Introduction
Hello, I am Taemoor and I create worlds at TLM (a AAA game development studio) as a Lead Environment Artist.
介绍
你好，我是Taemoor，我在TLM（AAA级游戏开发工作室）担任首席环境艺术家创建世界。

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I recently published a personal project on ArtStation and this is a breakdown article covering some aspects of world-building in general and my project in particular. This article is intended for Junior and Intermediate level environment artists. I am assuming that you already know how to make 3D assets and use Unreal Engine. This is not a step-by-step tutorial. If you are a senior artist you can jump straight to the “Tips and Takeaways” section at the end of this write-up.
我最近在ArtStation上发表了一个个人项目，这是一篇细分文章，涵盖了世界建设的某些方面，特别是我的项目。本文适用于初级和中级环境美术师。我假设您已经知道如何制作3D资源并使用虚幻引擎。这不是分步教程。如果您是资深艺术家，则可以直接跳转到本文末尾的“提示和要点”部分。

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I will address the significance of mindset, thought process and storytelling in world-building. I will also touch on some methods and techniques to improve workflow as an environment artist. I hope that this will help someone push through the friction we all face while working on our personal projects.

I started the year 2022 with a resolution of making at least two good-looking environments for my portfolio. I always loved epic, grand, fantasy worlds that are believable and also playable. In addition, I wanted to document everything and manage it like a project. So, one evening, in January this year I wrote down these objectives for my first project in a google doc to kick start my work:
我将讨论思维方式，思维过程和讲故事在世界构建中的重要性。作为环境艺术家，我还将介绍一些改进工作流程的方法和技术。我希望这将有助于有人克服我们在个人项目上面临的摩擦。

我从2022年开始，决心为我的投资组合创造至少两个好看的环境。我一直喜欢史诗般的，宏伟的，幻想的世界，这些世界是可信的，也是可玩的。此外，我想记录所有内容并像项目一样管理它。所以，今年一月的一个晚上，我在谷歌文档中写下了我的第一个项目的这些目标，以启动我的工作：

Objectives

1. World Building Demonstration
2. Lighting & Composition
3. Story, Level Design, Gameplay
4. Implementing UE5 new features, Lumen, Nanite, etc.
5. Capturing full progress and process
6. Minimum 30 FPS Gameplay capture

Making a clear list of objectives really helped define the scope of work. So I made a list of deliverables.
目标

1. 世界建筑示范
2.照明与构图
3.剧情，关卡设计，游戏玩法
4.实现UE5的新功能，Lumen，Nanite等
。捕获完整进度和流程
6.最低30 FPS游戏拍摄

制定明确的目标清单确实有助于确定工作范围。所以我列出了可交付成果。


Scope of work & deliverables

1. Use free Epic and Quixel assets as often as needed.
2. 2-3 Hero Asset(s). Non-photogrammetry, high poly, textured, nanite meshes.
3. One establishing shot, a still 4k Image.
4. Two establishing sequences 5-10 sec each.
5. Then a 30-sec “gameplay” walking sequence on the path.
6. Few extra shots if time permits from cool angles.
工作范围和可交付成果

1. 根据需要经常使用免费的 Epic 和 Quixel 资源。
2. 2-3 个英雄资产。非摄影测量、高聚、纹理、纳米岩网格。
3.一个建立镜头，一个静止的4k图像。
4. 两个建立序列，每个序列5-10秒。
5.然后在路径上进行30秒的“游戏”步行序列。
6.如果时间允许，从很酷的角度拍摄很少的额外照片。

Accountability

This is usually where most of us stop, spend a few days and “move onto” the next project. I know this was my reality a lot of times, but I was fortunate this time to have such amazing seniors/mentors as Jeal Choi and Romain Grolleau at TLM. Jeal was instrumental in helping me develop the process. We had a couple of interesting conversations after work and I found myself fully committed to it.
问 责

这通常是我们大多数人停下来，花几天时间“进入”下一个项目的地方。我知道很多时候这是我的现实，但这次我很幸运在TLM拥有像Jeal Choi和Romain Grolleau这样了不起的前辈/导师。Jeal在帮助我开发流程方面发挥了重要作用。下班后我们进行了几次有趣的对话，我发现自己完全投入其中。

Romain has been extremely kind to keep me focused and share his valuable comments with me throughout the project.

So the takeaway is, write things down and share them with people around you so they can follow up with you. Make yourself accountable.
Romain非常友善地让我保持专注，并在整个项目中与我分享他的宝贵意见。

所以结论是，把事情写下来，并与你周围的人分享，这样他们就可以跟进你。让自己负起责任。

Mindset

I must talk about it now because this is often not discussed in most “break down/ How to” articles. As 3d environment artists at the start of our careers, we focus on making individual assets such as props, foliage, etc. It is necessary to have strong fundamentals however there is a downside to it as well. It creates a mindset of an asset/prop artist. Some people love doing it and if that is what they want to do, that is totally fine.
心态

我现在必须谈论它，因为在大多数“分解/如何”的文章中通常没有讨论过这一点。作为我们职业生涯初期的3D环境艺术家，我们专注于制作个人资产，如道具，树叶等。有必要有强大的基本面，但它也有一个缺点。它创造了一种资产/道具艺术家的心态。有些人喜欢这样做，如果这是他们想做的，那完全没问题。

However, as we gain experience we start to work in bigger and more complex environments.

This requires a slightly different mindset. I call it a world builder’s mindset. It may seem trivial but the fact is those good artists are good at switching between these mindsets as needed. Over time it becomes a habit and comes naturally. I highly recommend it to artists who are gaining experience that they practice and apply this switching of mindsets more often. In this project, my number 1 objective was to stay in world-building mode.
但是，随着我们获得经验，我们开始在更大，更复杂的环境中工作。

这需要一个稍微不同的心态。我称之为世界建设者的心态。这似乎微不足道，但事实是，那些优秀的艺术家善于根据需要在这些心态之间切换。随着时间的流逝，它成为一种习惯，并且自然而然地出现。我强烈推荐给那些正在获得经验的艺术家，他们练习并更频繁地应用这种思维方式的转变。在这个项目中，我的首要目标是保持世界构建模式。

So I decided to use generic free Epic and Megascans assets as often as possible. This is why I called it a world-building exercise. I only made custom/hero assets when absolutely necessary.
所以我决定尽可能多地使用通用的免费Epic和Megascans资源。这就是为什么我称之为世界建设活动。我只在绝对必要时制作自定义/英雄资产。

Story & thought process

I did not take any existing concept for this piece. Instead, I wanted to direct myself as an artist by building it around a narrative. I love telling stories. That is how I started this piece. I forced myself to write a story. I did not settle on any visual aspect before writing it down. This is the key. I will copy it here so it makes sense when I talk about my research and reference board.
故事和思维过程

我没有为这件作品采取任何现有的概念。相反，我想通过围绕叙事来指导自己作为一名艺术家。我喜欢讲故事。这就是我开始这篇文章的方式。我强迫自己写一个故事。在写下来之前，我没有确定任何视觉方面。这是关键。我将在这里复制它，这样当我谈论我的研究和参考板时，它就有意义了。

“At dusk, she finally arrived at the high gate. Once the entrance to the magnificent castle, this broken arch was now often unguarded. Sun was setting behind the western mountains of the Golden Valley. Calm but vengeful, just like the river below, she was looking for allies in the town once ruled by her khan Baba. She must enter the Creed’s Inn to see that mysterious old man. With his help, she will cross the river at midnight and climb up the castle from the dark side. That is where her plans ended.”
“黄昏时分，她终于到了高处的大门。曾经是宏伟城堡的入口，这个破碎的拱门现在经常无人看守。太阳落在金谷西山后面。她冷静而复仇，就像下面的河流一样，在曾经由可汗巴巴统治的小镇上寻找盟友。她必须进入信条旅馆才能看到那个神秘的老人。在他的帮助下，她将在午夜过河，从黑暗面爬上城堡。这就是她的计划结束的地方。

