How Environment Artists Texture Massive Surfaces in AAA Games

0:01 Tiling textures are killing immersion in your game environments, and you might not know how to fix this. Apply one tileable texture over a large surface, and repetition jumps out like a neon sign, breaking immersion instantly. Experienced environment artists never do this. They use many techniques that break repetition. In this video, I'll show you some of those techniques to texture massive environments like a pro in video games. So, first let's look at some examples in popular games of very obvious repetition in tiling textures. So, the intention is

0:47 by no mean to call out the art team and say that they're not good or anything like that. We'll give a bit of context. Okay, so let's start with Final Fantasy 14 Online, which is an MMO. So, we can give them kind of a break because the game technically is uh 12, 13 years old, even more than that. And even though it did receive some visual upgrades over the years, it is still an old game, first of all. Second of all, it's a gigantic game. And third, what we're looking at is landscape mostly. And the distance at which we're looking at now is is quite far. But let's be honest, uh

1:35 there are flying mounts in many of those maps. Maybe not specifically those maps, but we can see from afar. Okay. So we do see those tiling repeated patterns and it is immersionbreaking. So the decision of uh optimization versus realism was made so that they kept it this way and it's still a very good game. I personally played uh several years um after release and I had a very good time and I was seeing these things and even as an artist uh which honestly made me cringe a little bit uh still uh it did not completely break the immersion. So I want to give a little bit of context right um but it is still

2:23 absolutely present. So I want to point out that these things are not just student mistakes or you know because you're struggling with the concept. Uh it's not only because of inexperience. It is basically by default it is normal. Okay. It's going to look like that when you apply a tiling texture over a large surface. Now having said that in this case as you can see it's all landscape and landscape [music] um landscape materials are always treated differently regardless of the engine. So we will get back on that one. Okay. So moving on to a very famous game, The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt. I have two examples here. So, this

3:11 one, if you look at what's close to the camera right here, uh you can see many different materials blended together over a a very simple and optimized geometry, which is normal because this is kind of a beauty shot that the artist took just to show the scale of the castle. But the player pretty much never sees the environment from this angle. But still uh and this is not to call out this artist. He he actually I used his work in the previous video that can be seen right here and that was obviously on the Witcher 3 and the artist did amazing work. Okay.

3:57 So it's not a limitation uh from the artist or anything like that. It's mainly this part which is like really obvious, right? So probably in the engine there's a system that manages the distance blend and from this distance the materials are blended. Then from a longer distance it blends uh maybe less or differently and then from this distance which is very far. Basically, there's there's almost no blend or very little blend or it kind of appears very very uh repetitive. All right. So, this is one example. A more I would say obvious example is roof tiles.

4:45 So, this is from the original game. And also, you can notice the bricks, right? Um those are not commonly accessed areas, right? You don't really it's not Assassin's Creed. you don't jump from rooftop to rooftop. So the treatment and the uh the I would say the the budget was not spent on those surfaces. So we have here another example of a large surface, albeit not as large as this, but you know what I mean. It's it's still several meters high and long. And you can see this little discoloration here. It's repeated everywhere. So there is no techniques used to uh make it look more pretty.

5:32 Now moving on to another example and this is going to be very interesting because look at this from the front. I mean you you can see that the there are some repetition in the pattern right basically this is the same this is the same and this is a variation and it's the same. Let me draw. So you can see that this pattern is the same as this one and it is the same as this one. And if I were to change color and you can notice that this pattern is the same as this one. Okay? But it's actually much more

6:18 obvious here. And I really like to have this example because we we have to give some context, right? You can see if I zoom in that this is completely repeated, completely obvious whereas it's some work has been done here. So we're going to start from here. We're going to start uh to address we have addressed the the issue right of repetition in some very famous and very successful games and in some very beautiful artistic uh environments. So now we're going to talk about the solutions. We're going to start right here. Right. So you can see that some work has already been done that

7:05 basically the the the facade here like this part I I I would say this part too right even this section and this one here. So this section here too um it's way less noticeable. Okay. So you you have to understand that of course some work was done to blend the materials to make it less obvious. But here it was left this way and it was done on purpose because our first solution to this issue is with level art.

