Bridge Environment Ready - Documentation
Introdução
We would like to introduce our package, Bridge Environment Ready. Our packages have a stylized look and realistic detailing, and can be considered a stylized semi-realistic, bringing together the best of both worlds.
All our packages have a unique style, focused on optimization, ease of use and your time saving. Have creative freedom and meet your needs.
Learn more about our upcoming products and updates on our Discord support channel.
Prefabs
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All prefabs have editable BPs that you can find in the Blueprints folders in case you want to change something specific in them.
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All these SMs are in the “prefabs” folder within their respective categories, so you can find them easily.
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There are special LODs from the latest LOD with a single material to prefabs with four or more materials.
Materiais
Many SMs share the same material to help with performance, even reducing the amount of textures, improving performance in the general scope, this also helps with the use of the merge which will consequently have less materials. This pattern used here will make for a smaller disk file.
Master Materiais
MasterGlass - It detects in real time what is around it and generates dirt from it (absolute World Position).
MasterDecal - Used to create the decals.
MasterProp - Contains basic material settings to be used in props, and its instances are used in most of them.
MasterBuildings - Its instances have random dirt functions. (It has an activated RVT function).
MasterVehicles - Used to create instances of vehicle materials.
MasterTrunk - Its instances are used in the trunk of trees. (It has an activated RVT function).
MasterBranch - Used to change the color of tree branches.
MasterLeaf -Used on tree leaves and grass. (It has an activated RVT function).
MasterGroundLeaves - Used for fallen leaves.
MasterPlant -Used in water plant and Eucalyptus Cinerea.
MasterStones - Used on stones. (It has an activatable RVT function)
MasterBridgeConcrete - Used in concrete bridges and roads.
Water Shader
The water shader was made so that you can have full control of its main characteristics like the color of the water or the size of the shorelines and ripples. Some functions can be completely disabled.
There are two materials for the water shader, M_River_A1 and M_Water_A1.
M_River_A1- Made for creating rivers and streams where water flows in a specific direction.
M_Water_A1– Made for the creation of ponds that have their movement simpler.
Both Materials have the same customizable characteristics
Parameters
Caustic– Can be disabled, it is possible to change the texture, control its scale and speed.
Displacement– Can be disabled, changes the shape of the mesh based on the mask, it is possible to change the warp intensity, movement speed and scale of the mask in addition to the mask itself.
Ripples/Refraction– Small waves around objects or on the edge of the water. It is possible to change the
amount of Ripples, their scale and speed, and it is possible to increase or decrease the intensity of water refraction.
shoreline– Can be disabled, a small “foam” around objects or on the edge of the water, it is possible to change its scale, quantity, speed and thickness, in addition to its mask.
wave– The base waves of water, it is possible to change its texture, scale, speed and intensity
Landscape
The landcape material has two main functions:
Automaterial that changes the painting layer according to the terrain angle and procedural foliage that applies grass and other details throughout the landscape taking into account the layer that was used.
You can also manually paint if there is an area where you want a specific type of paint (Procedural foliage will still work as normal).
Automaterial landscape is configured for RVT and can be disabled.
Tool - Posts
There are two dynamic pole BPs, one doesn't change the pole's SM, the other you can choose between the four pole variables that exist in the package. The pole is separated as follows:
The main SM, four connection points that within the SM are referenced with the named “Sockets”
as Link1, Link2 (Link Group A), Link3, Link4 (Link Group B) and finally the cables.
Both BPs have the following settings:
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The First setting is of groups where you can choose one or two posts for your base post to connect to.
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The second configuration refers to the connection links mentioned above (Link1/2/3/4) that identify the sockets between the posts, ensuring that the cables are always in parallel (they never cross each other). The names are exposed if necessary, but I recommend that you do not change these names
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The third setting is described as “Link 1/2/3/4?”. All of them start enabled, each one corresponding to a cable, so if they are all enabled, post “A” will connect with post “B” with four cables
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The fourth setting is described as “Cable Length Min” and “Cable Length Max”. The first option defines the length of the cable between two posts, the greater the difference between the real distance and the defined value, the looser, the greater the curvature of all cables. The second option is to create a difference between the length of the cables, leaving some more stretched and others more flaccid, for this to happen just increase the difference in values between the two options
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The fifth configuration is described as “Attach End – Link 1/2/3/4”, this option serves to cut the cables leaving them hanging on the pole (This option is different from configuration three which defines the existence or not of the cables)
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The sixth setting is described as “Cable Length Link Off”, it is used to define the length of cut cables.
LOD - Level Of Detail
SMs have up to six levels of LODs (LOD 0, LOD 1, LOD 2, LOD 3, LOD 4, LOD 5) depending on the complexity and need of each object. The last LOD of almost all objects has no shadow, and in 26 prefabs where the SM has many materials, (4 to 9) the last LOD has a single material for better optimization. (This LOD is available as an SM if you want to use it as a background).
Our base models are mostly bevelled to add to the look, but as we know that many are looking for a package that, in addition to being beautiful, delivers high performance and is well optimized.
We created the SM and paintwork so that you can use 25% to 50% of the original triangles. If you want to use the best possible look, just open the desired SM, in LOD0, Reduction Settings, change Percent
Triangles to 100 and apply. (50% to 75% lighter LOD0).
The intermediate LODs (Variables 1 to 4) in addition to having triangle reduction by default, we also individually configured each LOD checking and disabling material slots that without the shadow would not cause great visual impact.
We tried disabling the shadow for the last LOD, however, some SMs, example the prefabs their last LOD, which was created using "Merge Actor Simplify" to reduce the material slots to one.
They have shadows. This decision was made because the performance gain was minimal while causing a great visual impact.
All translucent materials such as glass have no shadow in all LODs including LOD 0
For SMs that have many material slots, a specific LOD was created with a single material to serve as the last LOD (This was done using the "Merge Actor Simplify", a function similar to HLOD) This was done to reduce Draw Calls.
Note: All LODs are automatically generated within the UE, however we configure them individually
each LOD and its settings for materials and switching distance (Screen Size).
Billboard / Impostors
All trees have Billboard as the last LOD (8 tris).
There is a folder called "ImpostorSource" (Landscape>Vegetation>Material>LODs>ImpostorSource) where all the “Material functions” and “Materials” needed for Billboard/Impostors to work without the plugin are.
CAUTION: It is NOT necessary to install the “Imposter Baker” plugin, but if you need to use it, be aware of the bug in the “Material function imposter” that makes it impossible to use it with foliage (For more information visit the Unreal Engine).
Collision
Most collisions use the "Use complex collision as simple" option for greater collision accuracy
We optimize the collision using the "LOD for collision" option between 2 and 4 (Uses a specific LOD as a collider).
All SMs have simple “Collision Primitives” from 1 to 6 at most.
A few SMs are not in the pattern, above like the grass that has the collision preset as "No collision".
Bevel
With the exception of small SMs, all SMs are beveled making their corners smoother. As already mentioned in the prefabs and LOD section about their exclusion and use, the project is already configured aiming at a balance between better performance and a good look, this does not prevent that fine adjustments can still be made, thinking about performance or visuals
Lumen
Enable Lumen in the project settings at:
Engine - Rendering - Dynamic Global Illumination Method - Lumen
Engine - Rendering - Reflections Method - Lumen
Or visit the Unreal Engine Documentation
RVT - Runtime Virtual Texturing
Or visit the Unreal Engine Documentation
Some Landscape Items have the RVT function enabled. For them to work correctly, you need to activate the option Enable virtual texture support in Project settings.