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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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    Joe Garth instructor

    usually you would need to make an extremely large mountain/altitude for that to happen. Could you send a screenshot, it might help me understand the issue
    Cheers
    Joe

    Robert Randle

    Great course! This is fun. But it seems when I make a landscape in a higher resolution such as 2041x2041 layer textures like Forest and Grass appear much smaller and are flat, like a photograph mapped to the landscape. At lower resolutions everything appears normal. What am I doing wrong?

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    Anton Brousseau

    Hello Joe,

    Great Course! Really enjoying UE4 and its insane power. Also the way you are teaching is very structured and understandable. I just have a question about migrating landscape biome brushes from one project to another. I have created custom landscape material brushes using your insane node tree. Now I want to import these materials and textures into another project and replace the MI_Landscape in another project with my custom additions. How would I go about doing this? I tried migrating the content, but it doesn't update this node tree.

    Christian Kugler

    When you are sculpting how do you turn off the yellow landscape selection outline. I noticed in the demonstration it does not have it on.
    Another question i have when i am zooming in there is a shadow over the bottom part of the screen the closer I get. Any ideas how to fix this? The shadow moves as if the camera is casting the shadow its very strange behavior.

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