Mountain Village Environment

Tools Used

Unreal 4

Duration

12 hours

Overview

For this level layout I used a 3D model pack from the Unreal asset store to layout an outdoor area from one of my favorite MMO's WoW. I created a top down level layout, built up the terrain, created a multi-layered terrain material, painted the terrain, placed the props and did a lighting pass.

My main goal with this scene was to brush up on my skills in Unreal 4. I hadn't used a node based material editor for awhile, so setting up the material to paint the terrain with multiple textures took a bit of figuring out but in the end I was able to work my way through it and created a material with multiple layers for terrain painting.

I found that in my initial pass on lighting my shadows were a much too dark. After playing around with the different lights and light settings I found a good balance between soft shadows and a bright enough light to make it feel like an early morning scene.

Overall I feel like I accomplished my goal of creating a small outdoor environment that I can use as a starting point to develop a larger more fully realized world. 

Responsibilities

• Top down level layout
• Build up the terrain in UE4 terrain editor
• Create a multi-layered terrain material
• Paint the terrain
• Place props
• Lighting pass