Make better Volume Fog and control it with blueprint #unrealengine5

Are you a student filmmaker or an indie cinematographer? Then you surely need a smoke machine On your Art House, avant-garde passion  project no budget music video shoot but what now? You're filming it in unreal? Unfortunately Unreal Engine  doesn't come with a smoke machine  but I got you covered I'll show you how to make this  volumetric fog step by step in detail so the first part will be making the material and the second part will be making the blueprint this particular method is using volume textures instead of 2D textures as the mask I think this makes the fog look more believable especially up close just a quick disclaimer this method of making volume fog has been shared extensively by Asher Zhu and Ryan Brucks in their blogs a few years ago the method I'm showing here is just something that I mixed and matched for my liking firstly go to edit plugins search for Volumetrics and enable the volumetrics plugin you can see I already enabled mine and restart the engine if you need to in the content browser I'm  going to make a new level  and I'll call it Lv_FogTutorial and in this level I'm going to open the environment light mixer window and add all the environment actors I need I'll place them in a folder so they are organized let's also add a post process volume and in the post process volume go to the details panel and search for bounds check Infinite extent and then search for exp and set the minimum and maximum to 1 so we have an even exposure in the level I'm just going to use a block mesh to lay it on the ground so I have a flat surface to work on doesn't really matter what you use here in the content browser I'm going to click on content and search for third person I'm going to drag in the mannequin so I have a reference for scale back in the content browser go to the settings menu on the far right and make sure to check show engine content and show plugin content now in your folder tree if you go to engine plugins scroll all the way down find volumetrics content, content volume textures and textures and these are the volume textures we'll be using to make the fog today In the content browser I'm going to make a new folder called VolumeFog_Tutorial I'm going to keep pretty much everything in this one folder let's make a new material and name it M_VolumeFog_Tut (Tut for tutorial) and double click to open it firstly let's change the material domain to volume and we also need to change  the blend mode to additive so now I'm going to make the base function for our local volumetric fog so let's right click in our graph and  search for local position  which is under miscellaneous right click again and search  for object local bounds right click again and search for the subtract node and connect the local position to the A and local bounds minimum to B hold D, the D key on your keyboard and left click for a divide node and connect the result and divide that by the local bounds size right click again and search for distance scroll down it's under utility connect the result and press 1 and left click for a constant node and change the value to 0.5 and connect it to B, press M and left click for a multiply node connect the result to A and press S and left click for a scalar parameter and let's name the parameter Fog Edge Roundness and set the default value to 2. right click and search for 1 minus and connect it to the result and then we're going to  connect this to the extinction  but just before that press M and left click for a multiply node and press S and left click for a scalar parameter and name the scalar parameter Fog overall density and I'll set the default value to 1 for now and connect it like so and the final result to Extinction I'm going to grab these nodes maybe up to just up to here and press C to comment and we'll name this Volume Fog Function [Music] press save and let's go back to our level I'm going to drag in a cube and make the scale 20 by 20 by 8. Let's go back to our material  in our content browser I'm going to right click on the material and make a material instance and I'm going to drag it on the cube to apply it and you can see nothing is happening because volumetric fog is not enabled so it's quite important to note for this function to work you have to have an exponential  height fog in your scene and if you click on your exponential height fog in the details panel if you scroll down there's a section called volumetric fog and if you tick the box to turn it on you should now be able to see the volume fog you made in the material and my fog looks black because  I haven't set the color so let's double click on the  material to open it back up so I'm just going to get a constant node set it to 1 and connect it to the albedo for now and save and go back to our level and we now have a very basic  volumetric fog working in our level in the details panel double click  on the material instance to open it you can play around with the density values to make the fog quite thin or quite thick now I want to make the fog a little bit more believable so let's open up the material right click and search for World position