UE Plugin

Elevation Map

In this page we will go through the steps to create an elevation map of the real world using COALA

Create ProjectTags for each Elevation Segment

To assign different colors to Cells based on their elevation, we need to create ProjectTags in the COALA Back-end for each elevation segment.

Insert a Height Node in the Nodes Graph and set it up as shown below. This will be the ProjectTag for the lowest elevation segment, which is any Cell with a maximum elevation of 5m. You can play around with the values and the DataType depending on your project's needs.

Next, connect the Height Node to the ProjectTag Result Node and type a name for the ProjectTag like in the picture below.

Click on Save and Return and then create additional ProjectTags for the rest of the height ranges you wish to include in your project.

Adjust the Weight of each ProjectTag

For the heightmap to work properly, you need correctly set the Weight of each ProjectTag. The ProjectTags for higher altitudes should have a higher Weight as in the picture below.

As always, to make sure your changes have been saved, increase the ProjectTag version in the Configuration tab.

Set up your UE4 project to display height.

Open the Papermap from our COALA map Plugin and set up you COALA API key.

In the World Outliner select the “BP_Coala_ChildMap2” object to reveal its Details.

In the Details tab scroll down to the Cell section and delete the 4 existing Render Config Cell entries.

Create a new Render Config Cell entry and add a new Gametag Name entry to it.

Enter the name of the first ProjectTag of the height segments in the Gametag Names entry, in this case 0m.

Create a new material (M_CellColor) with the following setup:

Create a material instance (MI_CellColor_0m) and change its color parameter to a light green.

Assign the MI_CellColor_0m material to the material slot of your Gametag's Material entry.

Create more Render Config Cell entries with Gametag Names for the other height segments and give them each a new material instance with different colors. For this example we went from green to yellow to orange to red.

When starting Play mode now, you should see a heightmap.

Tip: If you want to see more areas at once, increase the “Area Load Buffer” value in the BP_Coala_ChildMap2 object.

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