7:52 Okay, you can see a very similar building done by the same artist. And we have level art. So we have the beams here, another one, another one that is on the corner of this other part. There's another one going there. And you have also a horizontal beam and other vertical beams right here. So that is one thing. You have decals [snorts] which are most likely added in the engine. So they are standalone decals, right? Um you probably have some decals going on around here. Um maybe those are done with decals here. Uh definitely

8:39 that's also done with decals. And here like the white color variation right here is also most probably done with the help of decals. Um there might be also some material blending. Uh it's it's pretty safe to assume that some level of material blending was done. Um but even if that's not the case, but honestly I believe it's the case. But even if it was not the case and the material is already like well well done so that it's not super obviously tiling well by adding level art. So, and you see all those beams I haven't mentioned here, right? Tons of beams. This helps

9:27 to break repetition very very easily. And in some cases, as you can see those houses, this comes from well another video that I made on Assassin's Creed Unity. And the artist has many more similar house in the same style of architecture. Uh, so he has different modules, right? So instead of including the beams and all that uh all the decals um right on the base model, the base model was kind of kind of naked in a way. And then in the environment, this is where that technique was used along with decals and uh maybe further material

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11:45 which is a lot. So, you see the prices still very reasonable, very good offer and three extra months. And finally, let's look at the regular price. This is a great offer. You'll be able to browse the internet freely with peace of mind. you will have access to region lock content and you will save a lot of money. So don't wait, [music] get the deal. So the next technique will be shown from examples of Assassin's Creed Shadows from artist Venand Rosier. And there is actually a very long post about that by the artist and I made a video uh about this very game and we go a little bit more in depth about everything that was

12:33 done regarding uh basically the material advanced material management and one of the topic is exactly that right but we're going to kind of jump straight to a technique because as you can see this is of course very large surfaces. And these ones, because they were used extensively in the game, uh they received like a a very custom treatment. I I I could say um maybe a bit more expensive treatment than some other games uh might give to some large surfaces, but this is extremely interesting and I invite you to watch the video and watch of course the post uh from the artist to get a

13:19 very deep dive, a very good look at everything that was done because there is a lot, right? But we're going to stick to the main technique which is material blending. As simple as that. And simply said, but uh as you can see here, it's extremely detailed and extremely varied. And that is just great. And you can see here basically the the behind the scene, if you will. Those are all the different materials that are available to the art team. And with the help of the right shader right which was created by the artist then with vertex painting this is the results that you can get. So there

14:06 is basically an an infinite uh you know infinite number of possibilities right if the artists the environment artists are using these walls um even if it's in a different village different region uh it can look completely different than the other that they use and this is one mesh and one beam let's say this is a you know a module >> [snorts] >> um and they can make it look completely different. So it can be you know one next to the other and you can see of course they are playing with the with the height also. This is I would say an a more expensive material but a very high quality highly detailed material.

14:53 Um the material work in this game by by the way is absolutely phenomenal. So you should really look it out. Uh look at the video on this channel. look at the posts from the artist and look at the game itself. Play [music] the game, check it out online on videos if you haven't. Um, I mean, there are great examples of uh very very complex detailed material. So, you see the amount of variation that you can get and this is basically how it's done. So with even with a simple setup in Unreal Engine, having two or three materials to blend with using vertex painting, this is a very commonly

15:41 used technique that is uh a bit more expensive. Of course, if you want it to be detailed, you need more geometry. And then if you go the next level uh you add displacement or tessellation well then of course it gets even more expensive. But even without that nowadays uh we can afford uh a higher budget of polygons. So without going crazy by the way, right? But instead of having a plane uh you know which in the engine is actually two triangles uh instead of having that which is very well optimized. Well, if you needed to blend uh you're

