Google Earth Map Tiles Material to use with Ultra Dynamic Weather

Hello ,
I d like know if it would be possible to edit the material shader of the google earth tiles with ultra dynamic weather , so that I could add snow or water aka rain to the scene , not just in the air but really on the ground … so far I couldn’t find the material … any ideas? or maybe its just not possible … many thanks in advance … cheers Tom.

The material that Cesium for Unreal uses to render tiles is called MI_CesiumThreeOverlaysAndClipping and it’s found in the plugin’s Content/Materials/Instances folder. Whether that can be modified to render rain or snow? I don’t know. It’s not obvious to me how to do it, at least.

Hey Kevin, thank you! Yes I actually found that material but I m not sure how to edit this … can I just import it into my ue seesion? Maybe the video made by the developer Everett Gunther explains it a bit better what I d like to achieve. At 00:44 you ll see the end result and at 12:00 you ll see how he implements the material function … so I wonder if this would be possible with cesium material for the tiles. … Cheers Tom.

Just copy it and paste it into your project using the Content Browser / Content Drawer in the UE Editor.

Sorry I can’t take the time to watch that video to understand whether the technique could be applied to a Cesium3DTileset. I suggest you try it and let us know how it goes.

Alright -thank you - I ll give it a try and let you know …

Hey Kevin, the first try was very successful … I have to admit that I forgot to switch on Show Developer Content that’s why I couldn’t see/find the material in the first place - now its obvious of course :wink: … I modified the gltf function by adding the UDW function for snow effects and voila; now I have a couple of sliders to control the appearance of the snow … next step is to implement the UDW function to add snow over time and to find a way to control a slope/angle value … so far so good … I ll keep you posted*

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Hey Kevin, here are the results of my second try which was even more successful and actually the solution to my initial question. I did some research and figured that the snow function isn’t quite right and is also a legacy function now - there is a newer wet surface function - but the better solution is the dynamic landscape function directly in the base material. Now I can switch between all UDW presets and all adjustment sliders are working. I can also add snow over time which works in game mode and of course everything is keyframeable in the sequencer as well. To get the right lighting and shadow I can set the “Ignore KHR_materials_unlit” option via the cesium 3D tile actor and if I wanna have the Z vector respected (to have snow only shown on the ground and roofs etc) I have to set the “Generate Smooth Normals” option. For what I wanted to achieve I am very happy :wink:




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I am trying to achieve the same effect as you have shown in the pics however even after trying everything as you did above and also trying to play with mi_cesiumThreeOverlay material, i get no result.
Is there anything specific i am missing?

Hey, I could make a video if that helps but that would include the same steps :wink:

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hey mellowmesher. I tried once again by following your steps and it worked. Thanks for your contribution

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