Creating Stunning Environments in UE5 A Game Artist Bootcamp

Duration: 10:21:12 | .MP4 1280×720, 30 fps(r) | AAC, 44100 Hz, 2ch | 9.7 GB

What you’ll learn
• Completing an introduction to Unreal Engine 5 (UE5)
• Developing skills in prefab collections, interactable doors and floating collectables with UI messages
• Setting up studio lighting, night scenes, and night/day cycles with UE5 built-in tools
• Learning to import and setup assets with PBR textures and seamless materials
• Understanding vertex painting, physics-based object scattering, and distance field blending
• Learning how to make use of the foliage tool to create an organic composition out of our scene
• Learning how to make use of the foliage tool to create an organic composition out of our scene
• Utilising UE5’s foliage tool for vegetation and natural environments with Quixel’s mixer library
• Creating a landscape material that allows you to automatically texture out the terrain and add custom details to it
• Creating mountains using height texture map data with generated textures based on their texture
• Sculpting terrain using height data, and implementing fog using depth-masked planes and volumetric materials
• Adding motion to materials, and learning all about the Niagara fire systems
• Learning how to do colour grading to take your work to the next level
• Learning how to use HDRIs as 3D model backgrounds for your portfolio
• Mastering camera turntables, handheld close-up shots, and camera transition shots
Requirements
• To own a computer (Microsoft, Linux or Mac)
• To have downloaded Unreal Engine 5.1+
• To download all course resources including a download pack
Description
Are you a game designer looking to create a truly immersive and breathtaking environment for your next project?
Introduction

1. Dynamic Lighting: Set up studio lighting, night scenes, and night/day cycles with UE5 built-in tools;
2. Cinematic Camera: master camera turntables, handheld close-up shots, and camera transition shots;
3. UE5 Blueprint Fundamentals: develop skills in prefab collections, interactable doors and floating collectables with UI messages;
4. Comprehensive Asset Setup: learn to import and setup assets with PBR textures and seamless materials;
5. Asset Blending: master vertex painting, physics-based object scattering, and distance field blending;
6. Large Terrain Creations: sculpt using height data, and implement fog using depth-masked planes and volumetric materials;
7. Foliage Creation: utilise the foliage tool for vegetation and natural environments with Quixel’s mixer library;
Your project will be to experiment with the 10 different Unreal Engine 5 bootcamp projects following our course lessons. From learning how to set up cinematic cameras in Unreal Engine 5 (UE5), to creating blueprints, setting up and blending assets, and creating terrain, this course comes with a project for everyone. Of course, you could set yourself a challenge and diversify aspects or details of each project such as using assets you already have from your other projects. You could change their length or complexity to make your UE5 environments more alive as your skills increase.

Course Overview

Are you ready to take your game design skills to the next level?
– Importing Assets
o Adding FBX meshes onto Unreal Engine 5 (chair, table barrel, bucket)
– Setting up PBR Texture
o Creating material shader for a basic PBR texture setup
– Seamless texture setup
o Creating an adjustable material for seamless textures that allow you to control texture scale and colour
o Setting up wood, metallic and water materials, including transparency setup

– Vertex Paint Material Setup
o Creating a vertex-based blend material that allows you to paint moss onto castle walls
– Physics-based object scattering
o Setting up collisions, enable physics onto objects and scatter them whilst simulating the scene, then save out location of the scattered rocks
– Setup Distance Field Material Blend
o Creating an opacity mask-based blending material which allows you to blend in textures of rock with the landscape using a dithering effect

– Sculpting Landscape
– Creating Landscape Material
o Making an attribute-based landscape material to texture the terrain based on weight painted data and height map blending
– Texturing Terrain
o Learning to blend in terrain textures with height blended weight data for landscapes

– Height Fog Use
o Using the exponential height fog tool to create depth to the mountains based on their distance from the camera
– Create Fog Plane Material
o Creating a material for a plane that makes controllable fog planes with custom depth masking and camera distance-based opacity
– Volumetric Fog Setup
– Using Foliage Tool to Setup Grass
o Using Quixel’s mixer library to add grass and shrubs using the foliage tool and learning how to use its preset material instance to tweak the colours
– Placing Larger Foliage Assets
o Learning how to grab free Quixel tree assets from UE5 marketplace, how to set up wind system actor for them, and how to control season colour changes on trees
– Painting Large Areas Using the Foliage Tool
o Painting out a preset environment with clusters of foliage, and making the best use of the foliage toolkit by tweaking its values to place it around our nature scene

Special effects can take your environment to the next level and add an extra layer of immersion for players. You’ll learn how to create smoke, fire, and water animations to create a realistic and dynamic environment that feels like it’s alive and breathing.
– Animating Water Material
o Learning how to add animation directly onto water material for it to have constant panning motion and ripple distortion

· Studio Lighting
o Setting up a Skybox with a 3-point light system to get a controlled lighting environment within the scene
· Night Scene
o Using UE5’s built-in environment lighting tab in combination with post-process effects to create night scene lighting
· Night/Day Cycle
o Using UE5’s built-in Sun Position Calculator plugin to get accurate sun positioning
o Creating motion for the sun by tweaking its blueprint system
o Adding a star-lit sky which is only visible at night by making full use of automatic exposure which simulates brightness adjustments like your eye would have

· Camera turntable
o Setting up a camera attached to an object which rotates around a Viking boat using level sequencer animation
· Handheld close-up Shots
o Creating a camera shake motion from a blueprint template that randomizes the rotation of a camera to simulate shaking
· Camera Transition Shots
o Learning how to set up controls for post-processes and camera control in UE5’s level sequencer to create transitions between camera shots (blackout and blur out)

Adding life to your environment can make it feel more dynamic and immersive. You’ll learn how to add motion to foliage, create buzzing bee clusters, and animate flying birds to create a natural and dynamic environment that feels like it’s teeming with life.
· Foliage Motion
o Using UE5’s wind node to create motion to the leaves
· Bees using Niagara
· Birds Flying
o Learning how to import a rigged bird character with animation and setting it up in UE5 to fly across the air

I am excited for you to share your UE5 environments for your portfolios with me. Go beyond the taught material and make your buzzing bee cluster simulations grander by modelling them and adding animation cycles to them using software, such as Blender.
· Creating Asset Prefab Collection
o Setting up mesh tiles as a blueprint and as a collection of items to be able to place them in a map that can be then real-time adjusted all at once
· Interactable Door
o Changing UE5’s game mode to a first-person perspective. Creating a door using blueprint coding that allows you to open it using an interactable button
· Floating Collectable Objects
o Creating floating and rotating animation using blueprint timelines. Creating text UI for a custom message to appear whenever a user ‘picks up’ an object

Course Structure and Delivery

Who Should Take This Course?

– Game designers who want to take their skills to the next level and create more immersive environments.
– Students who are interested in game design or 3D modeling and want to learn more about creating environments in Unreal Engine 5.
– Anyone who wants to learn how to create stunning and immersive environments in Unreal Engine 5.

Summing it all up

Until next time, happy modelling everyone!Neil – 3D Tudor

Who this course is for:
– Game designers who want to take their skills to the next level and create more immersive environments
– Students who are interested in game design or 3D modeling and want to learn more about creating environments in Unreal Engine 5
– Anyone who wants to learn how to create stunning and immersive environments in Unreal Engine 5