These few lines are in fact the exact moment in the story that I am capturing in this scene. Here is the rest of it.
这几句台词，其实就是我在这个场景中捕捉到的故事中的确切时刻。这是它的其余部分。

“They were called the “The Ancients”. People who built these magnificent castles all along the southern frontier of the Pamirian Empire. They were master stone masons and stone they had everywhere in these mountains. Then one night, as legend has it, the earth shook and destroyed the entire chain of castles and the pride of their builders with them. Rivers changed their courses and some small towns completely vanished into the belly of the earth. 600 years after the great Calamity a clan of 11 peasant families took refuge in these mountains. Running from the Ganguls they found solace and refuge in the Golden Valley along the river Hunza. They survived the harsh long winter and built their humble dwellings using whatever they found in the mountains. Long winters, difficult terrain and limited access worked in their favour. They were once farming the fertile lands in the Hunza delta. But here they could only grow a few trees of almonds and apricots wherever there was a patch of land. Most of them hunted wild rabbits and markhors with eagles in the mountains. They became excellent archers over time. Horses, eagles and yaks were their companions. Snow leopards and wolves were their enemies. Astrakhan who led them to this place became their first chief and what a chief he was. He took good care of his people until the day he was poisoned. His only son Musa took his wife and newborn daughter Rania and disappeared the same night. Astrakhan’s brother Bazkhan became the chief and put a bounty on Musa’s head. No one liked Bazkhan but he was the strongest of all able men. Musa was never seen again. Twenty years later…”

These lines informed pretty much all of my artistic decisions throughout the making of this environment.
“他们被称为'古人'。沿着帕米里亚帝国南部边境建造这些宏伟城堡的人们。他们是石匠大师，在这些山上到处都是石头。然后有一天晚上，正如传说中的那样，大地震动并摧毁了整个城堡链以及建造者的骄傲。河流改变了路线，一些小镇完全消失在地球的肚子里。大灾难发生600年后，一个由11个农民家庭组成的氏族在这些山区避难。他们逃离了甘古尔人，在罕萨河沿岸的金谷找到了慰藉和避难所。他们在严酷的漫长冬季幸存下来，并用他们在山上发现的任何东西建造了简陋的住所。漫长的冬季、崎岖的地形和有限的出入对他们有利。他们曾经在罕萨三角洲耕种肥沃的土地。但在这里，他们只能在有一块土地的地方种植几棵杏仁和杏子树。他们中的大多数在山上用鹰狩猎野兔和马马。随着时间的推移，他们成为了优秀的弓箭手。马、鹰和牦牛是它们的同伴。雪豹和狼是他们的敌人。带领他们到这个地方的阿斯特拉罕成为他们的第一任酋长，他是一个多么的酋长。他照顾好他的人民，直到他被毒死的那一天。他唯一的儿子穆萨带着他的妻子和刚出生的女儿拉尼娅，当天晚上就消失了。阿斯特拉罕的兄弟巴兹汗成为酋长，并在穆萨的头上放了一笔赏金。没有人喜欢巴兹汗，但他是所有有能力的人中最强壮的。穆萨再也没有出现过。二十年后...”

这些台词几乎影响了我在这个环境的整个过程中的所有艺术决定。


References

This ties into the research and reference-gathering process. I also wrote a few words to guide my intuition. These are the “visual settings”. High Mountains, Ancient Structures, Last Settlement, Extinct Race, Stone Masons, Megalithic, Natural Cataclysm, Abandoned, Mountain Path, Peasants, Valley, Stronghold, Castle, Bridge, Evening.

As you would imagine, having a story and context makes it super easy to pick only the most relevant images from the internet. Here is my humble reference board
引用

这与研究和参考收集过程有关。我还写了几句话来指导我的直觉。这些是“视觉设置”。高山，古代建筑，最后的定居点，灭绝的种族，石匠，巨石，自然灾难，废弃，山路，农民，山谷，要塞，城堡，桥梁，傍晚。

正如你所想象的那样，拥有一个故事和背景使得从互联网上只选择最相关的图像变得非常容易。这是我的谦逊参考板

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I did not want to make just another European mountainous environment full of foliage and hidden in the fog. For me, clarity and openness were key to achieving the kind of depth and height I was looking for.

I also kept my references to as few as possible to avoid mental clutter. One very important point related to reference gathering and research is trying to stick to the real images. I do not recommend using CG and/or processed images as references. Even when I have the main concept to work with, my reference board consists pretty much always of real-world images. Concepts and CG images can be used as inspirations. For the architectural style of the hero assets, I chose a concept by Robby Johnson

This shape language and scale really fit in my story. I had to choose a different material based on the rocks and mountains surrounding the area.
我不想再创造一个充满树叶并隐藏在迷雾中的欧洲山区环境。对我来说，清晰和开放是实现我所寻求的那种深度和高度的关键。

我还尽可能少地引用，以避免精神混乱。与参考收集和研究相关的一个非常重要的一点是试图坚持真实的图像。我不建议使用CG和/或处理过的图像作为参考。即使我有主要概念要处理，我的参考板也几乎总是由现实世界的图像组成。概念和CG图像可以用作灵感。对于英雄资产的建筑风格，我选择了罗比·约翰逊（Robby Johnson）的概念。

这种形状语言和规模真的很适合我的故事。我不得不根据周围的岩石和山脉选择不同的材料。

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Blockout

Since this was one of my objectives I made sure to set it up from the start. Here is what I did. I placed a camera and locked the transforms so I do not accidentally move it.
封锁

由于这是我的目标之一，因此我确保从一开始就进行设置。这是我所做的。我放置了一个摄像头并锁定了变换，这样我就不会意外地移动它。

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I also added one directional light as my key light or my placeholder sunlight. This was the simple setup before the blockout.

I did my blocking inside the engine. It is about big, medium and small. So I started blocking out the big forms that I had in mind. It had to be a proper game level made with some level design and game design prospects in mind. Here is an hour of work in the first screenshot.
我还添加了一个定向光源作为我的主光或占位符阳光。这是封锁之前的简单设置。

我在引擎内部做了我的阻塞。它大约是关于大，中和小。所以我开始屏蔽我脑海中的大表格。它必须是一个适当的游戏关卡，考虑到一些关卡设计和游戏设计前景。这是第一个屏幕截图中的一个小时的工作。

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In my process playing the level, again and again, was essential to settle on the composition, lighting, atmosphere, etc. It was an iterative process. Here is a montage of WIP shots.

I can give an important tip to aspiring artists they should spend as much time as possible in the blockout stage before committing to a design. This liberates the artist to experiment and iterate rather quickly.
在我的过程中，一次又一次地玩关卡对于确定构图，照明，氛围等至关重要。这是一个迭代过程。这是WIP镜头的蒙太奇。

我可以给有抱负的艺术家一个重要的提示，他们应该在承诺设计之前在封锁阶段花尽可能多的时间。这解放了艺术家，让他们可以相当快速地进行实验和迭代。


Composition

It is really hard for me to separate lighting from the composition. Nevertheless, I will try to list the ideas I keep in mind when working on composition throughout the blockout phase. I will talk about the lighting separately.

Foreground, middle ground and background.