press M and left click for a multiply node and connect the XYZ World position to the A and set the B value to 0.0001 and let's get another multiply node and press V and left click for Vector parameter name it Base Fog Tiling connect it to the multiply node and I'm going to set the  default value to 2 2 2 for now press A and left click for an add node and press M and left click for multiply node right click and search for time connect time to the A and press V and left click for another Vector parameter name it base fog pan set the values to 0.02, 0.03, minus 0.001 and connect it to the B so this will control the speed and direction of the fog now let's go back to our content browser let's go to engine, plugins volumetrics content, Content, Volume textures and textures or you could just go to the root and search for Perlin Worley so VT_PerlinWorley_Balanced is the one we are looking for so if I drag this to the graph like I would normally do with other textures I get a texture sample node and this isn't what we want to do with volume textures what you need to do is right click and search for volume texture and get the texture sample parameter volume and let's name it Base Fog VT you can see that the engine is automatically using the Perlin Worley Volume texture because it's the last one that we clicked on but to be safe I want to create  a copy of this volume texture  and use the copy and not use the original so I'm just going to delete this for now let's drag this volume texture   to the VolumeFog_Tutorial folder and I'm going to choose copy here and you can see it's been copied over back in our graph let's search for texture sample parameter volume and name it Base Fog VT again and connect the result of the add to the UV so if you click on the volume texture sample and go to the details panel you can double click on the  texture to have a closer look in this window you can click on the 3D View to view the texture in 3D so you can scroll in, zoom in and drag the cube to view the texture in 3D so let's finish our mask function right click and search for Power and let's connect the red channel to the base of the power node and let's get a multiply node and connect the power to the A press S and left click for a scalar parameter name it base fog contrast and set the default value to 2.3 and connect it to the power  and get another scalar parameter  name it Base Fog Intensity set the default value to 0.7 and connect it to the B of the multiply node so somewhere in the middle press M and left click for a multiply node and connect the result of the Mask to the A hold down Ctrl and left click  and drag this pin to the B  to change the connection and connect these like so and like before I'm going to grab these nodes and name it Base Fog I'll just move this over here let's save and go back to our level so you can see this needs a little bit of tweaking let's open up the material instance and  try changing some of the values  to make this more visible so I've increased the base fog contrast and base fog intensity to see what is going on a little bit more clearly I think I need to change the default tiling so let's change this to a higher value so we can actually see the texture now you can see the mask a little bit more clearly so these parameter values will most  likely depend on your situation  and the volume texture that you're actually using so if something looks wrong be sure to play around with the values to get the result that you want and I can change the value of the pan to make it much faster or change  the direction of the movement back in our material graph I want to add another layer of detail to this Fog so I'm going to grab these nodes from the base fog and press Ctrl D to duplicate let's connect the XYZ value to the multiply exactly like the first one I'm going to change the names of these parameters so it's Detail Fog Tiling for  this one and Detail Fog Pan and obviously Detail Fog VT, Detail Fog Contrast and Detail Fog Intensity I'm also going to change this  connection to the green Channel if you look in the texture you can see that there are different types of noise embedded into the different channels uh actually let's make the first one use the green Channel and the second one use the blue channel so green channel for the base fog and blue channel for the detail fog so  somewhere around here press A  and left click for an Add node Add the first and second masks together and replace the connection to the multiply and I'm going to grab these nodes press C and name it Detail Fog I'm going to tweak the values of the  Detail Fog so that it's  different from the base fog so let's set the Detail Fog Tiling to 5, 5, 5 actually let's set the Base Fog Tiling to 4, 4, 4 and let's change the Detail Fog Pan to 0.01 0.02 and leave the B let's save  and go back to our level So this is looking a bit better  you can see there are two  levels of detail in this fog I'm going to open the material instance again and play around with the values a bit more until I find the look that I want so I'm going to turn off the base fog intensity set this to zero for now so we're only looking at the detail Fog and then