16:28 going to have to add a few segments, right? You you don't need to go crazy like a few like that. Just just something like that. Which as you know full well, right? because the engine triangulates here. There's like already a triangle, but like everything is divided in two triangles. Um well, still this is really not expensive, right? You might not get that level of uh detailed tessillation and displacement with with this, right? You might need to divide some more like multiply by two, right? But even then, that is not crazy expensive. Of course, if the game has the scale of Assassin's Creed, um well, you know, chances are if you're working

17:13 on your portfolio, you are not working on a openw world RPG uh with, you know, thousands, tens of thousands of assets. So, you're fine. But even if you were, and hopefully you will, uh well, there are systems in their engine that manages these things, right? The streaming, the loading, and all that jazz. So second technique is material blending by layers. So the next example is from another Assassin's Creed game. This one is Mirage and the artist is Petarvestdanov. And we have amazing examples. Honestly, when I wanted to create this video, this is the screenshot that uh popped out in

17:59 my mind. I was like, I have to show this one. Like it starts with with this, right? And then of course I found other this is I believe 12 m uh can be a bit more but something like that right around 12 m and it works right let's just put it simply it works perfectly well uh we can let's let's uh just focus on this one okay actually there are two variations so let's focus on those two right here. So you can see that there is a material there. I mean the first thing you notice is this is material blending. Okay. So we're we're going to start there. So the base the underlying

18:47 technique already is exactly the same as we've just covered in SS and green shadow. Uh so there is some kind there there's the brick material and it would be some kind of dry mud, dry soil uh that's mixed with something uh which served kind of as a concrete uh back then. So that is blended together already. That's like the first stage. Then the other level is decals. Okay, that we can kind of clearly see some I probably I'm not like outlining exactly the you know the the complete decal but like there are decals here and there for variations and there are also the edge decals the

19:34 normal edge decals that you can see here that you can see there that you can see everywhere and that is explained very well by the artist in the post. So in the video uh that you can watch right here and you can see here it's actually a great example because you have the edge corner the normal edge decal but you have a very nice one here and they are also leveraging the uh displacement or tessellation. So this adds so much and this trick is used everywhere right? So that is basically a combination of of

20:22 techniques, right? It's not just one technique. And we can actually yeah, they're pretty much the same assets if I'm not mistaken, just seen from another angle. And and you can see what this accomplish. I mean, the geometry is already facilitating. But then you have those edge decals, normal edge decals here that complements because here actually I love this one. Here it's pretty much a straight line, right? How can I make straight lines? Ah, there we go. See, it is a straight line here. But with this normal ledge decal, it is doing a fantastic job,

21:08 right? You perceive it as being eroded. Uh and actually at the end of the day, what's important? Not straight. So this is an amazing technique. There will be videos on this technique which is uh which is absolutely great. But this is the combination that is visible here. It's basically material blending plus some normal edge decals. In this case, if you are interested in learning how to apply the techniques that we're covering while analyzing those games, I have created a course in which I show

21:53 everything step by step. There are no time lapse. Nothing is done offscreen. I take the time to explain what we do and why we do it. I show best practices and we are creating a small environment from A to Z. I'm showing every single step of how it's done on a professional production. I can answer any questions you might have on multiple platforms. So, if you are interested, there is a link in the description and there's a discount available with the code provided. And now moving on to yet other

22:38 Assassin's Creed games. So, uh they're actually both from Valhalla Dawn of Ragnarok. Okay, so let's take a quick look here by the artist Theodore Ivanov. uh this here as you see is absolutely gigantic uh structures right and I mean there is some level of repetition but you it's hard to tell it it's really not obvious uh as the like the examples we've seen earlier right uh the trick here is that this was actually cut in modules which let's be honest and and fair they are already quite big right this is probably 8 m uh 6 to 8 m I I think it's eight uh so

23:26 those are considered uh and they fit in what we are doing here right they are considered large surfaces uh very briefly here what I can say is actually more than anything vertex painting with the moss right so if you look let's uh focus our attention on basically one block here, right? And if we've seen correctly, it's basically cut in how many p maybe you know more or less, right? Let's just take a look at the scale here. So, and and we they are divided like this. And then this piece is another different piece which is also cut by the way. Let's take a look.

