Unreal Engine vs. Real-Life: A Lifelike 3D Recreation of a Real Island

After a year of hard and, at times, "sporadic" work, 3D Artist and Animator Peter Monga has unveiled Little Barrier Island, an incredibly realistic 3D recreation of a section of the real-life Little Barrier Island (Te Hauturu-o-Toi) located northeast of Auckland, New Zealand.

According to the creator, this massive environment, designed for a work-in-progress animated series, depicts the southwestern face of the island. While some artistic liberties were taken during the process, such as the removal of human-made infrastructure, most of the digital island is nearly a 1:1 recreation of its original counterpart, down to the last minute details.

As for the software, the scene was set up in Unreal Engine 5 using Megascans assets and foliage created with SpeedTree, scattered with UE5's Procedural Content Generation (PCG) framework. To simulate the ocean, the artist utilized Krystian Komisarek's Fluid Flux add-on, with additional compositing tasks handled with DaVinci Resolve. Additionally, Peter employed the Ultra Dynamic Sky plug-in to set up the lighting.

And here's a great demo shared by the creator that compares the original Little Barrier Island to its CG version:

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