in the viewport you can press L and left click to bring in a point light quickly and I'll use this light to see  the fog a little bit better now I'm going to set the  detail fog intensity to zero and set the base fog intensity to 0.6 so now we are only looking at the base fog I've now adjusted the tiling values I'll turn the detail fog intensity back up to 0.4 so we can view the two together in the details panel of your point light there's an option called cast volumetric shadow and if you turn it on you can see that the shadow that this light creates is affecting the fog last thing I want to do before moving on is in my Cube, I'm going to search for Collision and in the Collision preset, I'm  going to set this to no Collision this is so that the cube  doesn't affect the gameplay let's make a function to control the color of the fog in our material graph press V and left click for a vector parameter name it Fog Color and I'll make this white let's duplicate this one and name this Fog Shadow Color and I'll set this to Black and duplicate this again and we'll name this Fog Top Color and I'll just make this blue  can be any color you want just make it different to the fog color press L and left click for Lerp node connect the Fog Color to the A and the Fog Shadow Color to the B and use the combination of the two masks as the alpha press L and left click for another lerp node and connect it like so and for the alpha here we're going to get the height  value of the volume fog so search for a component mask and the details panel uncheck R and G and only check B and come out of the divide into the component mask and press M and left click for a multiply and connect the mask to the A and set the B value to 1.5 right click and search for a smooth step node and connect this one to the value S and left click for a scalar parameter name it Color Gradient Bias and set the default value to minus 0.08 right click search for subtract node and connect this here and leave the A right click search for Max node and set the B value to 0.01 and connect this to the A and this one to the Max right click and search for subtract node and connect it to the A and connect the result to the Min and use this for the alpha of the second  Lerp node and let's connect  the output to the Albedo save and let's look at our level looks like I have the fog color and Fog top color other way around so back in my graph I'm going to change the b and a connection here this should fix it and back in my level you can see the fog top color which is blue is showing on top and as it gets to the bottom it becomes white which is the main fog color and you can control the blending by the color gradient bias parameter and if I set the fog Shadow color to something like purple you can see there are bits of purple fog floating with the main fog color I'll just set this back to black again I'm going to grab these nodes and name this color actually Fog Color now I want to add another function so the fog kind of hugs around the static meshes around it I'll do this by using mesh distance fields In my material, just above the volume fog function I'm going to right click and search for distance to nearest surface press s and left click for a scalar parameter and I'll name this Distance and I'll make the default value 1400. and let's get a subtract node so this will control how far the fog extends out from the surface of the static mesh press L and left click for a lerp node and connect the distance to the A and let's get another scalar parameter and call this Edge Hardness  and plug that into the alpha press D and left click for a divide node and connect the result of the subtract to the A and then connect the result of the lerp  to the B and right click  search for a subtract node and connect the result of the Divide to the A and press A and left click for add node and connect the result of the subtract to the A now get the output of the volume fog function and  the Masks multiplied together  and connect that to the B and reconnect the pins like so I'm going to grab these nodes that I just made and call it Distance Fields let's save and go back to our level and let's open up our material instance I'll increase the density  so we can see things clearer you can now see the fog reacting  to the surfaces around it I'll adjust the tiling and the  contrast values of the fog again so it's a little bit more  visible with the new function you can see when I decrease  the value of the distance the fog sticks closer to the surface and when I increase it, it extends out from the surfaces a bit more I'll leave this at 1400. I'm going to keep the edge hardness at a very low value so leave it at 0.02 for now so the fog material we made so far works quite well when there is light but when there's no light or when the fog is in the shadow it kind of disappears fortunately you can make  your volume fog also emissive so let's go back to our material graph and we'll adjust the color function to have the option to make it emissive so press M and left click for a multiply and change the B value to 0.001 press L and left click for lerp node and connect it like so and for the alpha let's