsmax, but I guess such a feature would probably be renderer-specific? Maybe this is something Chaosgroup could implement into V-ray?

A friend told me someone had created a similar feature for Blender as an addon, but I'm sure it could be even more awesome in V-ray! https://gumroad.com/l/PlPsJ

[piotrus3333]

DistanceTex, maybe VRayDirt in some cases. mix just difuse textures or whole materials:

[markus_s_cg]

Yes, I am aware of distanceTex and Vray Dirt, but those alone are not enough to completely blend an object. They could probably serve as one component of such a trick, but you would also need to be able to sample and blend UV's and Normals from the object you want to blend to, or do some kind of texture baking/projection at render time/realtime. I don't think all the necessary components exists in Vray or Max today.

[piotrus3333]

VRayEdgesTex will help with blending normals. not perfect but still something.

[markus_s_cg]

Yes, Vray edges could help with blending the normals if you can contain it to the blend area, that is not a bad idea. I was also thinking about using Tyflows Tyconform, but you still need to project the UV's from one object to the other so the textures match up. 3dsmax has a projection modifier that can project UV's but I'm not sure it can be set to continuously update at render time. It would be even better if it was possible to project textures without thinking about UV channels at all.
I'm also envisioning something that could be used with a lot of scattered objects without being too tedious to set up for each and every one.

[seandunderdale]

As someone who doesnt do a lot of cg environments, I had wondered how everyone blends assets like shown in the video, in Vray.

[piotrus3333]

if you consider the example of blending props into ground then VRayEdgesTex will most likely not impact the look that much.
regarding texture mapping - ground will be mapped (again - most likely) with VrayTriplanarTex+VRayUVWRandomizer (for convinience) so no need to worry about that.

[Neilg]

I'm also envisioning something that could be used with a lot of scattered objects without being too tedious to set up for each and every one.

vrayedgetex in the bump works fine. you seem skeptical of it?

Both posts by piotrus are exactly the thing you're after, unreal engine is just blending textures and normals. it's the same thing, it works great.

[markus_s_cg]

piotrus3333 Thanks for all of the tips! I had not considered using Vray Triplanar for the landscape material, that would actually eliminate the need for transfering UV's if referencing a common node. This is useful and could do the trick in many, maybe most situations, unless your landscape need specific UV's for some reason.
Neilg no, I'm not skeptical of VrayEdgetex. I had never considered using it this way before. Btw I was not aware of the V-ray bump material until I saw Piotrus3333's screenshot today.