rdLandTools
rdLandTools is a plugin under development that provides a complete new Landscape system for Unreal that runs magnitudes faster and uses considerably less memory. You can run and edit very large landscapes very quickly, no waiting around for things to load or materials to compile. Creating levels with these landscapes is so quick and painless it brings the joy back to editing levels. No World Partition needed.
The landscape can have any number of pixel-for-pixel stamps on the landscape on top of the 16 Tri-Planar mapped layers (similar to decals, but snap to a lower res ~8px and have 32 angles – but have Depth for Nanite Tessellation or POM and render virtually for free).
Areas of the landscape can be painted pixel-for-pixel with any source as well with the rdLandscape paint tool, these areas are memory efficient and render virtually for free.
It has Nanite Tesellation running at excellent speeds, and has a built in system for deforming for footprints, tire marks and earth works (these will be able to be saved) along with support for fire propagation and some other features that I want to keep quite about for now.
It also has a component similar to the UE Landscape Patch and routines to give very detailed landscape leveling, modelling, multi-blend painting and mesh cutting from splines.
There are advanced Sculpt and Paint modes specifically for the rdLandscapes that give many more options that the existing Landscape tools.
It also imports existing landscapes (hopefully including the new Terrain Meshes) and height/splat maps and exports to heightmaps (losing any overhangs) and FBX static meshes.
Coupled with rdInsts Grass system you can get grass much closer to the horizon than before, along with a much more powerful distribution system (can be fed from many things including the rdPopulateActor, PCG and/or material/splats).
A fully functional prototype version has been built, predominantly using LLMs (glm5.2) and is being used solely for the landscape in my game. This will be completely rewritten by myself before releasing on Fab. (This is an experimental work-flow to see how well an entire prototype can be assembled to learn from, shape, and then develop the final version).
This landscape system has allowed me to get my game (144km2) running at 60FPS, Epic Quality at 4K native on my 12th gen i7 and rtx4070 with Lumen, dense foliage and very detailed scenes. The benefits compound on older hardware.
Note: This Landscape system is not currently editable at run-time. This may change in the future.