Guiding Shrine (UE5)
When building this scene, my primary focus was on composition and establishing a strong sense of scale. I wanted to capture the feeling of standing at the edge of a cliff, looking out over a vast, explorable landscape—an experience that guided the entire design process. The goal was to create a visually pleasing environment using parameterized materials for easy customization, while achieving a hand-painted aesthetic with carefully chosen color palettes. These colors were selected not only for their harmony but also to soften visual complexity and maintain a clean, readable presentation. To support depth and player readability, I divided the environment into foreground, midground, and background layers, each with distinct design goals. This structure allowed me to craft an expansive terrain that felt navigable, cohesive, and stylistically consistent with my intended visual language.
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I am responsible for world building, terrain sculpting, materials, lighting, modeling, and visual effects.
Final Result (Has been edited)
This was the first test scene I created with most of the landscape and water materials ready. At this stage, I began constructing the final scene.
I was testing the landscape material and grass meshes. The grass is procedurally spawned with automatic cliffs based on the terrain heightmap, though I can also manually paint rocks, paths, and flowers into the scene.
I used a light function material to simulate fake shadows on the ground, adding visual variation to otherwise flat surfaces.
My simple water and caustic material.
Here is the result of the post-process volume and its overall impact on the scene’s mood and atmosphere.
This is one of the reference photos I used. I was drawn to the volumetric and stylized lighting, as well as the light, non-invasive foliage—elements I tried to replicate in my scene.