For an Epic shot, this was a very important aspect to keep in mind. This really helps add depth and movement to the scene. I established these three rough areas very early in the process.
组成

我真的很难将照明与构图分开。尽管如此，我会尝试列出我在整个封锁阶段进行构图时牢记的想法。我将单独讨论照明。

前景、中间地带和背景。

对于史诗般的镜头，这是一个非常重要的方面要记住。这确实有助于增加场景的深度和移动性。我在这个过程的早期就确定了这三个粗略的领域。

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Straight lines & two height planes

My desired composition, based on the story, required height. However, the position of my camera had to be in the middle of the lowest point and the highest point. This is because I did not want a lot of perspective distortion in the vertical structures by placing the camera too low or too high. I wanted to maintain straight vertical lines in the architecture as much as possible. This adds to the feeling of grandeur and scale to the architectural elements.
直线和两个高度平面

我想要的构图，基于故事，需要高度。但是，我的相机的位置必须在最低点和最高点的中间。这是因为我不想通过放置相机太低或太高来在垂直结构中出现很多透视失真。我想尽可能地在建筑中保持直线垂直线。这为建筑元素增添了宏伟和规模感。

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This led to the next decision of splitting the “ground” in two. One is used for the player’s path and the other is ground zero, the river. My Story also mentioned “the river below..” so this solution is perfect for me.
这导致了下一个将“地面”一分为二的决定。一个用于玩家的路径，另一个是地面零点，河流。我的故事还提到了“下面的河流......”所以这个解决方案对我来说是完美的。

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Once sorted I knew that I had to use the Landscape asset with the water plugin to create the kind of river I wanted. I wanted to avoid using landscape in UE5 as much as I could but the way the river tool is integrated with the landscape became a dependency. More on this later.
排序后，我知道我必须使用景观资源和水插件来创建我想要的那种河流。我想尽可能避免在UE5中使用景观，但河流工具与景观集成的方式变成了一种依赖。稍后将对此进行详细介绍。

Self critique

During this process, I was giving myself some criticism. Here is one of the screenshots with some notes that will show the thought process. This chicken sketch was in fact a very important step because I was able to identify the strengths of this composition as well as the weaknesses. I also noted down some ideas based on the story. Even though the scene kept evolving, you will see the impact of this sketch on the final composition.
自我批判

在这个过程中，我给自己一些批评。这是其中一张截图，上面有一些笔记，可以显示思维过程。这个鸡草图实际上是一个非常重要的步骤，因为我能够识别这种构图的优点和缺点。我还记下了一些基于这个故事的想法。尽管场景不断演变，但您会看到这个草图对最终构图的影响。

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World Building
The River
世界建设
河流

I started this project in UE5 Early Access 2. The landscape was not supported by Lumen. So I wanted to completely avoid it. Later I switched versions and this problem was resolved but by that time I was already settled on my river. So I never made a complex landscape material and only used 1 tileable material with no blending. I used the water plugin in UE5. There are some nice tutorials available online for those who have not tried it yet. Here is how I did it.

I used a landscape actor as a flat plane with one sandy material from Megascans. I kept enough density so that I could do a bit of sculpting if needed. Also because my rivers had sharp turns and twists.
我在UE5抢先体验2中启动了这个项目。景观没有得到Lumen的支持。所以我想完全避免它。后来我切换了版本，这个问题得到了解决，但那时我已经在我的河上定居下来了。因此，我从未制作过复杂的景观材料，只使用了1种没有混合的可平铺材料。我在UE5中使用了水插件。对于那些尚未尝试过的人来说，在线上有一些不错的教程。这是我是如何做到的。

我用一个风景演员作为平面，用Megascans的一个沙质材料。我保持了足够的密度，以便在需要时可以进行一些雕刻。也因为我的河流有急转弯和曲折。

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Then I spent some time drawing the rivers the way I had imagined. In order to branch it, I drew separate river splines. The default water shaders in the engine content were OK for my purpose. I had to play with the material Instance’s parameters a bit to adjust it for my needs. Mostly color and other aesthetic values. The velocity, width and depth of the river as well as the bank slope are controlled within the WaterBodyRiver actor’s details.
然后我花了一些时间按照我想象的方式画河流。为了分支它，我画了单独的河样条。引擎内容中的默认水着色器对于我的目的来说是可以的。我不得不稍微调整一下材质实例的参数，以根据我的需求进行调整。主要是颜色和其他美学价值。河流的速度，宽度和深度以及岸边坡度在WaterBodyRiver演员的细节中控制。

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Then came the most important step. I took a couple of Megascans, rocky beach meshes and started dressing up the river. This gif is created now after I am done with the scene but it does show the simplicity and effectiveness of this approach for the construction of the river bank and river bed.
然后是最重要的一步。我拿了几个Megascan，岩石海滩网格，开始打扮河流。这个gif是在我完成场景后创建的，但它确实显示了这种方法在河岸和河床建设方面的简单性和有效性。
https://gamesartist.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Fig-13-Gif.gif

This is the most fun part because it tied the bigger mountains to the ground and also provided the river bed. I had to adjust the color of the materials a bit and in the end, these rocks, sand and water gave me the look I needed. I think I was lucky to have found such a simple solution. In the past, I have tried other methods using virtual heightfield, parallax occlusion, etc.

But this with nanite is the best solution in my opinion. I tried to get dynamic water foam but it was way too costly and did not look impressive from a distance. I hope that this will improve over time in the upcoming UE5 releases. For now, the river was not perfect but good enough for me.

So I completed the first iteration like this and moved on.
这是最有趣的部分，因为它将较大的山脉绑在地面上，还提供了河床。我不得不稍微调整一下材料的颜色，最后，这些岩石，沙子和水给了我需要的外观。我想我很幸运能找到这样一个简单的解决方案。过去，我尝试过使用虚拟高度场，视差遮挡等其他方法。

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但在我看来，这与nanite是最好的解决方案。我试图获得动态水泡沫，但它太昂贵了，从远处看并不令人印象深刻。我希望随着时间的推移，在即将发布的UE5版本中，这种情况会有所改善。就目前而言，这条河并不完美，但对我来说已经足够好了。

所以我完成了像这样的第一次迭代，然后继续前进。


The entire scene kept evolving but the approach and method remained the same.

The Player’s Path

I used spline mesh actors to create the paths for the player. Since I used a tileable texture on it, that alone was never going to look good.
整个场景不断发展，但方法和方法保持不变。

玩家的路径

我使用样条网格体为玩家创建路径。由于我在上面使用了可平铺纹理，因此仅凭这一点就永远不会好看。

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The same approach is used for the ground next to this path. I did not have to use any complicated landscape material to blend textures and assets together. All I had to do was adjust and normalize the Albedo maps of pretty much all Megascans assets that I used. It was all about choosing the right asset and making sense of it.
此路径旁边的地面也使用相同的方法。我不必使用任何复杂的景观材质将纹理和资源混合在一起。我所要做的就是调整和规范我使用的几乎所有Megascans资产的反照率地图。这一切都是为了选择正确的资产并理解它。

The flocks of birds

Since I don’t have humans in my scene I needed something to give a sense of scale to the viewer. Adding a generic white bird is a wonderful way of doing it.
This is achieved by using one skeletal mesh of a crow from Epic/Quixel’s medieval village environment. I changed it into a white bird. It is a fairly simple mesh with very basic flying animation.
成群的鸟儿

由于我的场景中没有人类，我需要一些东西来给观众一种规模感。添加一只普通的白鸟是一种很好的方法。
这是通过使用Epic / Quixel中世纪村庄环境中的乌鸦的骨骼网格来实现的。我把它变成了一只白鸟。这是一个相当简单的网格，具有非常基本的飞行动画。

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I made a blueprint in which a custom spline works as a path and I can move another blueprint along the spline in a loop. All I needed to expose was speed along the spline. Below is the Follow Spline BP.
我制作了一个蓝图，其中自定义样条用作路径，我可以在循环中沿样条移动另一个蓝图。我需要暴露的只是沿着样条的速度。下面是跟随样条 BP。

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The next simple blueprint contains the animated skeletal meshes with one single looping animation. I manually created a flock in the viewport. I can add more or fewer birds and offset their animation as well as adjust the speed of animation.
下一个简单的蓝图包含带有单个循环动画的动画骨架网格体。我在视口中手动创建了一个羊群。我可以添加更多或更少的鸟，抵消它们的动画，以及调整动画的速度。

