Shader World is an alternative to Unreal Engine Landscape, which can be edited at runtime, in packaged games.
Shader World is currently the only fully GPU accelerated tool for procedural world generation available on the Unreal Engine marketplace, and was built by qualified engineers.
World, collisions, asset spawning are all generated on GPU. It means that you don't need a great CPU at all as any entry level GPU supporting Compute Shaders (any GPU since 2013) is enough, which includes most entry level Smartphones (any OpenGL ES 3.1 mobile device).
Shader World plugin is a high performance modern procedural Landscape generator.
It allows the creation of infinite oceans and landscapes with fast iteration and instant feedback.
From world creation to the spawning of instanced mesh or actors, the toolset is extremely power efficient on the device it is running on, reaching similar performance on CPU only would require managing an intensive multithreaded CPU workload , taking away resources that could otherwise be used for Gameplay (AI,.. ), while computing at runtime on GPU delivers unmatched performance, and high quality artist driven output.
Drawing inspiration from industry leaders and standards, the asset spawning framework is heavily inspired from the one currently used by games such as Horizon Zero Dawn .
Website : shader.world
Email: ld
August 2022 New : Shader World 1.7 Highlight
Twitter : /ShaderWorldPlugin
Discord : discord.ShaderWorldPlugin
Discord is opened, to provide access to github we just need the github username and a question/review to confirm plugin ownership given the small key symbol appearing next to your name.
Download Demo of included reference map
Download Speederbike demo
Shader World 1.3 Video Review !
Youtube Introduction
Shader World 1.2 Video Review
Shader World 1.1 Heightmap Brush Teaser
Shader World 1.1 World Creation Live Stream
Read More Technical Details
Tested and compatible with : Windows 10, Mac (arm M1), iOS(IPad mini), Android (S9 OpenGL&Vulkan)
Documentation: Shader World Plugin - Documentation
Note: 5.0EA version on Github
Source: Github access after validation of ownership : Order ID+Epic username, or Question/Review(key symbol=Ownership)
Features:
- World creation from a Material function and Blueprint Brushes : fast iteration, instant feedback
- Modern Virtual HeightField as a Geometry clip map representation
- Landscape data layers : runtime computed equivalent to traditional UE4 Landscape layers
- Mesh and Actor spawning with custom density functions : GPU Driven, using Data layers
- BP Brushes can write into landscape layers : Heightmap Brush demo writes flowmap
- 16 Bits Heightmap import using a blueprint tool (raw/png 16bits)
- Compatible with mobile (Android & iOS) and desktop devices (Windows & Mac)
- Spawnable Meshes can enable collisions only at proximity for optimal performance
- Replace Tessellation
- Scalable Landscape Material: Clean and Commented, Manage Multi Biomes and feature performance options
Code Modules:
- ShaderWorld, Type: Runtime
Number of Blueprints: 15+
Number of C++ Classes: 40+
Supported Development Platforms: Windows, Linux, MacOS
Supported Target Build Platforms: Windows, Android, iOS, Linux, Oculus, PS4, Xbox One, Steam VR, Gear VR