I enabled the water plugin and restarted Unreal Engine to get this basic body of ocean and sculpted the general shape of the island as a start.
For reference of scale, I placed a mannequin down to determine the size of the island and added indentations in the cliff to start detailing.
All the textures will be adapted from Quixel Megascans (n.d) to make the environments more realistic, starting with the island landscape (GOUGED ROCK CLIFF, n.d; SCARCE GRASS DETAIL TEXTURE, n.d; SOIL DIRT, n.d; THAI RIPPLED SAND, n.d).
I wanted to try and attempt something new by applying some vertex painting to the textures (Epic Games, Inc, 2023; Scorpion Venom, 2021). Here is what the window looks like.
I’ve set the directory of the plugin to be located inside of the Engine’s directory.
Next, I wanted to experiment with how the materials would blend with the vertex blend material built into the plugin (Quixel, 2020).
I had tried to get something desirable to work, but the blend material would even not respond or break depending on the circumstances. In the end, I had settled on painting the textures manually. To do this, I have created a landscape material blend along with its instance and applied the latter to the landscape to change the values and then began painting the island to start bringing it to life.
I attempted to set up the texture displacement correctly by following through this setup (Poliigon Documentation, 2018).
I began the tundra landscape by mapping out the area of the tundra I would start at and sculpted the natural features like the hills and the river.
I’ve added a river that cuts through the landscape. I would go back to modifying the water later so that it doesn’t look basic.
I got started carving out the area around the river using the Flatten and Erosion landscaping tools to create the abrupt drop-out in relation to the land.
I’ve also expanded the river to make it flow across the environment by using the splines feature in the plugin. By doing this, I was able to create turns that wouldn’t be possible with its original shape.
I have gathered a few more textures (MOSSY ROCK CLIFF, n.d; MOSSY ROCKY GROUND, n.d; ROCKY GROUND, n.d; FRESH WINDSWEPT SNOW, n.d) and I’ve painted the landscape using various terrain tools to randomize the gradients, such as the snow for the mountain summits. I also had to scale the textures enough to make this happen (Taylor, 2017) .
References:
Epic Games, Inc (2023) Quixel Bridge. Available online: https://quixel.com/bridge [Accessed 25th January 2023]
FRESH WINDSWEPT SNOW (n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https://quixel.com/megascans/home?category=surface&category=snow&category=pure&search=snow&assetId=ugspafgdy [Accessed 9th March 2023]
GOUGED ROCK CLIFF (n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https://quixel.com/megascans/home?category=surface&category=rock&category=cliff&search=rock&assetId=vlcpcbc [Accessed 20th February 2023]
MOSSY ROCK CLIFF (n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https://quixel.com/megascans/home?category=surface&category=moss&category=rock&search=mossy&search=rock&assetId=vmbibbgg [Accessed 4th February 2023]
MOSSY ROCKY GROUND (n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https://quixel.com/megascans/home?category=surface&category=moss&category=rock&search=mossy&search=rock&assetId=vewmeehlw [Accessed 4th February 2023]
Poliigon Documentation (2018) Using Poliigon displacement textures in Unreal Engine 4 [Video] Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GkS9-94k80&t=385s [Accessed 25th January 2023]
Quixel Megascans (n.d) Available online: https://quixel.com/megascans/home [Accessed 18th December 2022]
ROCKY GROUND (n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https://quixel.com/megascans/home?category=surface&category=ground&search=rock&assetId=vjdqcba [Accessed 5th February 2023]
SCARCE GRASS DETAIL TEXTURE (n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https://quixel.com/megascans/home?category=surface&category=grass&category=patchy&search=grass&assetId=sexfecjf0 [Accessed 18th December 2022]
Scorpion Venom (2021) How to install Megascan Plugin for Unreal Engine 4 26 [Video] Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHWcv-9cpe8 [Accessed 23rd January 2023]
SOIL DIRT (n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https://quixel.com/megascans/collections?category=environment&category=natural&category=dry-grassland&assetId=pkcbq20 [Accessed 1st March 2023]
Taylor, M. (2017) Unreal Engine 4 – Quick! How To: Scale Materials [Video] Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXK1pdvBUAM&t=183s [Accessed 26th March 2023]
THAI RIPPLED SAND (n.d) [3D Material] Available online: https://quixel.com/megascans/collections?category=environment&category=natural&category=tropical-beach&type=surface&assetId=tjmndf1dy [Accessed 8th February 2023]