24:13 Here you go. Right. You have the straight one right here. Boom. Boom. the rectangular one and you have this one with the rounded edge which is used here. Okay. So, you have many different pieces, but look, pay attention. It's basically, you know, the the the stone material. It it's there is some color variation for sure. Um, there is maybe some kind of blending with some some dirt already. There might there might be a pass of vertex painting with dirt. This is what I suspect, right? This seems like dirt. This seems additional dirt. This looks like a decal. Uh I'm pretty sure that this is a decal. You know, there definitely there are some decals, but additionally there might be

24:59 some vertx painting. I'm not sure. I think it's not the case because I think the vertex painting is is reserved for the moss, right? And if we take a good look here, let's compare like let's call this one block number one and this one block number two. Uh are they similar? Right? Let's maybe I did not divide them like exactly perfectly but let's let's just take a look right can you see some repetition well honestly I see this little pattern which seems like a six okay I see it repeated here I honestly don't see it anywhere else so there will be I see it here mirrored right let's put it this way and then and

25:45 then and then I don't see really much so of Of course, there are some stuff that are a little bit more uh recognizable, like those three dots. I see some dots. They're not the exact same. I see some dots, but see it's done very perfectly, honestly. And you can you can see like the moss is distributed differently, right? So, your eye is not drawn to, oh, I see this pattern being repeated. Uh, so it works perfectly, right? like we we can examine other parts but I think uh I'm making a strong case here right uh there is some repetition if you look very very closely but honestly it's very little and it's

26:31 very um impressive I would say see I can see this pattern being repeated here but you see that how it is distanced right like there are three blocks in between so there's kind of no way that you're going to see it see if If you like spend enough time, you're going to see those little little things. But it's done very well. I see I see this one and I see this one. But this is, you know, because I've been doing these uh these kind of techniques, I've been applying them to my own projects, to other projects. So, it's normal that we can identify. But the average player, and I would say a lot of artists would also look at this and like quickly go, "Oh, that's yeah, okay, that's good. That's that's

27:17 convincing. Okay, they sold us the immersion on this one. So, we have another example from the same game from artist Ready Aramov. And you can see here, we can see on this one uh it's mainly the use of decals, right? That seems to be mesh decals that seems to be uh basically included with the mesh. Um, and like you see a lot of them, you you can actually start to notice like some uh some copy and paste, right? In some cases, like this one is the same as this one, but it's offsetted. Uh, of course, it's going to happen, but it's

28:03 absolutely not a problem, right? because the goal is from a distance it is convincing and the artist could sell basically uh the the immersion that that's how I put it. It's really convincing. We're not questioning uh well it's the same. It's it's just copy and paste. No, we don't we don't feel we don't see it. Right. And here I suspect this looks either this is like a normal edge decal here additional uh I there might be some others or those are part of the geometry. Uh but you know there's a lot of decal works in this one. So there is definitely some material blending. There can be a

28:50 mask applied to the tileable texture. Also the fact that it's using different types is it I mean it's definitely look the same style the same color. I don't think it's just the same material scaled uh four times or something like that. I think they you know they respect the tixel density and all these things. Um but it is a variation of the stones that can be found here. Right. So this also helps um to simply have another material and then there might be a big mask applied for color variation for uh kind

