How to Create Realistic Landscapes in Unreal Engine

Edited 3 weeks ago by ExtremeHow Editorial Team

Unreal EngineGame Design3D ModelingGraphicsEnvironment DesignLevel DesignTexturesMaterialsTerrain

Unreal Engine is a popular game engine known for its incredible capabilities in creating stunning visual graphics for video games and simulations. One of the key features that attract artists and developers to Unreal Engine is its ability to render lifelike landscapes. In this guide, we will explore the step-by-step process of creating realistic landscapes in Unreal Engine, breaking it down so that even beginners can understand and apply these principles.

Understanding the basics

Before delving deeper into the technical aspects, it is necessary to understand the main concepts of landscape in Unreal Engine. Landscape in Unreal Engine is essentially a terrain model or a large surface that can be edited for hills, mountains, valleys, and other geological features. The landscape system provides a way to create large, open spaces with a high level of detail without compromising performance.

Set up your project

To start creating realistic landscapes, you first need to set up your Unreal Engine project. Follow these steps:

• Open Unreal Engine and create a new project.
• Select a template: It's advisable to choose a First Person or Third Person template, which provides you with some basic assets and scripts to test your environment.
• Name your project and choose where to save it.
• Make sure "With Starter Content" is selected. Starter Content includes useful materials and traps that can help during landscape construction.

Creation of the scenario

The Landscape tool is found in the toolbar at the top of the Unreal Engine editor. Here, you can sculpt and paint your landscape. Follow the steps below:

1. Access the Landscape tool: Click the "Modes" button in the upper left corner of the editor and switch to "Landscape."
2. Create a new landscape: In the Landscape Tools panel, you'll find options such as "Create" to create a new landscape. Adjust the settings for size and functionality to suit your needs. Key configurations include:
   • Component size: Higher values mean larger scenarios, but at the cost of performance.
   • Number of components: Control the length and width to fit your world scale.
3. Once the settings are configured, click "Create" to generate the landscape mesh.

Materializing the terrain

Sculpting means creating mountains, hills, valleys and other landforms. The sculpting process is important in creating the backbone of a realistic landscape:

1. Choose a sculpting tool: Inside the landscape tool, go to the "Sculpt" menu. There are various tools available to create the landscape, such as sculpt, smooth, flatten, and cut.
2. Use the brush: The brush settings can be adjusted for size, falloff, and strength. Size determines the area of effect, falloff determines the softness of the effect, and strength affects how strong the tool's effect is.
3. Layering the landscape: Focus on broad strokes first to create overall terrain features. Start with mountain ranges and large hills before moving on to more detailed features like river valleys and cliffs.

Painting the landscape

Painting a landscape involves applying textures to different parts of the terrain. This process makes the landscape look more natural by showing different surfaces such as grass, rocks, soil, and sand:

1. Set up landscape materials. To paint, you'll need to use landscape materials. The Unreal Engine uses a material editor where you can set up your textures. The primary components include:
   • Base Color: Determines the color of the surface.
   • Normal Map: Gives the texture a 3D effect by simulating bumps and grooves.
   • Roughness: This determines how shiny or matte a surface appears.
2. Apply materials: Inside the Landscape tool, use the "Paint" option to apply materials to different areas. Each texture should represent the actual terrain you envision (for example, apply rocky textures to mountain peaks, grassy textures to plains, etc.).

Refining with leaves

Foliage plants add life to your landscape through trees, plants, flowers and other vegetation. Adding foliage plants includes:

1. Using the Foliage Tool: This can be accessed by selecting "Modes" and choosing "Foliage."
2. Defining foliage types: Load models from the asset library for the foliage types you want to use (trees, shrubs, grass).
3. Painting on leaves: Adjust brush settings for density and size and paint on leaves on the landscape.

Adding sky and light

Lighting is very important for realism because it affects the mood and perception of the scene. Follow these steps to improve lighting:

1. Dynamic lighting: Choose between static, fixed or dynamic lights. Dynamic lighting creates realistic, moving shadow effects through moving lights.
2. Lighting setup: Use directional lights to mimic the sun. Change the light intensity, color, and direction depending on the desired time of day.
3. Atmospheric effects: Use Skysphere or other atmospheric effects to simulate shadows of the sky and environment.

Water features

Natural water bodies can enhance the reality of your landscape:

1. Create water bodies: Use the water body tools available in Unreal Engine to add lakes, rivers, and oceans.
2. Water Material: Use water materials with reflective properties to simulate realistic water surfaces.

Customizing the display

Realistic environments can be demanding on resources; optimization is key:

1. LOD settings: Adjust the level of detail (LOD) for objects and textures to reduce detail when objects are far from the camera.
2. Occlusion Culling: Enable occlusion culling to prevent the camera from rendering objects that are not visible.
3. Subdivision and Tessellation: Use tessellation sparingly, as it can have a huge impact on performance if used excessively.

Test and iterate

After setting up your landscape, test it by walking around the environment. Pay attention to performance and visual fidelity. Gather feedback if possible and iterate your work to improve the overall look and performance of the landscape.

Conclusion

Creating realistic landscapes in Unreal Engine involves a combination of art and science. By understanding and applying the principles outlined in this guide, you are well on your way to developing lifelike, real-world terrain in your projects. Landscapes are dynamic, and each element enhances the immersive experience of a game or simulation. Continue to explore, experiment, and refine your skills to create even more stunning and realistic environments.

  Share This Article

If you find anything wrong with the article content, you can request an update