get the output of this add node and plug it in right click and search for a static switch parameter and let's name it Use Emissive and connect the output of the lerp to true hold 1 and left click to get a constant node and let's just plug a 0 to the false and connect the output of  this to another multiply node and let's get a scalar parameter and name it emissive amount and I'll make the default value 0.1 and connect the output to emissive color let's save and go back to our level when I open up the material instance and check use emissive if I turn it on it doesn't look very different at the moment but if you increase the emissive amount you can see that the fog is now emissive and you can make it more visible in the shadow or in the dark for my use, I'm going to keep the emissive amount at a very low value like 0.1 just so that it doesn't completely disappear in the shadow or the dark now to give the fog even more variation I'm going to add a curl texture to the material so in your content browser go to the root and search for curl noise and you can see there's a VT curl noise and I'm going to drag this to  my VolumeFog_Tutorial and copy right click and search for texture sample parameter volume let's name this Curl Noise VT double check that you're  using the one you've copied so I'm going to grab these nodes here and copy it before my curl noise VT and let's connect the XYZ position to the multiply like the others and let's get rid of this vector parameter  and replace it with a scalar  parameter and name it Curl Scale and set it to 0.15 let's add another multiply node M and left click over here connect it up like so and set the value of the B to 0.0001 and let's rename this Vector parameter to Curl Pan and set the values to 3 3  1 and connect it to the UV let's right click and search  for a static switch parameter  and name it Use Curl press M and left click for a multiply node and connect the RGB to the B and for the A get the XYZ value  of the world position node and connect the result to true  and get another pin out of the  XYZ and connect it to the false connect the output of this  to the start of our base log and let's select these nodes and press C to comment and name it curl noise save and let's go back to our level open up the material instance and turn on Use Curl you can see that the fog changes shape drastically but it looks a little bit too random at the moment also one thing I forgot to do is that I want to be able to turn the mesh distance fields on or off in this material so I'll add another static switch parameter and call it Use Distance fields connect the output of this add node to true and connect the output to the multiply and connect the output of  this multiply to the false and I'll set the default value to ON save and let's look at our level so in our material instance I can now turn off distance fields and I'll turn on Use Curl  and you can see the shape of  the curl noise much better and if you change the value of curl scale you can change the shape of the curl noise which is basically the tiling and you can play around with the curl pan values  to change the shape and  direction of the noise as well Okay so you can stop here if you want and just use the fog as it is now you can control the parameters from the material instance but if you want to have more control and easier access it might be more practical to make this into a blueprint this blueprint is not very complicated at all it just takes a bit of time to make  because there are quite a  few parameters to hook in let's go to our VolumeFog_Tutorial folder in this folder right click and go to blueprint class and choose actor let's name this BP_VolumeFog double click on the blueprint and in the components tab  let's add a new static mesh and for this static mesh we're going to use a cube but I'm not going to use the default engine Cube just to be safe I'm going to make a new one so let's go to modeling mode and choose box and just click anywhere on  your viewport and press ok and just to keep things tidy  I'm also going to move this Cube  to my VolumeFog_Tutorial folder let's go back to our blueprint so I'm going to select the cube that I just made in my content browser and by clicking on this Arrow here  I'm going to put it into my static  mesh component in my blueprint and in the scale I'm going to set  the X to 20 and Y to 20 and Z to 10  now we just need to set the  cube to use our fog material but the thing is we have some static  switch parameters in our material so the way I'm going to do this is  make different versions of the material  depending on where the switches are   and then use those different  versions of the material  and allow the user to switch  between them in the blueprint so in my content browser let's right click and create a new folder and let's name it VolumeFogMat_ForBP and I'm going to copy my volume fog material to my new folder and let's rename this material M_VF01_Base double click to open this material I'm going to make sure all  the static switch parameters  are set to off by default  except for use distance fields save and let's go back to our content browser and I'm going to