29:35 of dirt, dust, uh you know erosion and uh wear and general wear and tear. Then you have maybe some I suspect there might be some normal edge decals. There might be, you know, like very specifically placed um cracks um decals additionally and then the leaks are strategically placed, right? so that it uh it doesn't repeat that much but you you can you get a sense that this is dirty this has been eroded there has been a lot of rain and uh it's seen uh I would say better days but it it's been

30:22 standing for a very long time right so those are all working extremely well so next up we're going to explore the next technique in Unreal Engine and I have used a material from mega scans I'm going I link the asset ID in the description so you can find it easily. And this technique is called macro variation. So we could do it custom and spend a lot of time, but the goal here is just to u explain the techniques. So I'm going to show you the easy way, which is to get a material from the starter content. So if you don't have the starter content, you know, you can add it by clicking plus and then getting the

31:11 starter content in your project. You will get the gold material. And the gold material has this macro texture variation which is excellent. So what you want is basically to select all that and to copy it. Okay. So you need the macro texture variation. You need the reduce macro contrast and the multiply. So you copy this and you paste it in your material. As you can see, this is as simple as it gets, right? I just connected the three textures from Mega Scans. But then I copied I pasted actually the macro variation macro texture variation. So what that is

31:59 it's using a mask. Uh this is coming from Unreal Engine. Okay. And the mask is basically uh tiled with three different values. Okay. So you have the small detail, the medium and the large details. Those values are extremely large. So this is why it's going into alert with a reduce macro contrast. then it's multiply and in the base color. Okay. So the result is this. See I have actually those are three meshes right but I just wanted to show that they tile perfectly right. So let

32:45 me just select something else. And then you see with the macro variation it helps so much already. So this is a very powerful technique. Um as I said it's already in the engine with the uh gold material. So you have like a very good system that you can already just copy and paste and then you you could al of course play with the values and it does an amazing job. So see like at a certain distance I mean honestly this is all you need. But then of course if you look closer you can identify some spots a little bit but honestly it's it's a great technique and this is used uh in many games. I suspect it might be used

33:32 on the examples of Assassin's Creed Valhalla Dawn of Ragnarok. Um it works very well for such uh repeated patterns. Right. So that is technique number four. Now on to our last game example. This is from Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the Order of Giants DLC. And this is from the artist Pavl Costeski. And we have a very thorough breakdown. Um, this is just really amazing. So much information. And let's take a look. So it's going to be of course those very large surfaces which are well pretty much everywhere right? Uh the

34:19 environment work has been done by many different artists as you can imagine it's it's gigantic and there's so much stuff going on. Uh it would be surprising that only one artist would do that. Right. So here we have some selected modules. As you can see there is another material or other materials. Let's just take a look out of curiosity. See, it's just different uh concrete, different bricks, different stones, right? So, this one is not featured because we are talking and focusing on this one which has all the variation that you would ever need. Right? So, this is how it goes. This is a 12 m high

35:07 asset right up until here. And then there's another part which um is using the same tileable material. But anyways, so as a wall height was 12 m base tileable stone block texture was tiled three times vertically 4k 1k per 1 m. Very straightforward. This is how you establish and respect uh the tixel density. You can see I I guess a good a good advice is to use a good material, right? Uh in this case, it's a material that they created. Um and you see it's not just a basic stone, right? There is a lot of weathering. There are spots, stains, some leaks already, and some moss. uh

35:55 very subtle moss but there is some there is also some um dents or chips. So there is a lot going on in the material itself. So already right with just the tileable material it looks like this which is honestly it's it's kind of busy uh let's put it this way uh but in a good way in a way that already uh makes it less super obvious. Then of course if you look closer well you [clears throat] will find the repetition right but this has already uh there is already some work that's been done so that

36:41 it's already kind of starting to create the illusion of of you know uh okay it's not it's not tileable it's not repeated that much right it definitely is in reality but the complexity And I would say that the level of details added to a simple layer which could be you know just the stones uh it's already doing a good job. So here we have the fifth technique which is the mesh decal texture. So to add visual context large scale details texture was introduced as a mesh decal. So let's take a look here. So again you have basically very clearly