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This setup can be further improved, where I can expose the controls to add or remove the number of birds, customize their position in the flock, a single file or random flight, etc. But I did not need those controls for this project. I am going to make a tool later to implement these ideas. In the end, I was able to get a fully 3D, dynamic shadow-casting flock of birds. Which is pretty cool. In a real game we probably don’t need shadows from birds but for a personal project adding these little details is fun.
此设置可以进一步改进，我可以公开控件以添加或删除鸟类的数量，自定义它们在鸟群中的位置，单个文件或随机飞行等。但是我不需要这个项目的这些控件。我稍后将制作一个工具来实现这些想法。最后，我能够获得一群完全3D的动态阴影投射鸟群。这很酷。在真正的游戏中，我们可能不需要鸟儿的影子，但对于个人项目来说，添加这些小细节很有趣。

The Mountains

Mountains were the key element of my environment and I went through various experiments. I like terrain building software like world machine, Gaea and World Creator, etc. However, the top-down height map approach does not produce a mountain that has full 3d rocks and protruding forms.
山脉

山是我环境的关键元素，我经历了各种实验。我喜欢地形建设软件，如世界机器，Gaea和世界创造者等。但是，自上而下的高度贴图方法不会生成具有完整 3D 岩石和突出形式的山峰。

In Houdini, we can convert any volume to VDB and use erosion techniques on them. I have seen some amazing results. But in order to get the high fidelity as this one, you will need enormous
amounts of detail and in order to make multiple variations each asset will be unique and that is not good for memory.
在Houdini中，我们可以将任何卷转换为VDB，并在其上使用侵蚀技术。我看到了一些惊人的结果。但是，为了获得像这样的高保真度，您将需要大量的
细节，并且为了进行多种变体，每个资产都将是唯一的，这对内存不利。

So once again, that world-builder mindset comes to the rescue!
I had a couple of generic-looking mountains made with simple height maps that I had placed in the level early on. Later I dressed them up using the same Megascans rocks I used elsewhere. This  approach is really helpful because;
因此，这种世界建设者的心态再次拯救了我们！
我用简单的高度图制作了几座看起来很普通的山脉，这些地图是我早期放在关卡中的。后来，我用我在其他地方用过的Megascan岩石来打扮它们。这种方法确实很有帮助，因为;

● I am creating the silhouette inside Unreal. Very dynamic approach and low maintenance.
● I am saving time by not sculpting and baking outside the engine.
● I am reusing the same rocks dozens of times. It makes them look part of the same biome.
● I can create an unlimited number of unique silhouettes and mountain variations.

I had to create a custom material on the base mountain to blend the additional rocks on it better. Here is how this mountain is made for example:
● 我正在虚幻引擎内部创建剪影。非常动态的方法和低维护。
●通过不在发动机外雕刻和烘烤来节省时间。
●我正在重复使用相同的岩石数十次。这使它们看起来像是同一生物群系的一部分。
●我可以创建无限数量的独特轮廓和山脉变化。

我不得不在山底上创建一个定制材料，以更好地混合上面的其他岩石。例如，这是这座山的制作方法：

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These are the individual parts that make the mountain.
这些是构成这座山的各个部分。
https://gamesartist.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Fig-22-GIF.gif

There are better ways of creating detailed mountains where we can reduce quad overdraw but due to the time restraint, this technique was good for the needs of this project.

Distant mountains are simple one mesh texture mountains, I add detailed normal maps tiled on top to give them the correct scale in the scene, nothing fancy.
有更好的方法来创建详细的山脉，我们可以减少四边形过度绘制，但由于时间限制，这种技术对这个项目的需求是有好处的。

远处的山脉是简单的一目纹理山脉，我在上面添加详细的法线贴图，给它们在场景中正确的比例，没什么花哨的。

The Hero Assets

Working on a hero asset is sometimes overwhelming and people get carried away. However, since I had clearly defined my scope in the beginning, it drastically reduced the amount of work on this asset.

I had a clear location, viewing angle, light direction and time of day for this asset. I never wanted to make it perfect from all sides. I only sculpted the major details in ZBrush on 3 sides. I had to export this a few times to UE in order to check the silhouette & scale etc.

I had already planned to add additional details in UE. Surface details were going to be added via Materials/Normal maps. It was really crucial for me to get out of ZBrush as quickly as possible because the more I sculpt the more I commit to the details and the fewer options I have in the editor.

Once happy I did the first pass UVs in ZBrush and also separated the surface into 4 polygroups. Top, Bottom, damaged and flat.
英雄资产

处理英雄资产有时是压倒性的，人们会被带走。但是，由于我在一开始就明确定义了我的范围，因此大大减少了该资产的工作量。

我有一个清晰的位置，视角，光线方向和一天中的时间。我从来不想让它从各个方面都变得完美。我只在3面上雕刻了ZBrush中的主要细节。我不得不将其导出几次到UE，以便检查轮廓和比例等。

我已经计划在UE中添加其他细节。表面细节将通过材质/法线贴图添加。对我来说，尽快离开ZBrush真的至关重要，因为我雕刻得越多，我对细节的承诺就越多，而我在编辑器中的选择就越少。

一旦高兴，我在ZBrush中完成了第一次通过UV，并将表面分成4个多组。顶部，底部，损坏和平坦。

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Then I exported it to 3dsmax. Fixed some obvious mesh issues, Normals, reduced it further to under 400K triangles and refined/repacked the UVs in 4 material IDs.
然后我把它导出到3dsmax。修复了一些明显的网格问题，法线，将其进一步减少到400K三角形以下，并在4个材料ID中改进/重新包装了UV。

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I was able to reduce the production time even further by not baking any maps. This is not what I would do on a game project. If this had to be in an actual game used in a variety of situations and lighting, I would have taken a different approach. But as you can see in my project I have a very clear scope and a narrow window of time.

I must finish it without making it perfect. There are two materials, one used on the flatter surfaces and the other on damaged parts. Both Megascans materials
我能够通过不烘焙任何地图来进一步缩短生产时间。这不是我在游戏项目上会做的事情。如果这必须是在各种情况和照明中使用的实际游戏中，我会采取不同的方法。但正如你在我的项目中看到的，我有一个非常清晰的范围和一个狭窄的时间窗口。

我必须完成它，而不是让它变得完美。有两种材料，一种用于较平坦的表面，另一种用于损坏的部件。两种巨型扫描材料

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I started dressing up the base mesh with some brick assets inside Unreal. I made another material instance of the same material I used on the flat surface and applied it to the individual broken bricks matching the texel density. This is how it all blended together.

I added a few decals for watermarks. A few meshes to add moss in some corners etc. In the end, added a bit of grass in some areas where it could grow. There is enough geo to make the seam of the two textures look acceptable. So here is how it looked on a gym level.
我开始在虚幻引擎中用一些砖块资源来打扮基础网格体。我用我在平坦表面上使用的相同材料制作了另一个材料实例，并将其应用于与纹理密度匹配的单个破碎砖上。这就是它们融合在一起的方式。

我为水印添加了一些贴花。一些网格，以在某些角落添加苔藓等。最后，在一些可以生长的地方加了一点草。有足够的地理位置使两个纹理的接缝看起来可以接受。所以这是它在健身房里的样子。

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For now this is good enough. Let’s place it in my main level under the actual lighting.
就目前而言，这已经足够好了。让我们把它放在我的主要关卡中的实际照明下。

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So I move on to the other distant secondary assets. I improvised and designed these assets in the same shape language. With the same technique and mindset. I did not have to maintain a specific texel ratio on these. Since you never get too close to them. The only important thing was the silhouette and readability. As long as it reads well from a distance it is good. So it was rather quick.
因此，我转向其他遥远的二级资产。我即兴创作并以相同的形状语言设计这些资源。使用相同的技术和心态。我不必在这些方面保持特定的纹理比例。因为你永远不会离他们太近。唯一重要的是轮廓和可读性。只要它从远处读得好，它就很好。所以这相当快。

