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Natural Level Game Studio

Basic setup

This guide expands the Quick Start into the full step-by-step. It covers both an existing landscape and a brand-new one.

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”
  • Unreal Engine 5.6 or later.
  • APLM installed in your project (or in your engine’s Marketplace plugin folder).
  • A landscape, or the intent to create one.

Path A: existing landscape

Section titled “Path A: existing landscape”
  1. Open the level that contains your landscape.
  2. Click the landscape actor to select it.
  3. In the Details panel, find Landscape Material.
  4. Assign M_APLM (the master material) or one of the shipped Material Instances such as MI_MountainLandscapeMat.
  5. Wait for the material to compile. The landscape will swap to APLM’s surface.

That’s everything for the existing-landscape path. The automatic angle and height blending starts working immediately. If you want to paint biome layers on top, jump to Painting layers.

Path B: new landscape

Section titled “Path B: new landscape”
  1. Switch to Landscape Mode from the toolbar (or Shift+2).
  2. Open the New tab.
  3. Enable Edit Layers at the top of the panel.
  4. Assign M_APLM (or a Material Instance) to the Material slot.
  5. Confirm each layer info is bound to the matching layer:
    • Auto_LayerInfo to Auto
    • EraseGrass_LayerInfo to EraseGrass
    • Grass_LayerInfo to Grass
    • Mud_LayerInfo to Mud
    • Snow_LayerInfo to Snow
    • Cliff_LayerInfo to Cliff
    • Gravel_LayerInfo to Gravel
    • Beach_LayerInfo to Beach
    • One Biome*_LayerInfo per biome row (Tundra, Boreal Forest, Desert, and so on).
  6. Set landscape size if needed (defaults are fine for a test).
  7. Click Create New.

The landscape spawns with M_APLM already assigned. No further wiring required.

Painting layers

Section titled “Painting layers”
  1. With the landscape selected, switch to the Paint tab in Landscape Mode.
  2. Pick a brush type (circle, star, ring, or single-cell), set Brush Size and Brush Falloff.
  3. In the Layers list, click a layer to make it the paint target. Common choices:
    • Auto: paints with APLM’s automatic blending logic across the brush area.
    • A biome layer (BiomeTundra, BiomeDesert, and so on): forces that biome on the painted area.
    • A base layer (Grass, Cliff, Gravel): forces that base material.
  4. Paint. Combine layers freely.

Auto Layer is the fastest way to dress a level. The other layers are there when you want to override the automatic choice for a specific area.

What happens automatically

Section titled “What happens automatically”

Once M_APLM is assigned and Auto is painted, the material handles the following without input:

  • Cliff appears on steep slopes (driven by landscape normal).
  • Gravel appears as a noise-blended transition layer near cliffs.
  • Snow appears above the configured SnowHeight Z value.
  • Beach appears below the configured BeachHeight Z value.
  • Grass fills the rest of the unpainted area.

Tune the thresholds with the special parameters on the Material Instance.

Where to next

Section titled “Where to next”