Learn Displacement and Parallax Mapping for UE4

Name: Learn Displacement and Parallax Mapping for UE4
Rating: 4.2 (28 reviews)

Create and understand displacement techniques utilizing parallax and tessellation shaders in UE4

Created by3dmotive LLC

Last updated 9/2016

English

What you'll learn

Create a Parallax Material in UE4
Understand and create Tessellation Materials in UE4
Learn ways of creating Height Maps
Understand the Pros and Cons of using Displacement

Course content

1 section • 9 lectures • 1h 9m total length

Introduction0:56
Explore displacement techniques used in Unreal Engine 4, compare them to traditional normal maps, examine types and pros and cons, and walk through height maps, parallax effects, and desolation.
What is Displacement?2:05
Explore what displacement is by examining how displacement maps offset geometry to create pulled-out bumps, and compare parallax effects like bump offset and parallax occlusion in UE4 materials.
The Three Types of Displacement9:14
Explore three displacement methods in UE4—bump offset parallax, parallax occlusion with adjustable steps, and the test location effect—and learn how height, steps, and geometry affect transitions and artifacts.
The Pros and Cons of using Displacement10:57
Compare the three displacement types, noting composite is cheap but risky for holes and artifacts, while parallax occlusion preserves silhouettes and demands careful lighting, shadows, and collision considerations.
How to Create a Height Map8:59
Learn to create height maps for displacement and parallax mapping in UE4, using grayscale height maps and a high-to-low poly bake with tools like 3ds Max and Photoshop.
How to Create a Bump Offset6:22
Create a displacement effect in ue4 by building a material with a bump offset node, using a height map in the red channel, and exposing a real-time height control.
How to Create a Parallax Material15:05
Create a parallax material in UE4 using parallax occlusion mapping with height maps, texture coordinates, and textures for albedo, normal, roughness, and ambient occlusion.
Learn to Create a Tessellation Material and Course Wrapup15:58
Create a tessellation material in ue4 by combining albedo, height, normal, and roughness maps, then compare flat tessellation with pn triangles, test crack-free and adaptive tessellation.
Bonus Lecture: Further Learning with 3dmotive0:18

Requirements

UE4
Adobe Photoshop (or similar image program)
3ds Max or Maya
A normal mapping software such as Knald or xNormal

Description

In this course we'll be looking at the various ways of displacing textures within UE4. We will then discuss in detail the pros and cons of each method and the best ways they can be utilised for a video game environments.

Once we understand the various methods used we will begin the creation process starting with the Height maps. we'll cover the different methods of creating height maps and the different software available for creating them which will include; using a high to low poly workflow for height maps, creating height maps in photoshop and also generating height maps from images using software like Knald, Crazy Bump and xNormal.

After creating our height maps, we'll cover in detail how to create the individual displacement materials in UE4 which will include; bump offset materials, parallax occlusion materials and tessellation. We'll also walk through each node used in detail and cover ways we can set up an instanced material so that we can edit our displacement material real time in-engine.

By the end of the course, you will have a better understanding of the nodes available in the UE4 material editor and be able to utilise them to create much more realistic materials for your video game environments.

(Students - please look under Section 1 / Lecture 1 downloads for the source files associated with the lesson.)

More about the Instructor:

Ash Thundercliffe has been in the games industry for 3 years now. He started his career teaching at the University of Derby on the Computer games Modeling and Animation Course. After doing this for several months, he moved on to small indie projects as an environment artist for the mobile and PC platform utilising Unity and UDK.

After spending a year teaching and working on indie projects, Ash moved into AAA games working at Rockstar Games as a Technical Content Artist for almost 2 years. Ash has since moved back into freelance and continue to work as an environment artist.

Who this course is for:

3d and Texture Artists
Tech Artists in the Game Industry