Michael Simard’s Calysto World 2.0, a free update for Massive World owners, revolutionizes Unreal Engine 5 environments with a PCG GPU-powered grass system, offering unparalleled performance and granular control for stunning, highly detailed landscapes.
Get ready, Unreal Engine 5 developers and environment artists! The highly anticipated Calysto World 2.0 update, developed by the talented Michael Simard, is set to redefine how you create vast, detailed landscapes. This isn’t just an incremental improvement; it’s a massive, free update for all existing Massive World owners, promising significant performance gains and an unprecedented level of control over your virtual worlds.
Michael Simard introduces Calysto World 2.0 as a leap forward, particularly highlighting a new grass system inspired by the cutting-edge work seen in games like Witcher 4. This system leverages Unreal Engine 5’s powerful Procedural Content Generation (PCG) GPU capabilities, adapted specifically for the Calysto world with a robust biome system. The creator emphasizes the “insane” performance boost, showcasing up to four times the FPS compared to traditional landscape grass, even with incredibly high densities and far-reaching vegetation.
Calysto World 2.0 showcase for Unreal Engine 5 with PCG. by Michael Simard
Unleashing Granular Control with PCG GPU
One of the most exciting aspects of Calysto World 2.0 is the level of user control it provides. The video demonstrates how artists can meticulously manage vegetation spawning, adjusting generation distance and density directly within the PCG settings. This flexibility extends to global detail settings or biome-specific details that seamlessly support landscape layers. Michael explains a new database system, reminiscent of Photoshop layers, which intelligently prioritizes spawning to prevent overlapping and optimize performance by avoiding unnecessary overdraw. This thoughtful approach ensures your environments look pristine without sacrificing precious frames.
Streamlined Workflow for Artists
Michael Simard has clearly focused on improving the artist’s workflow. The video showcases the ability to drag and drop multiple meshes simultaneously, drastically speeding up the asset placement process compared to adding them one by one. Settings are now applied per category (e.g., rocks near water level), reducing repetitive configuration. Distribution is further refined with noise control, allowing for uniform or clustered placement with adjustable thresholds and values. A particularly neat feature is the “cluster scale influence”, where larger plants appear at the center of noise patterns, gradually decreasing in size towards the edges, adding a natural organic feel. The system even supports attaching blueprints, enabling dynamic elements like butterflies to spawn around flower patches, bringing your scenes to life.
Intelligent Detection and Attached Details
The enhancements in Calysto World 2.0 extend to intelligent detection capabilities. The system can now recognize roads and objects within your world. Using a clever tag system, you can define areas, such as “no detail landscape” for a given radius, to automatically clear vegetation around objects like buildings or roads. This is invaluable for maintaining clean architectural lines and functional pathways. Furthermore, details can be attached directly to objects in the scene or within biomes themselves – imagine mushrooms realistically spawning on tree trunks. This is achieved via mesh painting, where color codes dictate where specific elements should spawn. The new database for attached details provides granular control over weight, min/max height (relative to the object), scale, maximum angle (perfect for downward-growing vines), color filters, and a world-space noise mask for horizontal and vertical variations.
Revamped Biome System for Limitless Worlds
The biome system has received a significant overhaul, offering unprecedented flexibility. The tutorial highlights that there are now an unlimited number of levels, moving far beyond the previous ocean, land, and mountain structure. A convenient toggle for details is available within the tool to save performance during development, a thoughtful addition for larger projects. Similar to general content, multiple meshes can be drag-and-dropped into biomes. Biomes maintain a priority system, with index zero having priority over subsequent indices, influencing the spawning order and placement of elements like rocks and trees. Control over transformation lookup ensures objects like trees always orient upwards, disregarding slope. The min and max height settings precisely define spawning zones, whether you want vegetation near water or high in the mountains. The cluster system, including a bounding box multiplicator, is used to optimize object placement. For instance, reducing a tree’s effective bounding box to its trunk (e.g., 0.2-0.4) allows more trees to spawn closer together by taking less “space” than their full branch span. An “add detail” button enables the attached detail system for specific biome elements, rounding out a truly comprehensive toolset.
Experience the Performance Boost
The video concludes with a compelling live demonstration of the performance gain. The tutorial shows Calysto World 2.0 achieving approximately 50 FPS while recording, compared to a mere 15 FPS with the older landscape grass system, all while showcasing superior density at far distances. This performance improvement is critical for creating expansive, highly detailed open worlds in Unreal Engine 5 without compromising frame rates.
Michael Simard’s dedication to enhancing the Unreal Engine ecosystem is evident in this update. For those looking to elevate their environment creation, Calysto World 2.0 is an essential tool. You can get Massive World now and prepare for this free update by visiting the product page: Massive World on Fab.com. Don’t forget to join the community on Discord for updates and support: Calysto World Discord.
Source:
Michael Simard – Calysto World 2.0 showcase for Unreal Engine 5 with PCG.