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These assets fit and look good from the angles I had in mind. Quick and dirty works in this case.
This approach is key if you want to finish your personal world-building projects. Especially of this scale.
这些资产适合我，从我心目中的角度来看，它们看起来也很好。在这种情况下，快速而肮脏的工作。
如果你想完成你的个人世界建设项目，这种方法是关键。特别是这种规模。

The Fog and Light Shafts

Fog plays a very important role in this environment. It works with light and ties everything together. I don’t like to use fog with crazy values. That was never the desired look for this project. When you add this much detail you don’t want to kill it by hiding everything behind a thick layer of fog. In this environment, the river is the source of fog/mist. Also notice that I am only placing my custom fog actors where the light is strong. With a very subtle exponential height fog and many custom fog actors, here is how the environment looks with and without it.
雾和光轴

雾在这种环境中起着非常重要的作用。它与光一起工作，并将所有东西联系在一起。我不喜欢用疯狂的价值观来使用雾。这从来都不是这个项目想要的样子。当你添加这么多细节时，你不想把所有东西都藏在一层厚厚的雾气后面来杀死它。在这种环境中，河流是雾/雾的来源。另请注意，我只将自定义雾演员放置在光线较强的地方。具有非常微妙的指数高度雾和许多自定义雾演员，这是有和没有它的环境外观。

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Here is the material applied to the fog cards.
这是应用于雾卡的材料。

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I made a custom plane mesh for light shafts and made a simple material for it. I wanted to keep them very subtle.
我为光轴制作了一个定制的平面网格，并为其制作了一个简单的材料。我想让它们保持非常微妙。

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The Sky

I tried a lot of methods to make the kind of clouds I wanted. I tried placing custom volumetric cloud actors mentioned by William Foucher in one of his youtube videos. I also tried a custom cloud material shared by Michael Kinsy. These and other methods are wonderful but nothing was making sense in this scene. Eventually, I went back to a less desirable method and added the HDR sky from Epic’s valley of the ancients dark mode. All of a sudden the sky made sense. It had the perfect ambiance, light direction and the kind of lines I wanted in the clouds to compliment my composition..
天空

我尝试了很多方法来制作我想要的那种云。我尝试将William Foucher提到的自定义体积云演员放在他的一个YouTube视频中。我还尝试了Michael Kinsy共享的自定义云材料。这些和其他方法都很棒，但在这个场景中没有任何意义。最终，我又回到了一个不太理想的方法，并从Epic的古人黑暗模式山谷中添加了HDR天空。突然间，天空变得有意义了。它具有完美的氛围，光线方向以及我想要在云中恭维我的构图的那种线条。

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Lighting

Lighting is the most important element of this project. It was one of my main objectives to push lighting to the next level. It did take me some time to figure it out.
As a rule, there are multiple correct ways of lighting an environment. It depends on what we want to achieve. If performance is the top priority then the approach is slightly different. However, in my case, I wanted an epic fantasy look. The very dramatic and almost surreal atmosphere is reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, God of War, etc. But once again, I have a story that informs all of my artistic decisions.
照明

照明是这个项目最重要的元素。将照明提升到一个新的水平是我的主要目标之一。我确实花了一些时间来弄清楚。
通常，有多种正确的方法来照亮环境。这取决于我们想要实现的目标。如果性能是重中之重，则方法略有不同。然而，就我而言，我想要一个史诗般的幻想外观。非常戏剧化和近乎超现实的气氛让人想起指环王，战神等。但再一次，我有一个故事，它影响了我所有的艺术决定。

Gameplay considerations

In this case, the player is entering the realm so the starting point should be in a bit of a darker area. Then there is the first stop where the player has to make an alliance, get a weapon, a horse and stuff. Maybe some dialogues/cinematics etc. So a beam of light is guiding her towards the guild. This is also the location where she can see the entire valley.
游戏玩法注意事项

在这种情况下，玩家正在进入领域，所以起点应该在一个较暗的区域。然后是第一站，玩家必须结成联盟，获得武器，马匹和其他东西。也许有一些对话/电影等。所以一束光指引着她走向公会。这也是她可以看到整个山谷的位置。

The player will savor the moment and will be fully immersed in the environment. Down the road there is a village she will travel through and then there is another post, a mini-battle. After which she walks on the bridge, another cinematic moment perhaps. After that, she climbs up the castle wall and gets to some secret door or something. She reaches the castle and eventually fights the boss and wins. The point is, that lighting must not ignore this progression.
玩家将享受这一刻，并将完全沉浸在环境中。在路上，有一个村庄她将穿过，然后还有另一个哨所，一场小型战斗。之后，她走在桥上，也许是另一个电影时刻。在那之后，她爬上城堡的城墙，到达了一些秘密的门或别的什么地方。她到达城堡，最终与老板战斗并获胜。关键是，照明绝不能忽视这一进展。

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Now the technical part.
I did not use directional light as my main source of sunlight. I did not use light functions and I did not use occluders. Nothing is baked. Everything is dynamic and real-time.
现在是技术部分。
我没有使用定向光作为我的主要阳光来源。我没有使用光照功能，也没有使用遮挡器。没有任何东西是烘烤的。一切都是动态和实时的。

Ambient Light

I am using a dim skylight with real time capture ON. Also a very subtle top down directional light to
enhance the impact of whatever little bit of blue sky is visible through the cloud layer. This directional
light is giving me not so sharp contact shadows. It also adds a slightly brighter “top” surface to
everything. This adds to the definition and readability of geometry.
This setup is my ambient light source.
Lumen does take my albedos and emissives into account. My custom fog is emissive only, so it
automatically adds to the ambient light in those areas. Which is cool.
环境光

我正在使用带有实时捕获的昏暗天窗。还有一种非常微妙的自上而下的定向光，以
增强通过云层可见的任何一点点蓝天的影响。这种定向
光给了我不那么清晰的接触阴影。它还为
所有内容添加了稍微亮一些的“顶部”表面。这增加了几何图形的定义和可读性。
此设置是我的环境光源。
Lumen确实考虑到了我的反照和发射。我的自定义雾仅是自发光的，因此它
会自动添加到这些区域的环境光中。这很酷。


Mood, Key & Rim Lights


We are not trying to recreate reality. We want to make it believable. So do not look up the Lux values
for evening sun etc. those are for some other situations. 🙂
Now the key light is coming from multiple spotlights loosely set up to imitate the sun’s direction but not
100%. Some of these lights provide the rim light effect on mountain tops and trees. Most of these spot
lights have no shadows. Important for performance. Except where the shadow is visible to the camera.
Lumen is doing a lot but I am still faking/enhancing some of the bounces. Again I am using very subtle
values here without shadows to enhance the bounces. So here is the set up from one angle.
By the way, quality of life tip, I change the actor size in the editor so i can select them without leaving
the Camera frustrum. Even if they are 30000 units away.
Mood， Key & Rim Lights

我们不是在试图重现现实。我们希望让它变得可信。因此，不要查找傍晚阳光等的Lux值
，这些都是针对其他一些情况的。🙂
现在，关键光来自多个聚光灯，这些聚光灯松散地设置以模仿太阳的方向，但不是
100%。其中一些灯在山顶和树木上提供边缘光效。这些聚光
灯中的大多数都没有阴影。对性能很重要。除非摄像机可以看到阴影。
Lumen正在做很多事情，但我仍然在假装/增强一些反弹。我再次在这里使用非常微妙
的值，没有阴影来增强反弹。所以这是从一个角度设置的。
顺便说一句，生活质量提示，我在编辑器中更改了演员大小，因此我可以在不离开
相机的情况下选择它们。即使他们是30000单位。

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Organization

I name my lights for convenience and as you can see the entire world outliner is organized. It can be
further organized by adding colors/subfolders for quicker selection, however this was good enough for
my needs.
组织

为了方便起见，我命名了我的灯，正如你所看到的，整个世界的轮廓都是有组织的。可以通过
添加颜色/子文件夹来进一步组织它，以便更快地进行选择，但是这足以满足
我的需求。

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This video below shows the exact contribution of each of these lights in a sequential manner. It is fun to watch.

