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    World Creation

    Lesson 2 in Unreal Environments

    Lesson Information

    In this lesson, you will build a new level in Unreal Engine. Utilizing various sculpting, set dressing and lighting techniques, your level will progress from a completely flat plane to a beautifully laid out vista. 

    Homework
    Lay the Groundwork

    Create a new level, with its own skydome and lighting. This will be the basis of your level going forward.

    Moving Mountains

    Duplicate the basic level you created earlier, and create a few different versions. In each, try experimenting with the various sculpting tools to create land formations. Pay attention to your landmasses, and make sure they aren't becoming unrealistic. When in doubt, consult your references.

    The Joy of Painting

    Paint some of the various environment layers into your scene. You can also try adding roads or water for an extra challenge. Don't worry too much about polishing or adding props to your scene. Now is the time for experimenting. 

    Make It Pretty

    Choose your favorite of the landscapes you created in earlier exercises, save a backup copy, and then dress the scene with props so it looks good from a single camera angle. 

    Full Immersion

    Add set dressing to your scene in all directions. Make sure to enter first-person mode and walk around your scene. Seeing things from human scale might expose new problems.

    Share Your Work

    Upload an image of your environment using the 'Upload Homework' button above, so your instructor and fellow students can see your progress!

    235 Comments

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    Yoshio Christie

    I hate to say it Joe, but I'm attempting to restart this with 4.26 and refamiliarize myself with your system and it's not going well.

    1. The sunlight is dim when working with the maple to get lighting set up. I read that turning off "cast shadows" on the skydome can help, but I'm wondering if this is the correct way to do it, and the lighting still looks weird - it doesn't light the whole landscape, just a small square where the tree is.

    2. When you say to set the override to first person then press play I end up under the landscape and I can't move. I've made many scenes in Unreal, including the first part of your course previously, and I have never encountered this problem before.

    Aaron Roller

    Hi Ivano, the Course includes tons of useful information, especially for lighting and compositing. In my opinion, it's amazing. It's well explained and the Knowledge we get here is way more worth then 165$. Yes i see your point with the advertisement, as i said, for this price it's totally fine. The Natural road upgrade costs 20$, and others at 40$. 250$ is still good price for this. I know what i'm talking about, comming from the vfx industry and bought a lot courses about vfx and games.

    Ivano Di Francesco

    Hi Aaron, well what I'm saying is that I (maybe we) paid 165$ for this course, and those are assets that were supposed to be included, but instead of buying a service to learn the software (with supplied assets) we bought an advertisment for some other assets that have to be bought as well.

    Gian Guido Ponzini

    For a certain perspective I totally agree... The brushify presence means that you need to buy the plugin and stick the workflow to it. I would have loved to have some insight about including Houdini heightmap or something like that. But on the other hand, this course gives so much usefull tips aside Brushify, for example about foliage LODs stuff that recently saved one of my project where I was stuck... I think it worth even outside Brushify workflow

    Xperimental

    solved, my mistake, sorry. Sculp was on flatten.

    Hi guys, anyone having issues with alpha brush? after importing I was unable to paint the terrain, increase tool strength and brush size but nothing's happening.

    Roy Fredy

    I must say that it has been the best course I have ever done, it is an easy method to use, with too good results. Thanks a lot to Joe for his feedback: D I'll keep practicing

    Danny Jauregui

    This tutorial is impossible. Very disappointed. Very few things are working like in the video. When I add the S_Skydome nothing happens. I change the scale like in the video and all it does is stretch it across the landscape. I don't see it in the sky like in the video

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