Haven
Based on the amazing concept art by Grady Frederick:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/q9nzrD
If you're interested here is a link to a looping version for a Wallpaper Engine desktop background:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3596530471
I used this project to once again push my capabilities as an environment artist working off of an already existing creative vision and expand my horizon on the tech art side of things. I tried to stick to the style of the concept art the best I could and filled in the gaps up close. The documentation mainly focuses on the material layer pipeline as this was by far the most complicated thing to wrap my head around this project. For the water I used Waterline Pro and its water stamps. The sky is made with Ultra Dynamic Sky. Water fog planes are from EasyFog. Bugs, air bubbles in the water and hanging dust are from EasyAtmos.
Thank you, Grady, for the inspiration!
UV setup in Blender
Shader graphs in UE5
Demonstration of material setup
Preparation of static mesh actors for virtual texture painting
Material layer painting
Height blending material layers
Using world aligned textures for model detailing
Interchangeabilty of virtual textures between mesh actor instances
Making use of second UV channel
Baked mask maps in Substance Painter
Blending material layers with baked mask maps and virtual textures
Looping version can be used as a Wallpaper Engine desktop background. Link is in project description.