I know that there are some expert lighting gurus cursing me for going this route, but as I said this is one way of achieving the look I wanted.
下面的视频以顺序显示了这些灯中每一盏灯的确切贡献。观看很有趣。

我知道有一些专业的照明大师会因为走这条路而诅咒我，但正如我所说，这是实现我想要的外观的一种方式。


Rendering

Part of the scope of this project was to produce rendered sequences. From the start, I had a clear frame in my mind. You must decide on your frame ratio otherwise you cannot settle on a composition.
This is my Camera Set up.
渲染

该项目的部分范围是制作渲染序列。从一开始，我就有一个清晰的框架。您必须决定帧率，否则无法确定构图。
这是我的相机设置。

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As you can see I went with a 1:2 ratio. I also rendered my sequences at 24 FPS and I had a very subtle (0.5) motion blur ON. This gives the cinematic look we all are familiar with. This motion blur was the
only effect other than a subtle vignette that was achieved through Post Process Volume. No color grading, no LUTs, No other adjustment.

This is why you see in real time what you get in the rendered sequence. In order to enhance the scale of this realm, I kept my camera movements to a consistent pace and minimum travel. The camera almost never rotates. These are all conscious decisions. I used Sequencer to add the simple camera animations and used Movie Render Queue to render out the sequences. I used the following settings for anti-aliasing, the rest is the default.
如您所见，我以1：2的比例进行了选择。我还以24 FPS的速度渲染了我的序列，并且我有一个非常微妙（0.5）的运动模糊。这给了我们大家都熟悉的电影外观。这种运动模糊是除了通过后期处理体积实现的微妙晕影之外
的唯一效果。无颜色分级，无 LUT，无其他调整。

这就是为什么您可以实时查看渲染序列中获得的内容的原因。为了增强这个领域的规模，我保持相机运动的一致速度和最小的行程。相机几乎从不旋转。这些都是有意识的决定。我使用Sequencer添加简单的摄像机动画，并使用电影渲染队列来渲染序列。我使用以下设置进行抗锯齿，其余的是默认的。

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These settings produced faster renders. I put together these sequences in After Effects. There was no effect added on top. Only the blending between the sequences and a music track was added. You can do it in sequencer too but I like After Effects for simple editing/mixing. I rendered the final outputs using adobe media encoder as MP4.
这些设置可产生更快的渲染速度。我在After Effects中将这些序列放在一起。顶部没有添加任何效果。仅添加了序列和音乐曲目之间的混合。您也可以在音序器中执行此操作，但我喜欢After Effects进行简单的编辑/混音。我使用Adobe媒体编码器将最终输出渲染为MP4。

Tips and Takeaways

1. Having an overall method of organizing and finishing a project is very important. I did this by having a list of clear objectives and well-defined scope. Writing these down and making yourself accountable will help stick to them. This is indispensable for the completion of large-scale personal projects.

2. Story/narrative should inform all creative and artistic decisions. I incorporated my story into the world, composition, lighting and atmosphere.

3. Develop the mindset of a world builder and apply it until it becomes a habit.

4. Optimize the amount of work based on what is visible in your final medium of delivery and resist the temptation of making everything to perfection.

5. Spend as much time in the blockout stage as possible before committing to a design or composition.

6. Repeat your process and refine it with every iteration.

7. In the end I must acknowledge that I have benefitted from some of the articles on gamesartist.co.uk in the past. It is a great source of technical knowledge as well as motivation.

I really enjoyed working on this project. My new year resolution was to finish at least two projects in 2022. Wish me luck for the next one!
提示和要点

1.拥有组织和完成项目的整体方法非常重要。我通过列出明确的目标和明确的范围来做到这一点。写下这些并让自己负责将有助于坚持下去。这对于完成大型个人项目是必不可少的。

2. 故事/叙事应告知所有创意和艺术决策。我把我的故事融入了世界、构图、灯光和氛围中。

3.培养世界建设者的心态，并应用它，直到它成为一种习惯。

4.根据最终交付媒介中可见的内容优化工作量，并抵制使一切完美无缺的诱惑。

5. 在投入设计或构图之前，尽可能多地在封锁阶段花费时间。

6.重复您的过程，并在每次迭代时对其进行优化。

7.最后，我必须承认，我过去曾从一些关于 gamesartist.co.uk 的文章中获益。它是技术知识和动力的重要来源。

我真的很喜欢这个项目。我的新年决心是在2022年完成至少两个项目。祝我下一个好运！

Introduction
Hello, I am Taemoor and I create worlds at TLM (a AAA game development studio) as a Lead Environment Artist.
介绍
你好，我是Taemoor，我在TLM（AAA级游戏开发工作室）担任首席环境艺术家创建世界。

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I recently published a personal project on ArtStation and this is a breakdown article covering some aspects of world-building in general and my project in particular. This article is intended for Junior and Intermediate level environment artists. I am assuming that you already know how to make 3D assets and use Unreal Engine. This is not a step-by-step tutorial. If you are a senior artist you can jump straight to the “Tips and Takeaways” section at the end of this write-up.
我最近在ArtStation上发表了一个个人项目，这是一篇细分文章，涵盖了世界建设的某些方面，特别是我的项目。本文适用于初级和中级环境美术师。我假设您已经知道如何制作3D资源并使用虚幻引擎。这不是分步教程。如果您是资深艺术家，则可以直接跳转到本文末尾的“提示和要点”部分。

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I will address the significance of mindset, thought process and storytelling in world-building. I will also touch on some methods and techniques to improve workflow as an environment artist. I hope that this will help someone push through the friction we all face while working on our personal projects.

I started the year 2022 with a resolution of making at least two good-looking environments for my portfolio. I always loved epic, grand, fantasy worlds that are believable and also playable. In addition, I wanted to document everything and manage it like a project. So, one evening, in January this year I wrote down these objectives for my first project in a google doc to kick start my work:
我将讨论思维方式，思维过程和讲故事在世界构建中的重要性。作为环境艺术家，我还将介绍一些改进工作流程的方法和技术。我希望这将有助于有人克服我们在个人项目上面临的摩擦。

我从2022年开始，决心为我的投资组合创造至少两个好看的环境。我一直喜欢史诗般的，宏伟的，幻想的世界，这些世界是可信的，也是可玩的。此外，我想记录所有内容并像项目一样管理它。所以，今年一月的一个晚上，我在谷歌文档中写下了我的第一个项目的这些目标，以启动我的工作：

Objectives

1. World Building Demonstration
2. Lighting & Composition
3. Story, Level Design, Gameplay
4. Implementing UE5 new features, Lumen, Nanite, etc.
5. Capturing full progress and process
6. Minimum 30 FPS Gameplay capture

Making a clear list of objectives really helped define the scope of work. So I made a list of deliverables.
目标

1. 世界建筑示范
2.照明与构图
3.剧情，关卡设计，游戏玩法
4.实现UE5的新功能，Lumen，Nanite等
。捕获完整进度和流程
6.最低30 FPS游戏拍摄

制定明确的目标清单确实有助于确定工作范围。所以我列出了可交付成果。


Scope of work & deliverables

1. Use free Epic and Quixel assets as often as needed.
2. 2-3 Hero Asset(s). Non-photogrammetry, high poly, textured, nanite meshes.
3. One establishing shot, a still 4k Image.
4. Two establishing sequences 5-10 sec each.
5. Then a 30-sec “gameplay” walking sequence on the path.
6. Few extra shots if time permits from cool angles.
工作范围和可交付成果

1. 根据需要经常使用免费的 Epic 和 Quixel 资源。
2. 2-3 个英雄资产。非摄影测量、高聚、纹理、纳米岩网格。
3.一个建立镜头，一个静止的4k图像。
4. 两个建立序列，每个序列5-10秒。
5.然后在路径上进行30秒的“游戏”步行序列。
6.如果时间允许，从很酷的角度拍摄很少的额外照片。

Accountability

This is usually where most of us stop, spend a few days and “move onto” the next project. I know this was my reality a lot of times, but I was fortunate this time to have such amazing seniors/mentors as Jeal Choi and Romain Grolleau at TLM. Jeal was instrumental in helping me develop the process. We had a couple of interesting conversations after work and I found myself fully committed to it.
问 责

这通常是我们大多数人停下来，花几天时间“进入”下一个项目的地方。我知道很多时候这是我的现实，但这次我很幸运在TLM拥有像Jeal Choi和Romain Grolleau这样了不起的前辈/导师。Jeal在帮助我开发流程方面发挥了重要作用。下班后我们进行了几次有趣的对话，我发现自己完全投入其中。

Romain has been extremely kind to keep me focused and share his valuable comments with me throughout the project.

