🎬 Using Effects

The effects are features designed to improve the look of the Sub-Layer's Material without needing a lot of options. Some can be especially useful for certain scenarios (Sparkles, for example.)

🎬 Darken/Lighten Material

Reference image w/ no effects enabled.

"w/ Normals", Lightness set to 0.85

"w/ Noise", Lightness set to 0.7

This effect uses the normals of the terrain (on the "Dark-Light w/ Normals" option) or the Noise map (on the "Dark-Light w/ Noise") to Darken or Lighten the affected area, depending on the Lightness value set.

This is especially useful to easely break the monotony of a Material without having to useful another Sub-Layer.

The "w/ Noise" mode features all the regular Noise options, like the ability to break the map's tiling, etc. Both modes can be used at the same time.

Hue Shift w/ Noise

This effect shifts the hue of the area defined by its noise (that features all the regular options) by a set value, just like in the Color Adjustements.

The noise works in the same way as the Darken/Lighten Material above.

🎬 Add Distance-Field Material

Visible only with the Studio license.

The Add Distance-Field Material option adds a secondary material in the areas around meshs affecting distance-field lighting, which can be very useful in some cases.

Notice how a darker, messier sand is around all foliage and rocks on the beach.

The area radius and its contrast can be changed. The material itself is made of:

• Base Color map

• Normal Map & a Normal Flatness value

• Displacement map (If nanite Tessellation is enabled) & its Contrast and Strength adjustements

• Roughness value

The UV Tiling is the same value as the parent material.

The video in the title shows a demonstration of what this feature can bring to the Instance when fully utilized with Displacement.

For this feature to work, the Sub-Layer must be Excluded from Caching and the Landscape must not affect Distance-Field Lighting.

Water

Water layer applied on a simple terrain, via a Noise mask.

The Water effect overlays animated Water on top of the Sub-Layer's material, which is especially useful when used with a Splatmap. The animation is made using 2 layers of a Normal map that are each panning in different directions.

For best results, use Parallax Occlusion Mapping on the Material to simulate water depth underneath the effect.

Element
Water Tint	Tint of the water material
Water Opacity	How opaque the water layer will be on top of the regular material.

Water Material

Element
Specular	Specularity of the top water material
Roughness	Roughness of the top water material
Normal Flatness	Flatness of the used Normal Map.
Normal UV Tiling	Tiling of the used Normal Map

For this feature to work, the Sub-Layer must be Excluded from Caching.

Sparkles

Notice the spots, more visible in the shadows.

The Sparkles effect adds subtle spots to the Sub-Layer's material, which are animated if the Sub-Layer is uncached. (Static on ES3.1)

Texture Sparkles Settings

Element
Sparkle Map Tiling	Changes the Tiling of the snow sparkles (Higher vlaues = more and smaller spots)
Sparkles Frequency	From 0 (less sparkles) to 1 (more sparkles shown).
Show Sparkle Far Away	Turns off the mipmaps, which makes these sparkles visible from further.

Sparkles Animation Settings (Advanced users only; not necessary to edit):

Element
Mask Map Tiling	Changes the tiling of the map used for animation.
Mask Map Contrast	Contrasts the Mask Maps.
Masks Map Speed (X;Y)	Changes the speed of the panning mask map.