Some of these parameters work in the same way as on the Master Surfaces Shaders.
As such, some links to the MSS Documentation will be present instead of a detailed description.
For most options, a button is available next to the option's name.
Clicking it will allow you to restore the default values for it.
Sub-Layer Material Settings
Exclude Sub-layer from Caching
Enabled only if the Sub-Layer is uncached.
Excludes this layer from caching.
See Landscape Caching for more information.
Use Texture Atlasses
Visible only on MULTI Instance mode.
Enables the use of Atlasses textures to reduce the number of texture samplers used if many Sub-Layers are used across multiple BIOMES.
Should be toggled only if absolutely necessary, as it has a big performance impact that is not justified unless the Instance crashes due to the number of Texture Samplers !
Clicking on "Refresh Biome Atlasses" will fully refresh the Texture Arrays with all textures set in the Biome. It may be necessary if a texture shown using atlasses isn't the same as shown without.
When enabled, samples the texturing at a different UV Scaling and shows it when the player is at a certain distance of the surface. Useful for keeping "crisp" materials far away like rock surfaces.
If the second distance is toggled, an additional layer of different UV Scaling will be used at set values.
In the example below, a version of the current Material with a UV Scale of 2.5 will be shown starting from the distance of 6000 units on top of the normal Material.
Uses a channel of the Base Color as the specular output.
The value is a cap as natural landscape aren't surfaces with a lot of specularity.
Texture Maps Input
Base Color
Base Color slot of the Material
If "Use Uniform Color" is checked, a uniform color will be used instead of a texture map. The color can be changed by clicking the Uniform Color thumbnail.
Texture Adjustements are available below :
Hue Shift (from 0 to 360)
Saturation (Values under 0 to desaturate, over 0 to saturate)
Contrast
Luminosity (0 for black, 1 by default, more than 1 to increase lightness)
Tint (Color)
Normal Map
Normal Map slot of the Material
Texture Adjustements are available below :
Regular Flatness (1 for full flat, values under 0 to increase normal strength)
Distance 1 & 2 Flatness available when Distance-Based UV Scaling is enabled
Reverse Normal can be checked for inverting the Map
ORM Values
Occlusion/Roughness/Metallic slot of the Material
Packed "ORM" Texture can be enabled/disabled, but should always be used for optimization purposes if more than 1 map is used for any of the ORM channels.
If Uniform Roughness/Metalness is checked, the texture won't be used and an uniform value will be used.
If "Use Occlusion Map" is checked, the Occlusion map will be multiplied with the Color and Specular values following the Occlusion map adjustement options.
Texture Map & Settings are available if a Texture Map is used for any of the channels instead of uniform values :
Each map can be selected (if "Use Packed "ORM" Texture" is disabled.)
Contrast & Luminosity adjustement are available for each, except Metalness as a Texture map should be avoided as much as possible for performance reasons.
Metalness is present if need be but affects the shader complexity and is not cacheable !
Using a metalness map will need the processing of the affected sub-layer to be done even if it's cached, so it should be always set to Uniform Value except for special cases !
If enabled, displaces a Virtual Heightfield Mesh.
See Adding Displacement for more informations.
The Texture is contrasted before the Force setting.
If "Use ORD Texture Format" is ticked, the last channel of the ORM Map will be used as displacement instead of a standalone texture. Especially useful for Megascans wich sometimes come in the Occlusion-Roughness-Displacement texture format.
