Tessellation and Displacement - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 41

In this shader tutorial, I show you how to use tessellation and displacement to create incredibly detailed meshes without paying for high polygon counts. I show how to adjust the tessellation so you get triangles right where you need them and remove them where they're not needed.

Here's last week's video on creating the specular highlights for a toon shader:

Here's the playlist for the whole series:

Learn more!

Shader Book Recommendations
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Theme Music
Peace in the Circuitry - Glitch Hop

Background Music
Speo - The Little Things

#UnrealEngine #shadergraph #Unity

[ShatabdaRoy]

dude, u dont know how much these kinds of detailed long explaining video helps indie game devs like me I LOVE YOU!

[CEOHankScorpio]

For others who are curious: my understanding as to "why" tesselation in UE5 conflicts with Nanite, is that Nanite requires a deterministic topology to work. I.e. the triangles need to stay in consistent and predictable positions in order for Nanite to function.

Now, that by itself doesn't explain why Epic couldn't simply enable tesselation on non-Nanite meshes or otherwise provide you the option of picking one or the other, even if they are exclusive. But as others have suggested that there may be lighting optimizations in Lumen that are also problematic. Or it could be mostly marketing, they want their unique tech front and center.

It's a bummer for someone like me who would rather work in texture and shaders rather than in triangles. Yes in theory I could bake my tesselation into a very high poly mesh and "let Nanite handle it" but I like the iterative approach of shaders.

[derianfly]

Please keep pumping these out you have ZERO idea how much they help people diving in for the first time like me <3

[johncorbitt]

Thank you so much for your videos Ben. I religiously watch every one of them and have learned so much through your generosity.

[AndySt]

Thank you! I like the format and pace of this video. Step by step, very good to follow. There is nothing annoying in it, like most others tutors do(music, no zoom in on 4k, fast-forward, offscreen changes, to have to pause every second....)

[XOrdinary]

Awesome video! One step closer in my knowledge to tackle exaggerated (cartoon/anime style) tear drops rolling down a cheek to the chin line and being able to see them in profile!

[marshallross]

Excellent demo. Thanks for posting, and sharing your knowledge.

[isawedthedemons]

tip: instead of doing normalize(camera position - world position); there is a hard-coded node called "camera vector", which does the same thing. edit: In unreal.

[LegitMick]

Your topics never disappoint! You rock Ben :)

[madbrox]

At 11:50 you can reuse the multiply for the UV !
if you disconnect the multiply linked to the Tessellation Displacement (the one used to multiply the SampleTexture2D LOD and the normal Vector), we can connect the same multiply for the Texture and the Normal ^^
And then just reconnect the multiply :)

[TrissTrolls]

You could use the Shaded Wireframe in the viewport so you can see both. ( Can help visualize )

[Aliberation]

Awesome video! Thanks for that!

At 11:50 I believe it is possible to used a preview node to pass the same UV data to the fragment part of the shader, instead of copying all the nodes.

[marcusng]

I think from what I researched, Epic is planning to add World Position Offset support for Nanite in a future UE5 release, so a possible new workflow would be to subdivide the mesh, then add the displacement texture to the World Position Offset.

[twinjuke]

What is rather apparent to me is that this way the bumps do not cast self-shadows on the material. How can it be achieved? (specifically interested in the Unity version) Great video, just like all the others!

[JasonAdank]

Any chance you could go through the process of setting up displacement in UE5? I know its not as simple of this, but apparently its still doable.... and I just like your delivery style :) Cheers

[borisjake]

I wonder how that would work if faded to parallax mapping where the tessellation is absent, and I wonder how far you could push the tessellation to the edge then.

[kd]

There is an “workaround” in ue5 where you can apply your textures and displace the lowpoly model using built in modelling tools but obviously you commit to your asset by that. It is a great way to give for example megascans assets high poly detail and with nanite it is cheaper than realtime tessellation if im not mistaken

[vkum]

thank you. could you add a hair shader in your future list? personally i am looking for hair looking shader on low poly mesh.

[MarkOfArgyll]

Virtual Heightfield Mesh seems to be the thing for UE5, works with RVT's :)

[MaksBeks.]

Hello ! First, great video and thanks for all the great tutorials you make. I have a little question : When you use the dot product of the normal vector and the view direction, is there a difference with the fresnel effect node ? I thought the fresnel is already doing that so I asked myself if there is one more efficient than the other