Dusk

Dusk is my first realistic environment art project.

During its creation, I explored large-scale terrain generation using Gaea, as well as Landscape, Foliage, and Lighting techniques in Unreal Engine 5.3. Additionally, I incorporated assets from Quixel Megascans to enhance the realism and detailed textures of the scene.

Inspiration

I aimed to create a warm, cozy and vibrant basin scene, inspired by the soft atmosphere of the golden hour.

For visual inspiration, I studied the concept art by Bram Lepelaar and the environment artwork by Thémys Cheynel, using them as references for terrain design. To capture the lushness and vibrant colors of spring vegetation, I gathered some references from real-world environments.

Terrain

I created the basin terrain in Gaea. I explored various terrain nodes and geological features. Then I exported a height map and imported into UE5.

I also generated material masks based on geographic characteristics, then exported and imported them into UE5's Landscape system to precisely blend corresponding materials and achieve realistic results.

Landscape Materials

I created all landscape materials using textures from Quixel.

To reduce texture tiling, I combined two sets of grass textures in the grass material, blending them through noise to create variation. Other landscape materials were blended using masks generated in Gaea.

However, distant materials often appear unclear due to small scaling. To solve this, I implemented a distance-based material blend so that the same material uses different UV depending on pixel depth, ensuring clarity both up close and far away.

Foliage

I used Landscape Grass Type to create procedural foliage, also adding noise to increase randomness and realism.

To further enhance variety, I introduced color variations controlled by two scales: one based on individual plants, and the other on their area.

Lighting

To achieve the soft, golden-hour lighting effect, I set a low-angle directional light. However, this caused the opposite side of the basin to become too dark. Therefore, I added a second, softer directional light to subtly illuminate the shaded areas and water surfaces.

To emphasize the golden lighting across the entire scene, I adjusted the Rayleigh settings in Sky Atmosphere, giving the environment a warm, golden tint.

Lastly, I used Easy Fog to add layers of atmospheric fog, enhancing scene depth and mood, and adjusted post-processing settings to achieve the final desired visual effect.