37:28 explained here you have the 12 m up until here and you have an extra piece here which goes there right but since it's treating the same title material it is include so it is included here so you have as you can see underneath you see the brick pattern right you see the uh the bricks themselves but you see a lot of decals added onto it, right? Those are custom decals. So, uh, for all we know, it can be one big gigantic um, polygon, which I don't believe it is, but you know, when it's done custom, you can you can kind of pack a lot of decals with different colors and all that. You can do that the way you want,

38:14 right? So, you have the albido, which is what we seen, and you have the albido plus alpha transparency. So the artist will be able to play with the uh well with the opacity kind of with you know the level of intensity. So that gives a lot of controls. Then let's go here and then we see basically the final result. So this is great. This is great. And with that much control and you know again with custom decals um it's actually kind of use it's kind of doing the job of the macro var variation that we've seen right um it kind of is doing

39:00 the work of the uh uh material blending with vertex painting because you can do exactly what you want right so it's basically the deluxe version of everything. It's kind of it's using ideas from all the techniques almost that we've seen so far, right? And see, you have like a large large leak here. Uh you have to be careful when it's going to be um next like many many different meshes next to each other. You have to be very careful so that it's not obvious, right? But furthermore, the artist explains uh how to get away with it. Right? So those are

39:46 example modules. So you have the small one which I believe is four. That is most likely eight or even 10 m. This is the you know the big the big one basically. So you have this one, this one, and this one, right? I'm not ex exactly sure about the uh the length but it does not matter that much. Here is a different geometry and you see that there is this thing going on right here. And in order to integrate that and to make it also believable with what the artist is doing with the with the mesh decals um which is you know like the level of dirt, the

40:33 wetness or you know the proximity uh to water um so essentially either it's not technically moss but you know that uh that kind of stuff. And here we go. So this is the explanation. So this is another decal. So to blend big surface intersections inside modules additional mesh decal texture was created. Right? So this is exactly what we have observed so that it fits perfectly one next to each other. And here we have the mesh decal texture alpha. So here to ensure models would seamlessly connect the artist make uh had to make mesh decol alpha near to black where the mesh decol would be cut.

41:19 So you see this is this is really the secret of making it work uh perfectly. Right? So black alpha would reveal underlying base stone block texture. base stone block texture would always tile between modules as the smallest module is four meters and the others are multiplication of four, eight or 16. Well, so we have our answer for the dimensions shapes of those near to black spots look like just another leak on the wall. So that is brilliant, right? So those sections that you see that are black. Sorry, I don't want to cover it. And you have another one here. It's what will connect all the pieces together,

42:05 right? This addition to his uh the so the texture alpha is allowing the artist to see we can see it here. Right? So basically he's removing the like you can see right he's removing what is on the decals so that it allows the mesh to blend perfectly because let's go back all the way because this styles perfectly right and all this noise essentially which which what the decals are creating uh which is super realistic and and really

42:50 adding a lot. But this is visual noise. If you just keep it this way and you tile it, well, it you're going to see that it's repeated, right? Because here, see here, there there's like very little and here there is a lot. The decals are actually used really strongly on this side. So if you were to uh copy and paste this asset, it would look completely immediately we we could recognize, oh wait, that's the seam part, right? But what the artist did is brilliant because by having this little texture alpha, this extra control, this allows to remove that. And yes, you

43:37 can recognize some patterns, right? which this one is here. But wait, there's this very big stain here which is not here and not there, right? Because it's been leveraged like he leveraged the texture uh decal and then of course also uh they are copied and paste and mirrored so it adds variation. This is kind of a illusion, right? optical illusion that helps uh really sell the um well the repetition. You you can tell if you look very closely like this one is here but and okay this one uh is next to it also

