How to Create a Short Fantasy Forest Scene Using Unreal Engine 5
Daniel Novillo spoke about the workflow behind the Fantasy Forest project, explaining how he was inspired by magical realism, describing the tools he used to scatter foliage, and detailing how he used lighting to achieve the magical and mystical atmosphere.
Introduction
Hello everyone! My name is Daniel Novillo and I currently work as a freelancer on various projects in the triple-A video game industry. I usually work as a Lighting Artist, but I also often work as a Cinematic Artist or Level Artist. For as long as I can remember, I've been interested in video games and films, as well as art in general (painting, music, etc.).
I studied at university and worked as a Technical Architect and Facility Manager for around 15 years, but my calling to pursue something even more artistic and related to the entertainment industry led me to leave it all behind to study Concept Art. Fortunately, I soon began working as a Concept Artist within the video game industry, but as I am always eager to keep learning and progressing, I never stopped studying and trained in the use of the Unreal Engine, which has enabled me to end up working in the different roles as I mentioned, as well as being fortunate enough to be responsible for setting up an entire videogame studio and working as a Studio Manager for a couple of years.
My main interest has always been lighting and composition, both for gameplay levels and cinematics. I feel very fortunate to have been able to collaborate on various projects in a range of seniority roles (I even had the honour of composing and recording much of the music for one of them), as they have taught me how the entire video game development process works, including its various departments and roles.
Among the companies I have worked for are Saber Interactive, Deck 13 Interactive GmbH, Ingame Studios, Galleon Studios, Glorian Games, etc., and I have been able to develop titles such as Crime Boss: Rockay City, Turok: Origins, Star Atlas, as well as a number of other projects and IPs that I cannot mention.
The Fantasy Forest Project
The project started as an exploration of "magical realism." I was inspired by some films and the moody atmosphere of dark fairy tales. My main goal was to see how far I could push the mix of procedural workflows (PCG) to create a dense, organic environment, but always having full control of the content and the composition of the piece.
I used a curated mood board of real-world ancient forests and dark fantasy references from games and movies to ensure the fantasy elements felt grounded in reality.
Scene & Environment
To create the scene in Unreal Engine 5.7, I used various assets I found in several packs from the Leartes Studios, which always offer high quality and a wide variety, making it easy to find exactly what you need and what works best for creating your scene and environment.
In this specific case, the assets I have used were carefully selected from the following packs that you can find in the Cosmos library from Leartes Studios or on Fab:
The first thing I did was create a base of mud and water on which to start placing the rest of the elements that would make up the scene.
That's when I use a time-saving trick using the Nwiro tool from Leartes Studios. Instead of manually placing every piece of foliage, I used Nwiro's PCG capabilities (which are integrated directly in the editor) to define rules for what foliage should be scattered with PCG splines to achieve the look for the Biome. This allowed me to iterate on the composition in seconds rather than hours, maintaining a completely non-destructive workflow.
Then I could remove or add certain foliage elements as different layers to compose the scene. You will always be using the assets that are loaded into your project and have full artistic control over the result, being able to add different PCG splines and move them throughout the scene and level. You can try the free Nwiro tool from Leartes Studios by clicking here.
Once I have the elements I want in the scene (adding the final ones by hand as some debris, etc.), I look for a camera shot that I like, and that defines the composition perfectly, with a clear distinction between the foreground, midground, and background.
I create a level sequence in Unreal Engine and set up the camera with the slow movement that I want, plus all the different settings for the aspect ratio (16:9), focal length (20), aperture (2.8), and squeeze factor (1.7). In this case, I chose to run the scene at 60 FPS instead of the 24 FPS I usually use.
Lighting and Rendering
The lighting was designed to create a magical and mystical atmosphere, whilst hinting at a touch of dark fantasy. To achieve this, I used the basic and main actors from the Environment Light Mixer within the Unreal Engine.
Once the exposure was set alongside my directional light, I configured both the sky atmosphere and the exponential height fog, as well as the skylight, which is set to real-time capture. In this case, I wanted to be as minimalist and simple as possible in my lighting setup, trying to avoid adding any additional lights and letting the main actors work with Lumen.
In all my work, lighting is one of the areas I pay the most attention to, because, as well as enjoying the process, I believe it is the difference between an ordinary scene and something that truly captures your attention, working in tandem with the composition to guide the viewer through all the elements and points of interest.
I worked on the Post Process Volume, carrying out a very basic initial colour grading and adjusting elements such as bloom, saturation, detail strength, sharpen, etc., and this time I also used a LUT. I'm not a big fan of using them, especially in gameplay lighting, where I always try to avoid them and use manual colour grading exclusively, as it is a common mistake that could result in inconsistent coloring on different displays and different color spaces and outputs but, in this case, I used a very subtle one to enhance the cinematic aspect of the scene a little.
Once I'd achieved the look I wanted, I began adding the finishing touches, such as using fog cards to clearly separate the different planes of the composition, and I also used the Ultra Volumetrics tool from BVG to add an extra layer of fog at the bottom and make it even more mystical.
I added a couple of VFX elements, such as falling leaves and flying insects, from the asset packs of Scans Factory:
As well as a slight camera shake effect, which always adds an extra layer of dynamism and realism to the scene.
In the end, as it was a short project and I wanted to create a piece quickly and smoothly, I decided not to render it and instead recorded my screen directly from the Unreal Engine editor.
I imported that recording into DaVinci Resolve, where I added some ambient sound and applied a final layer of color grading (particularly adjusting contrast or exposure in certain areas, reducing black points, etc.) to give it a more cinematic look, as well as adding the finishing touches to the bloom, halation and vignette effects, and even added a camera lens effect (Fujichrome Provia 100).
Conclusion
The project took just a morning to be created. The main challenge was to manage the use of different tools to set up the scene, while always having full control of the art direction. As a lesson, I could prove that procedural tools aren't just for "randomizing" – they can be for controlling complexity in a certain way and speeding up the iteration process.
I'm against the use of AI to create content that draws directly from existing sources or other artists (specially without any consent), but I am in favour of using tools that allow you to shorten deadlines in certain processes and let you iterate very fast (such as PCG tools or scattering tools), provided they give you complete freedom in their use and finalisation, allowing you to decide at every stage what the final result should be, and never using resources that do not belong to you or that you do not have lawful access to.
As advice to beginners, I would say to always embrace all the technical tools possible. They don't replace your artistic eye and just give you more time to focus on the creative decisions that actually matter. Also try to practice and test different workflows and ways to do something, as you will always be able to learn something new that will enable you to tackle new challenges and solve new problems, allowing you to grow as an artist and better define your ideal workflow and the areas where you feel most comfortable. Every company tends to use different working methods and tools, so the more you know and have experience with, the easier it will be for you to work and adapt.
