Working on Declining Village in Unreal Engine 5

The Declining Village Project

For this project, I used hardware ray tracing mode and hardware ray tracing reflection, although Lumen and screen space reflection are also very good, However, in terms of AO and overall effect, the contrast is still poor (in the reflection of water, etc.) because it is not actual project research and development, so I chose the best art effect but the most expensive light pursuit mode and light pursuit reflection. 

I collected a large number of real-life and artwork references and sorted them out in PureRef. These references have their own advantages: some help with atmosphere, some with the route, some with details, and some with modeling. 

The goal of the overall project was a realistic and mysterious scene, some epic feeling, real but not boring so that players can feel a sense of story, plot, and background. (For example, maybe it's a war, virus, or an unknown force that caused an entire village to decline, no one knows, only the player is to explore the secret.) 

Modeling

The key model of the whole scene is the thatched house, which requires a model with great detail and accuracy to be competent. I think I saw a set of scene assets of medieval villages and a Medieval Game Environment published by Quixel Megascans several years ago.
 
I was generous using several thatched huts and adapting them to blend into my environment. 

Due to limited time, I did not customize special assets. I only used 3ds Max and the new Boolean function of Unreal Engine 5 to treat the broken furniture, cut the damage, and make it old, then projected it to box UV and entered the engine with seamless mapping and decal to quickly achieve the desired effect. Most of the materials are already there, and individual material accuracy needs are not enough, so I go to the Bridge library.

Animation

I increased the flying bird tour, scarecrow rags and those in front of the door fluttering, grass moving, and slowly floating clouds in the sky to enrich the dynamic effect of the whole picture, increasing the feeling of loneliness and decline. 

Composition

The number of fences in the scene is high to avoid the sense of repetition. There are two kinds of fences: one is more damaged, and the other is more complete; they can be used with each other. At the same time, some rags and vines are also there to break the whole scene to reduce repetition. 

The level I had in mind had a passing point (probably with a few small soldiers) to guide the player to the destination, so it was important to have route guidance, POI points, and maybe some NPCs to give some information next to the hut or some rest points. Route planning is enriched in accordance with the ups and downs of the terrain; it shouldn't be a big, flat road to Rome.

I used World Creator to make a fast terrain route and quickly imported it to UE5 to test the effect.

The original route was too monotonous and boring. In order to change the rhythm, I added several side roads and refined them respectively to emphasize the sense of rhythm and the sense of primary and secondary. For example, some roads may be relatively flat, wide, or bright to make the player feel safer (it's the main task), and some roads are relatively narrow, shaky, dark, and foggy so the player feels in danger (it's the side task); the purpose is to bring players a sense of immersion, improve their experience, while not making it boring. 

This part does not consider lighting and atmosphere, it piles up assets, quickly improves the completion of the scene, and lays the ground for subsequent work. 

Lighting

It is difficult to depict the loneliness, decline, and death of the thatched house and the heat baked by the sun. Generally speaking, the horror genre is dark, but it does not reflect the sunlight, so I set the sky environment as a sunny day, where some of the rays are blocked by the clouds, and some are exposed and shine on the thatched house, which solves this problem. It embodies both the decline of loneliness and the heat of the sun. At the same time, it also combines the two senses so that it is not boring and has a sense of rhythm. 

Terrain

In order to reflect the open field, the terrain should not be too high, so I put a distant mountain as the edge and added some decaying trees for decoration and some fog to the level to create a rich and lasting vision. The route is obscured by the fog when it leads to the middle of the scene and farther away, creating a mysterious feeling and increasing the player's options to explore. 

Camera

The first part of the video uses Hitchcock's shot; most of the shots are advanced, including overlooking, looking up, panoramic and local, which reflects the production effect of the scene level. The focal length setting is set to 12, I tried to find rich angles in close-ups as much as possible to reflect more picture layers and achieve a good effect.

Ground

There are many clouds in the sky, so it may have rained before, and there are some small puddles on the ground, most of which have been dried by the sun, so I added some puddles in the dark part, which can best show the Fresnel reflection. The sun has dried the bright parts, so most of them are covered with dry stones and grass. Villages are usually marked by cars, so I added some ruts and terrain to restore the traces of previous life. 

Story

I added a skull, a rope, some rags, dead trees, grass, broken scarecrows, furniture, carts, sacks, and other elements to the scene to enrich the story and make it resonate with the players. 

Technical Details

The fog was created with EasyFog, which is made by William Faucher, and it is very easy to use. The string was made using the ProInstance Tools Plugin from the UE Marketplace. The thatched roof is made with the bottom model as the base, and the thatch pieces are put together with some poles, stones, and vines.

Ghost New, 3D Environment Artist