duplicate this material and name it M_VF02_Emissive and double click to open and I'm going to check use emissive so default value ON and save this one as well and let's duplicate this first one M_VF01_Base and rename this to M_VF03_Curly double click to open make sure emissive is off and we'll check Use Curl ON by default and Save and now duplicate the curly and name it M_VF04_CurlyEmissive double-click to open the material check Use Emissive ON and make sure Use Curl is also ON save the material so we have four different types of materials now which are all using distance Fields one is not emissive and not curly and one is only immersive one is only curly and one is Curly and emissive to use these in my construction script I need to make an enumeration so right click in your content  browser and search for enum let's name it Enum_VF_Mat so think of this as making a list for a drop down menu in your blueprint so click on ADD enumerator let's name the first one Base Fog and in the description I'm just going to put in Base fog without emissive or curl let's add another enumerator  and name it Emissive Fog and in description emissive channel activated add another one let's name it Curly Fog and curl applied, emissive and for the final one, Curly Emissive Fog and curl applied AND emissive and Save and exit in your content browser let's go back to our VolumeFog_Tutorial folder and open up the material  instance that we made before so remember all these parameters  that are in the material instance we want to make all of these material parameters as variables in our blueprint this is going to be pretty boring  if you already know how to do  this so feel free to skip ahead in the variables window over here click on the plus sign to add a new variable we're going to mirror all the parameter names from the material to the variables   so let's name the first one Fog Overall Density and set the type to float click on this new variable and let's go to the details panel you can set the range and the default value and also the category so it's organized click where it says default and I'll type Overall Fog and that creates a new category and for the slider range I'm going to set it to 0 to 10. and let's add another variable and name it Fog Edge Roundness and this is a float click on the Arrow next to default and I can set it to overall fog which is the category I just created before  I'm going to set the slider  range 0 to 2 for this one let's compile so I can actually set the default values for the Fog Overall Density I'll set it to 5 and for the Fog Edge Roundness I'm going to set the default value to 2 Compile and Save and let's keep going add a new variable called Base Fog Tiling and the type for this has to be a vector and let's add a new one called Base Fog Pan which is also a vector let's compile and let's set  the tiling values 2, 2, 2 and make a new category called Base Fog and for the Base Fog Pan you can drag it here to put it in the Base Fog category and let's mimic the default values that we had in the material instance again so 0.03 0.03 and minus 0.001 compile and Save add another variable called Base Fog Contrast this is a float and another one called Base Fog Intensity which is also float compile and Save and contrast the default value is 3.9 and intensity 0.7 and let's put them both in the base fog category compile and Save next up is color let's add a new variable called Fog Top Color this one will be a Vector and let's add a new one called Fog Color and finally Fog Shadow Color so 3 vectors add another one called color  gradient bias which is a float add yet another one called emissive amount which is also a float so for fog top color let's make a new category called color and let's move all these ones into color compile and Save for the fog top color uh actually I've made a mistake  let's change the color variables  linear color instead of vector so click on where it says vector  and search for linear color click on linear color and let's do the same for Fog Color as well as Fog Shadow Color click compile and for the fog top color let's make the default color a light blue and for the fog color let's make the default White and for the fog Shadow color let's leave it at black compile and save for the color gradient bias let's set the default to minus 0.3 for the emissive amount let's set the default value to 0.1 compile and Save for the curl noise let's add  a new variable called Curl Pan which needs to be a vector and let's add another variable called Curl Scale which needs to be a float click compile and for the curl pan let's set the default values 3, 3, 1 and for the curl scale let's set it to 0.15 and in the curl pan let's make a new category called Curl Noise and let's drag the curl  scale into the same category now for the detail fog let's add a new variable called Detail Fog Tiling which is a vector add Detail Fog Pan, add Detail Fog Contrast add Detail Fog Intensity set the tiling and pan to vectors and let's make a new category called  Detail Fog and move all  these into the new category click compile and for the detail fog tiling let's set the default values to 444 and for the detail fog pan