So the takeaway is, write things down and share them with people around you so they can follow up with you. Make yourself accountable.
Romain非常友善地让我保持专注，并在整个项目中与我分享他的宝贵意见。

所以结论是，把事情写下来，并与你周围的人分享，这样他们就可以跟进你。让自己负起责任。

Mindset

I must talk about it now because this is often not discussed in most “break down/ How to” articles. As 3d environment artists at the start of our careers, we focus on making individual assets such as props, foliage, etc. It is necessary to have strong fundamentals however there is a downside to it as well. It creates a mindset of an asset/prop artist. Some people love doing it and if that is what they want to do, that is totally fine.
心态

我现在必须谈论它，因为在大多数“分解/如何”的文章中通常没有讨论过这一点。作为我们职业生涯初期的3D环境艺术家，我们专注于制作个人资产，如道具，树叶等。有必要有强大的基本面，但它也有一个缺点。它创造了一种资产/道具艺术家的心态。有些人喜欢这样做，如果这是他们想做的，那完全没问题。

However, as we gain experience we start to work in bigger and more complex environments.

This requires a slightly different mindset. I call it a world builder’s mindset. It may seem trivial but the fact is those good artists are good at switching between these mindsets as needed. Over time it becomes a habit and comes naturally. I highly recommend it to artists who are gaining experience that they practice and apply this switching of mindsets more often. In this project, my number 1 objective was to stay in world-building mode.
但是，随着我们获得经验，我们开始在更大，更复杂的环境中工作。

这需要一个稍微不同的心态。我称之为世界建设者的心态。这似乎微不足道，但事实是，那些优秀的艺术家善于根据需要在这些心态之间切换。随着时间的流逝，它成为一种习惯，并且自然而然地出现。我强烈推荐给那些正在获得经验的艺术家，他们练习并更频繁地应用这种思维方式的转变。在这个项目中，我的首要目标是保持世界构建模式。

So I decided to use generic free Epic and Megascans assets as often as possible. This is why I called it a world-building exercise. I only made custom/hero assets when absolutely necessary.
所以我决定尽可能多地使用通用的免费Epic和Megascans资源。这就是为什么我称之为世界建设活动。我只在绝对必要时制作自定义/英雄资产。

Story & thought process

I did not take any existing concept for this piece. Instead, I wanted to direct myself as an artist by building it around a narrative. I love telling stories. That is how I started this piece. I forced myself to write a story. I did not settle on any visual aspect before writing it down. This is the key. I will copy it here so it makes sense when I talk about my research and reference board.
故事和思维过程

我没有为这件作品采取任何现有的概念。相反，我想通过围绕叙事来指导自己作为一名艺术家。我喜欢讲故事。这就是我开始这篇文章的方式。我强迫自己写一个故事。在写下来之前，我没有确定任何视觉方面。这是关键。我将在这里复制它，这样当我谈论我的研究和参考板时，它就有意义了。

“At dusk, she finally arrived at the high gate. Once the entrance to the magnificent castle, this broken arch was now often unguarded. Sun was setting behind the western mountains of the Golden Valley. Calm but vengeful, just like the river below, she was looking for allies in the town once ruled by her khan Baba. She must enter the Creed’s Inn to see that mysterious old man. With his help, she will cross the river at midnight and climb up the castle from the dark side. That is where her plans ended.”
“黄昏时分，她终于到了高处的大门。曾经是宏伟城堡的入口，这个破碎的拱门现在经常无人看守。太阳落在金谷西山后面。她冷静而复仇，就像下面的河流一样，在曾经由可汗巴巴统治的小镇上寻找盟友。她必须进入信条旅馆才能看到那个神秘的老人。在他的帮助下，她将在午夜过河，从黑暗面爬上城堡。这就是她的计划结束的地方。

These few lines are in fact the exact moment in the story that I am capturing in this scene. Here is the rest of it.
这几句台词，其实就是我在这个场景中捕捉到的故事中的确切时刻。这是它的其余部分。

“They were called the “The Ancients”. People who built these magnificent castles all along the southern frontier of the Pamirian Empire. They were master stone masons and stone they had everywhere in these mountains. Then one night, as legend has it, the earth shook and destroyed the entire chain of castles and the pride of their builders with them. Rivers changed their courses and some small towns completely vanished into the belly of the earth. 600 years after the great Calamity a clan of 11 peasant families took refuge in these mountains. Running from the Ganguls they found solace and refuge in the Golden Valley along the river Hunza. They survived the harsh long winter and built their humble dwellings using whatever they found in the mountains. Long winters, difficult terrain and limited access worked in their favour. They were once farming the fertile lands in the Hunza delta. But here they could only grow a few trees of almonds and apricots wherever there was a patch of land. Most of them hunted wild rabbits and markhors with eagles in the mountains. They became excellent archers over time. Horses, eagles and yaks were their companions. Snow leopards and wolves were their enemies. Astrakhan who led them to this place became their first chief and what a chief he was. He took good care of his people until the day he was poisoned. His only son Musa took his wife and newborn daughter Rania and disappeared the same night. Astrakhan’s brother Bazkhan became the chief and put a bounty on Musa’s head. No one liked Bazkhan but he was the strongest of all able men. Musa was never seen again. Twenty years later…”

These lines informed pretty much all of my artistic decisions throughout the making of this environment.
“他们被称为'古人'。沿着帕米里亚帝国南部边境建造这些宏伟城堡的人们。他们是石匠大师，在这些山上到处都是石头。然后有一天晚上，正如传说中的那样，大地震动并摧毁了整个城堡链以及建造者的骄傲。河流改变了路线，一些小镇完全消失在地球的肚子里。大灾难发生600年后，一个由11个农民家庭组成的氏族在这些山区避难。他们逃离了甘古尔人，在罕萨河沿岸的金谷找到了慰藉和避难所。他们在严酷的漫长冬季幸存下来，并用他们在山上发现的任何东西建造了简陋的住所。漫长的冬季、崎岖的地形和有限的出入对他们有利。他们曾经在罕萨三角洲耕种肥沃的土地。但在这里，他们只能在有一块土地的地方种植几棵杏仁和杏子树。他们中的大多数在山上用鹰狩猎野兔和马马。随着时间的推移，他们成为了优秀的弓箭手。马、鹰和牦牛是它们的同伴。雪豹和狼是他们的敌人。带领他们到这个地方的阿斯特拉罕成为他们的第一任酋长，他是一个多么的酋长。他照顾好他的人民，直到他被毒死的那一天。他唯一的儿子穆萨带着他的妻子和刚出生的女儿拉尼娅，当天晚上就消失了。阿斯特拉罕的兄弟巴兹汗成为酋长，并在穆萨的头上放了一笔赏金。没有人喜欢巴兹汗，但他是所有有能力的人中最强壮的。穆萨再也没有出现过。二十年后...”

这些台词几乎影响了我在这个环境的整个过程中的所有艺术决定。


References

This ties into the research and reference-gathering process. I also wrote a few words to guide my intuition. These are the “visual settings”. High Mountains, Ancient Structures, Last Settlement, Extinct Race, Stone Masons, Megalithic, Natural Cataclysm, Abandoned, Mountain Path, Peasants, Valley, Stronghold, Castle, Bridge, Evening.