44:24 right but then on the left this big one is nowhere to be seen here nor there it is different right here so it works perfectly so this was I believe like it's kind of the culmination of everything we've seen and Here we are in a dcc. I'm using 3ds max. So we have our large 12 m high mesh and the tixel density is respected, right? So it's 1k for 1 m and we're using the same material from mega scans. So it's completely tilable and completely visible. And then here we have our mesh decal. So what is that

45:11 exactly? is the mesh and the decals, right? It's as simple as that. And if I go a little bit closer, you can see, okay, you can see that I'm using a large one, which is the mud stain, uh, which maybe some people are familiar with, and I have another one here, another one there. So, by using all that, this is a mesh decal. It's a mesh plus its decals, right? And it's going to be treated as one asset which of course if we are going to uh talk about optimization, there will be additional draw calls, right? Because it's not just one material, it's one

45:58 plus one that we well we can barely see, right? But if I go closer, you see there's one decal here. There is another one underneath. Can I select it? It's kind of difficult to sele I did. Right. The big leagues. I have two on the side which is actually the same very large leak that I cut into so that they would um connect and tile uh correctly. Right. And kind of trying to emulate what the artists from working on Indiana Jones did. So we have many decals and I didn't go crazy. um I kept the free or easily accessible assets, right? So that's why I limited

46:45 myself to using only Mega Scans assets uh including the the decals. So this is why those are not custom decals. I could not really like package them uh and optimize them the way uh that it would be done on the production. But this is just for uh for the clarity for also uh people watching this video uh easily can access those assets and try it for themselves. Right. So now let's jump into Unreal Engine and next to our previous example of macro variation now we have our example of mesh decals. So if you see there are in this case four draws I

47:32 could combine those actually. So I could further optimize it to three. But if you see it's doing a fine job, right? If we look at this distance, well, you can see that this is completely repeated. And here I mean yes of course you you will be able to see some patterns but uh imagine that you also use a macro variation on top of and basically quite honestly this is what I I feel uh would be as close as possible as what the artist from Indiana Jones has been doing like it's a more complex more layered material right so if you have that and then on top of it

48:20 you are leveraging the mesh decals technique well then like you have basically the best of both world now this video doesn't really cover the optimization and you know making it because I know some technical artists might be like are you insane okay this is for the purpose of showing clear examples right there are ways to optimize it and making it work. But I think visually we can now all understand uh how to approach and how to successfully break the repetition of tileable materials. Now, as promised at the start of the video, we are going back to the landscape materials. Uh

49:07 we're not going to cover this in this video. There will be videos on this specific topic in the future but for now I just wanted to at least give some information um and you know as to why it's treated differently because landscape are by nature very different than even the largest assets that you can use. So the common techniques that are used of course is using different materials but if you've been experimenting I mean those are different materials and they they both style horribly. Common techniques are macro variations just like what we've seen today with the gold material distance blend which is a simple trick of a few nodes

49:54 in your shader and you can just determine how uh like basically different tiling for the same materials and you can use a soft fall-off like this. Right? You also have material blend with a mask which is which is kind of uh the idea of uh macro variations but a bit more custom. And you have texture bombing and cell bombing which are slightly more advanced concepts uh but you can research those topics and experiment on your own landscapes. So, you can find more resources from Epic Games on the mesh decals topic with more details, custom uh asset and textures

50:43 that you can use to experiment. Uh it's really great. I will link that in the description. And now this concludes our exploration of how to texture large surfaces properly. So many examples were were given like bad examples what not to do very good examples what to do and some techniques shown in Unreal Engine. So I hope this helps. Uh to be honest there is a bit more to this topic but those are the main points that uh that you should know. So thank you very much for watching. Please leave a like, a comment. Uh you can tell me other games that you have found uh very obvious

51:30 styling. I would be curious and interested and would like to check it out. Many more videos showing techniques, showing how to do things will be coming up on the channel. So stay tuned and see you soon. Shout out to the members of the channel and you are all welcome to join. Additional perks will be added very