let's set the values 0.01 0.02 minus 0.001 for the detail fog contrast we'll set it to 4.3 and for the detail fog  intensity we'll set it to 0.4  compile and save okay almost there for the distance let's add a  new variable called Distance which needs to be a float and add another variable called Edge Hardness which is also a float and click compile and save and let's   make a new category called Distance Fields set the default value to 1500  and for the Edge Hardness  let's set it to distance fields as well and let's set the default value to 0.01 compile and Save so that's all my material parameters added as variables in the blueprint oh I actually forgot we need to add our enum as a variable as well so add a new variable let's name it fog types and in the variable type we need to search for the name of our enum which was Enum_VF_Mat so click on this so we have a new variable  which the type is set to the  enum that we created before double click to open the enum I'm just gonna update the description let's write types of different volume fog materials finally in our construction script right click and search for switch on enum VF mat you can see our enum list is made into a switch let's drag the fog types variable here and click on Get Fog Types and  connect it to the selection and connect the execution pin let's drag a pin out of the base fog and search for set material and click on set material static mesh so every time a switch happens a  different material is set  according to the different enum so in the content browser select the M_VF01_Base and under material click on this arrow in the node to insert it into the set material node we're going to do the same thing  for the other materials as well so out of the emissive fog  set material static mesh and in the content browser select the emissive and slot it into the second set material node and let's just duplicate this one plug it into the curly fog and for the third one let's  select the M_VF03_Curly let's duplicate this one more time  and plug it into the final pin and make it M_VF04_CurlyEmissive so let's go back to our material instance and look at which parameters belong to which enums so for the second enum which is the emissive fog  we have just the one scalar  which is the emissive amount and for the curl we just  have curl pan and curl scale and for the curly emissive  obviously we have the two  combined so three different parameters so let's set those in our  construction script to begin with so drag a pin out of the set  material node of the emissive fog and search for set scalar parameter  value on materials static mesh and in the variables list let's drag  the emissive amount and click on get  and plug it into the parameter value and for the parameter name we're going to copy the same name from the material parameter which is emissive amount so it's really important you don't  make any spelling mistakes here  for this to work properly so for the curl pan because it's a vector we're going to search for set vector  parameter value on materials static mesh and let's drag the curl pan  variable and click on get curl pan  and connect it to the parameter value and same thing enter the  parameter name as curl pan now we need another set scalar parameter  value on materials static mesh node um I'm not going to say the full name from now on so set scalar node and  connect it to the third tree  and let's drag the curl scale and click on get and connect it to the parameter value and set the name as curl scale and for the fourth material and tree I'm going to select these nodes and duplicate them down here and I'll just connect  them to the execution pin I'm just gonna do some tidying up I'm gonna select the second tree press C to comment and name this Emissive Fog and for the third one press C and name it Curly Fog and for the fourth one press  C and Curly Emissive Fog if you haven't fell asleep yet  you'll notice that we still have  a lot of variables left to set up to keep the main graph clean  I'm going to make a separate  function for the base fog variables so in our functions window click on the plus sign and let's name the new  function Base Fog Parameters in our base fog parameters function window  let's right click and search  for a set scalar node   right click again and search for a set Vector node so basically we need a lot of these two nodes from our variables list let's drag  the Fog Overall Density click on get  and let's duplicate a scalar node and plug it into the execution pin and plug this into the parameter value and set the parameter name as Fog Overall Density without any mistakes and let's do the same for Fog Edge Roundness I'm just going to duplicate this and drag Fog Edge Roundness click on get connect it to the parameter value and enter the parameter name as Fog Edge Roundness drag the base Fog tiling variable click get let's make a separate column  for our vector parameters duplicate this one and connect  it to the parameter value  and enter the name as Base Fog Tiling I'm going to duplicate the  set Vector node one more time I'm going to get the Base Fog Pan variable connect it to the parameter value and enter the name