The Gathering Area (Unreal 5, 2026)
Temporal Super Resolution not only cleaned up noisy dithering/edges but significantly improved performance at virtually no cost.
Water surface blends with terrain POM thanks to pixel depth offsetting intersecting POM surface accurately, coupled with depth fading on water surface.
Ultrawide screenshot
Distant mountains created by displacing a subdivided plane via heightmap in Blender and using that to bake textures to low poly game ready background mountains.
Trees and bushes use imposters, 2D billboards that dynamically switch perspective, allowing massive amount of distant trees with very little performance cost.
I built the terrain shader to height blend between 4 different material types. Shader uses POM for fake 3D with pixel offset shadowing.
Auto exposure configured to show volumetric rays through trees more easily when exposure values ramp up in shaded areas.
Sculpting some basic rocks in Blender, planning to make half a dozen variations.
Water uses camera plane contact diffusion and underwater volume rendering.
Showing off the height blending between dirt and grass (note: these textures are different now, this is older footage). Stay tuned for more!
Continuously trying to find the right balance of color & saturation without overdoing it.
Shaded areas are very tricky to light correctly. One wrong value can visually disrupt scene composition.
This is an outdoor resource gathering area for an unannounced indie fantasy RPG. I built this in Unreal 5 with basically Blender and Substance Painter. I will post full development details as I progress further. All screenshots are subject to be changed/updated :)