Hi guys
I'm trying to create a voxel art level for a game in unreal, but I would like some input on best practice if you guys don't mind.
The look I'm going for is something along these lines
https://minecraftbuildinginc.com/haven-voxelsniper-terrain/ [minecraftbuildinginc.com]
My approach is to create the landscape as if I'm doing a normal cg landscape.
Then I convert this to a vdb.
Then points from volume
Then copy/pack a box to each point with the right scale.
In Houdini this gives me the right look, but it is slow as hell.
How would you guys suggest I tackle this?
I'm fairly new to unreal, so I'm not sure what best practice would be for this.
I was thinking that instancing in unreal should be the way to go, but so far my tests has been rather slow.
I also have no idea how i would set up distance culling if I generate the mesh with Houdini engine as an instance.
Any pointers would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
Gerbrand

Playing with this setup, I think distance culling is probably my biggest problem.
So if anyone know how to set up distance culling for instances created inside an HDA. Please tell me
Thanks
G

I'm not an expert, but it's my understanding that all instances of a static mesh are drawn as one draw call, so individual instances cannot be culled. You may want to look into using Hierarchical Instanced Static Mesh instead which handles LOD and culling.

I wonder if instancing is really the way to go with this though, isn't it cheaper to generate one big static mesh instead?

Thanks for the reply!
I'm not sure if instancing will be faster than one big mesh. I suppose I need to test that.
I am building a massive world though, and you don't need to see all of it at once.
Everything is made up out of the same cube with only color variation, so I thought instancing would be perfect.
Mind you I don't fully understand how unreal handles instances vs high res meshes.
How would i set up a hierarchical instanced static mesh using houdini and engine?
I would like to test instancing the right way before I write it off.
Thanks
Gerbrand