This article has the steps needed to build a beautiful looking world using Unreal engine, using prebuilt assets (character model, trees, etc)
Setup Unreal Engine and download the assets you need Make the landscape Paint the ground Add trees and flowers Setup lighting by dropping in a nice sky Add some animals Drop in sounds
- new project using "3rd person" blueprint template, called "sanctuary" - ignore the start zone - go to File > New > New Level. Choose "Default" not empty level - name the level as "lvl_sanct" - select starting plate and delete it so there is nothing there - save the project and exit Unreal Engine - Start the Epic Games Launcher and add the following projects from Library to your project 'sanctuary'
Procedural Nature Pack Vol1 GoodSky Fantasy and Medieval Architecture ANIMAL VARIETY PACK
- Restart Unreal Engine and load the project "sanctuary" - when Unreal opens the project it shows the original sample level. In the Content Browser, double click "lvl_sanct" from the root of content to show the level
- click Landscape under top left MODES panel to bring up the green mesh in landscape creation (dont click create yet) - Pick a material for the landscape: Content Browser > Procedural Nature > search for grass_dirt_cobblestone THEN drag THIS to the LHS Panel landscape material - Click Create and after a second, you see a black screen (dont panic) The landscape is showing black because we chose a composite material (grass, dirt, cobblestone, puddles) and this step shows how to expose those layers for painting. - on the Modes panel, click Paint - you should see the target layers of the composite material - there should be 4 layers for this one: click + sign, assign to "weighted layer", save anywhere as default name - repeat for the remaining 3 years Wait, 5 minutes for compilers to shade - then PAINT EACH LAYER SEE Author youtube for procedural generation
In the animations / mesh subfolders of the projects you should be able to add trees, rocks You can also "paint" foliage like flowers and grass onto the land
go to foliage tool under landscape drag in a material like grass or leaves and drop in onto the foliage area left mouse click on your land to paint flowers You can adjust density and falloff of the paint tool
Lighting is tricky and there are many resources on how to do it. For this exercise, we will use an add-on that looks quite nice - Go to the Content browser and drag the BP_Goodsky icon from
Content > Goodsky > Blueprint
onto your sky in the main window (changes to night sky) - Play with settings of BP_GoodSky in RHS Details pane (Sky Effect, etc) Done - rebuild lighting and your world should look a lot nicer.
- go to your content browser and the Animals folder - in meshes, drag in an IDLE animation of an animal
When you add ambient sounds, first drag in an "Ambient Sound" from the All Classes in place mode on the LHS Panel Then, select the sound and pick a WAV file for it - you need to pick the Sound Cue, NOT the sound wave. To make the sound trigger, when player walks near it , you tick the Enable Volume Attenuation and then modify the parameters
Inner Radius = 1300 Falloff Distance = 1800 (or play with the parameters)
IMPORTING SOUNDS
1. download the sound you want (MP3/WAV), or record 2. Save to your project Content folder, reopen Unreal so it imports the asset 3. You need to make a Cue for the wav file and choose "Create Cue" (you can also use blueprints to make a cue [drag in output, drag in media player, link])
You will be able to have something looking like below after a few hours playing around
UE4 Materials Notes = https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Resources/ContentExamples/Materials/index.ht...