Environment Panel

Overview

The Environment Panel gives you several basic environment options for your level setup, such as wind, ocean and sky.

These options are static, meaning they can't be customized in-game via Flow Graph or the like.

Used in conjunction with the Time Of Day tool, you can create pretty much any type of environment you can think of!

Environment Parameters Tab

Parameter

Description

Fog

ViewDistance

The global viewdistance in meters can be adjusted here. Make sure its far away to avoid clipping errors.

This should never be set below 1000 as various graphical issues may result.

ViewDistanceLowSpec

Deprecated

LDRGlobalDensMult

Deprecated

Terrain

DetailLayersViewDisRatio

The terrain detail texture rendering distance ratio can be adjusted here, useful for altering the view distance for the textures on far away mountains.
With default settings, a value of 1.0 should roughly translate to a 500m distance. Parameters such as field of view and screen resolution affect this distance, so be sure to re-check this value if you change them.

Envstate

WindVector

Adjusts the global wind vector. Positive y values means how fast wind moves to north, negative y south, positive x east, negative x west).

BreezeGeneration

Enable Breeze Generator system. See values below for more explanation.

BreezeStrength

Control the strength of the breeze that is generated.

BreezeMovementSpeed

Control the movement speed of the breeze. Works in conjunction with BreezeStrength. You can create rapid gusts of wind, but which only gently move the vegetation.

BreezeVariation

Vary the breezes that are generated, their speed, size, strength, etc.

BreezeLifeTime

How long each generated breeze should live for. '1' will make a new breeze generate every second. '10' every 10 seconds, etc.

BreezeCount

How many breezes should be generated at one time.

BreezeSpawnRadius

From the location of the player, define the radius where breezes should be allowed to traverse. Smaller numbers will see more centralized breezes pass the player, larger numbers will vary the passes.

BreezeSpread

High spread values will allow the breezes to travel in more varied directions around the player.

BreezeRadius

Size of the generated breeze.

BreezeAwakeThreshold

Breeze generator proxies will 'wake' sleeping physicalized objects.

ConsoleMergedMeshesPool

Configure memory pool size per-level, in order to easily decrease memory footprint on levels which don't need large pool size.

ShowTerrainSurface

Enables/Disables the terrain heightmap.

SunShadowsMinSpec

Specify the minimum system spec that should start casting sun shadows.

SunShadowsAdditionalCascadeMinSpec

Specifies the minimum system spec that allows the rendering of an additional sun shadow map cascade, for higher shadow view distance.

SunShadowsClipPlaneRange

SunShadowsClipPlaneRangeShift

UseLayersActivation

This allows objects and entities to be turned on and off using the layers system and the layer activation flownode.

SunLinkedToTOD

If you decouple the sun from the TOD, then you have full control over the sun's position (Lighting Tool) and your lighting settings (Time of Day).

VolFogShadows

Enable

Enable volumetric fog shadows from global fog. See below for comparison screens.

EnableForClouds

Enable volumetric fog shadows from cloud shadow texture (see next section).

CloudShadows

See Cloud Shadows for more information.

CloudShadowTexture

Specifies which global shadow texture is cast on the entire level.

CloudShadowSpeed

Specifies a speed at which the cloud shadows move.

CloudShadowTiling

Tiling multiplier of the shadow texture.

CloudShadowBrightness

Control the brightness of the cloud shadows.

CloudShadowInvert

Invert the cloud shadow texture.

ParticleLighting

AmbientMul

Adjust lighting values for particles, useful if you change your environment lighting and find your particles are too bright/dark.

LightsMul

Adjust lighting values for particles, useful if you change your environment lighting and find your particles are too bright/dark.

SkyBox

Material

The default material found in: materials/sky/sky should be used here. This contains the shader for the dynamic time of day skybox.

MaterialLowSpec

DEPRECATED (e_SkyType=0 will allow separate use of LowSpec skybox, but this is set to '1' by default in all configs).

Angle

Rotates the skybox around this angle.

Stretching

Stretches the skybox texture, so that the seam at the horizon is less noticeable.

Ocean

Material

Assign a material to use for ocean. If no material is assigned then no ocean will be rendered.

CausticDepth

The depth in meters that caustics will be visible for in the water.

CausticIntensity

Multiplier to apply to caustics highlights.

CausticsTiling

Caustics pattern tilling multiplier.

OceanAnimation

WindDirection

Changes the direction to which the waves are traveling. Valid values are 1, 2, 3 and 4, each being rotated by 90 degrees from the last.

WindSpeed

Sets up the speed at which the wind affecting the waves is blowing.

WaveSpeed

DEPRECATED

WaveAmount

Adjusts the amount of waves.

  • Smaller values, means less waves, hence bigger range waves (good for deep ocean).
  • Bigger values, means more waves hence more smaller waves.

WaveSize

Changes how high the waves are in meters by applying vertex displacement.

Moon

Latitude

Changes the latitude of the moon position.

Longitude

Changes the longitude of the moon position.

Size

Adjusts the size of the moon image. The number is used as a ratio for the original size, '1' being full size.

Texture

Changes the texture used for the moon.

DynTexSource

Width

Allows per-level override for the size of shared render target for Flash materials.

Height

Allows per-level override for the size of shared render target for Flash materials.

Total Illumination

Active

See Voxel-Based Global Illumination for more information.

Examples

VolFogShadows = EnabledVolFogShadows = Disabled
Sun Linked = FalseSun Linked = True
Breeze Generator (with Show Proxy enabled)