as Base Fog Pan let's get the Base Fog Contrast and copy the scalar node and set the name as Base Fog Contrast and connect it to the parameter value let's get the Base Fog Intensity copy the scalar node and connect it to the parameter value and enter the name as Base Fog Intensity for the Fog Top Color  let's get the Fog Top Color  and copy a set vector node and enter the name as Fog Top Color  and if you connect a linear color  variable to a vector parameter value it will automatically use a  translator node to connect let's get the Fog Color so same story duplicate set vector node let's set the parameter name as Fog Color and connect the variable like so let's grab the Fog Shadow Color get Fog Shadow Color and duplicate these and name it Fog Shadow Color and connect it up like the others okay not long to go, let's keep going let's get Color Gradient Bias duplicate the node connect and name Color Gradient Bias let's get Detail Fog Tiling duplicate the nodes name it Detail Fog Tiling and connect to the parameter value and let's get Detail Fog Pan same thing duplicate connect and rename Detail Fog Pan let's get Detail Fog Contrast duplicate rename Detail Fog Contrast and connect the parameter and let's get Detail Fog Intensity duplicate connect and rename to Detail Fog Intensity wake up almost there let's get Distance, duplicate connect and rename to Distance get Edge Hardness, duplicate connect and rename to Edge Hardness compile and Save and now we need to connect all the execution pins like this so it doesn't really matter which order just make sure all the nodes are connected somehow I'm just doing it in a way that looks tidy to me so I've connected all the pins just double checking everything is connected let's compile and Save and let's go back to our construction script so from our functions window I'm going to drag Base Fog Parameters function and let's connect it like so I'm going to grab these nodes, press C to comment and name it Base Fog and also because of how I planned this blueprint  we need to add the same function to  the end of the other trees as well so I'm going to drag the same function  and connect it to the second tree drag it again and connect it to the third tree and finally drag it on again and  connect it to the fourth tree we're almost done let's compile and Save so back in our level let's delete this cube and in the content browser from our VolumeFog_Tutorial folder let's drag the BP_VolumeFog into our level you can see that the fog is working but we can't see any  parameters in the details panel so in the content browser,  let's open up our BP again and in the variables tab we can make all these variables public by clicking on these eye icons click compile and save let's go back to our level so when you select our BP_VolumeFog  you can see in the details panel  you can choose the fog types and you can control all the parameters  of the material from this window I'm just double checking that  everything is working as intended finally there is a console  variable that you can use  to increase the quality of the fog so press the tilde key ~ ` type r.Volumemetricfog.Gridpixelsize and if you go space and question mark and you can see what it is set to now which is the default so grid pixel size at eight this is the default so let's change it so volumetric fog grid pixel size, space and 4 and not sure if you can see in the video but it definitely improves the quality of the fog especially around the edges however this does take a big performance hit so use it sparingly also don't set this value lower than four it will probably crash your machine okay one last thing I keep forgetting to do let's open our blueprint back up in the components tab select the static mesh and in the details panel search for collision set the Collision preset to No Collision compile and Save This fog surprisingly wasn't as  costly as I thought it would be but of course I'm no optimization expert fog is usually quite expensive to render because it means a lot of pixels have to  be constantly updated based  on a lot of different factors one thing to note is that I couldn't  get the fog to self-shadow properly I'm using the fog Shadow color as a  half-assed attempt at the fog Shadow  but it's nowhere near the look I was thinking of if anyone knows more about  making volume fog self Shadow  please do let me know I'll be forever grateful I hope this tutorial was useful for you I'd love to see how you guys use it in your work please tag me if you upload something and finally repeat after me fog makes everything look better

Channel: FLIPSIDE 3D

Views: 7,256

Keywords: Unreal Engine, UE5, nanite, unreal engine tutorial, learn unreal engine, unreal engine guide, flipside, sammi kim, flipside 3D, procedural, UE5.2, Unreal Engine 5.2, Unreal Engine Procedural, PCG Tools, PCG, Flipside3D, volume fog unreal engine, fog unreal engine, unreal engine fog, UE fog, Volume fog, fog, Volumetric fog unreal engine, volume textures, VOTA fog, paintable fog, local fog, local volume fog, local volumetric fog unreal engine

Id: pYLhnsRvHR4

Length: 63min 56sec (3836 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 02 2023