As you would imagine, having a story and context makes it super easy to pick only the most relevant images from the internet. Here is my humble reference board
引用

这与研究和参考收集过程有关。我还写了几句话来指导我的直觉。这些是“视觉设置”。高山，古代建筑，最后的定居点，灭绝的种族，石匠，巨石，自然灾难，废弃，山路，农民，山谷，要塞，城堡，桥梁，傍晚。

正如你所想象的那样，拥有一个故事和背景使得从互联网上只选择最相关的图像变得非常容易。这是我的谦逊参考板

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I did not want to make just another European mountainous environment full of foliage and hidden in the fog. For me, clarity and openness were key to achieving the kind of depth and height I was looking for.

I also kept my references to as few as possible to avoid mental clutter. One very important point related to reference gathering and research is trying to stick to the real images. I do not recommend using CG and/or processed images as references. Even when I have the main concept to work with, my reference board consists pretty much always of real-world images. Concepts and CG images can be used as inspirations. For the architectural style of the hero assets, I chose a concept by Robby Johnson

This shape language and scale really fit in my story. I had to choose a different material based on the rocks and mountains surrounding the area.
我不想再创造一个充满树叶并隐藏在迷雾中的欧洲山区环境。对我来说，清晰和开放是实现我所寻求的那种深度和高度的关键。

我还尽可能少地引用，以避免精神混乱。与参考收集和研究相关的一个非常重要的一点是试图坚持真实的图像。我不建议使用CG和/或处理过的图像作为参考。即使我有主要概念要处理，我的参考板也几乎总是由现实世界的图像组成。概念和CG图像可以用作灵感。对于英雄资产的建筑风格，我选择了罗比·约翰逊（Robby Johnson）的概念。

这种形状语言和规模真的很适合我的故事。我不得不根据周围的岩石和山脉选择不同的材料。

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Blockout

Since this was one of my objectives I made sure to set it up from the start. Here is what I did. I placed a camera and locked the transforms so I do not accidentally move it.
封锁

由于这是我的目标之一，因此我确保从一开始就进行设置。这是我所做的。我放置了一个摄像头并锁定了变换，这样我就不会意外地移动它。

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I also added one directional light as my key light or my placeholder sunlight. This was the simple setup before the blockout.

I did my blocking inside the engine. It is about big, medium and small. So I started blocking out the big forms that I had in mind. It had to be a proper game level made with some level design and game design prospects in mind. Here is an hour of work in the first screenshot.
我还添加了一个定向光源作为我的主光或占位符阳光。这是封锁之前的简单设置。

我在引擎内部做了我的阻塞。它大约是关于大，中和小。所以我开始屏蔽我脑海中的大表格。它必须是一个适当的游戏关卡，考虑到一些关卡设计和游戏设计前景。这是第一个屏幕截图中的一个小时的工作。

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In my process playing the level, again and again, was essential to settle on the composition, lighting, atmosphere, etc. It was an iterative process. Here is a montage of WIP shots.

I can give an important tip to aspiring artists they should spend as much time as possible in the blockout stage before committing to a design. This liberates the artist to experiment and iterate rather quickly.
在我的过程中，一次又一次地玩关卡对于确定构图，照明，氛围等至关重要。这是一个迭代过程。这是WIP镜头的蒙太奇。

我可以给有抱负的艺术家一个重要的提示，他们应该在承诺设计之前在封锁阶段花尽可能多的时间。这解放了艺术家，让他们可以相当快速地进行实验和迭代。


Composition

It is really hard for me to separate lighting from the composition. Nevertheless, I will try to list the ideas I keep in mind when working on composition throughout the blockout phase. I will talk about the lighting separately.

Foreground, middle ground and background.

For an Epic shot, this was a very important aspect to keep in mind. This really helps add depth and movement to the scene. I established these three rough areas very early in the process.
组成

我真的很难将照明与构图分开。尽管如此，我会尝试列出我在整个封锁阶段进行构图时牢记的想法。我将单独讨论照明。

前景、中间地带和背景。

对于史诗般的镜头，这是一个非常重要的方面要记住。这确实有助于增加场景的深度和移动性。我在这个过程的早期就确定了这三个粗略的领域。

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Straight lines & two height planes

My desired composition, based on the story, required height. However, the position of my camera had to be in the middle of the lowest point and the highest point. This is because I did not want a lot of perspective distortion in the vertical structures by placing the camera too low or too high. I wanted to maintain straight vertical lines in the architecture as much as possible. This adds to the feeling of grandeur and scale to the architectural elements.
直线和两个高度平面

我想要的构图，基于故事，需要高度。但是，我的相机的位置必须在最低点和最高点的中间。这是因为我不想通过放置相机太低或太高来在垂直结构中出现很多透视失真。我想尽可能地在建筑中保持直线垂直线。这为建筑元素增添了宏伟和规模感。

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This led to the next decision of splitting the “ground” in two. One is used for the player’s path and the other is ground zero, the river. My Story also mentioned “the river below..” so this solution is perfect for me.
这导致了下一个将“地面”一分为二的决定。一个用于玩家的路径，另一个是地面零点，河流。我的故事还提到了“下面的河流......”所以这个解决方案对我来说是完美的。

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Once sorted I knew that I had to use the Landscape asset with the water plugin to create the kind of river I wanted. I wanted to avoid using landscape in UE5 as much as I could but the way the river tool is integrated with the landscape became a dependency. More on this later.
排序后，我知道我必须使用景观资源和水插件来创建我想要的那种河流。我想尽可能避免在UE5中使用景观，但河流工具与景观集成的方式变成了一种依赖。稍后将对此进行详细介绍。

Self critique

During this process, I was giving myself some criticism. Here is one of the screenshots with some notes that will show the thought process. This chicken sketch was in fact a very important step because I was able to identify the strengths of this composition as well as the weaknesses. I also noted down some ideas based on the story. Even though the scene kept evolving, you will see the impact of this sketch on the final composition.
自我批判

在这个过程中，我给自己一些批评。这是其中一张截图，上面有一些笔记，可以显示思维过程。这个鸡草图实际上是一个非常重要的步骤，因为我能够识别这种构图的优点和缺点。我还记下了一些基于这个故事的想法。尽管场景不断演变，但您会看到这个草图对最终构图的影响。

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World Building
The River
世界建设
河流

I started this project in UE5 Early Access 2. The landscape was not supported by Lumen. So I wanted to completely avoid it. Later I switched versions and this problem was resolved but by that time I was already settled on my river. So I never made a complex landscape material and only used 1 tileable material with no blending. I used the water plugin in UE5. There are some nice tutorials available online for those who have not tried it yet. Here is how I did it.

I used a landscape actor as a flat plane with one sandy material from Megascans. I kept enough density so that I could do a bit of sculpting if needed. Also because my rivers had sharp turns and twists.
我在UE5抢先体验2中启动了这个项目。景观没有得到Lumen的支持。所以我想完全避免它。后来我切换了版本，这个问题得到了解决，但那时我已经在我的河上定居下来了。因此，我从未制作过复杂的景观材料，只使用了1种没有混合的可平铺材料。我在UE5中使用了水插件。对于那些尚未尝试过的人来说，在线上有一些不错的教程。这是我是如何做到的。

我用一个风景演员作为平面，用Megascans的一个沙质材料。我保持了足够的密度，以便在需要时可以进行一些雕刻。也因为我的河流有急转弯和曲折。

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Then I spent some time drawing the rivers the way I had imagined. In order to branch it, I drew separate river splines. The default water shaders in the engine content were OK for my purpose. I had to play with the material Instance’s parameters a bit to adjust it for my needs. Mostly color and other aesthetic values. The velocity, width and depth of the river as well as the bank slope are controlled within the WaterBodyRiver actor’s details.
然后我花了一些时间按照我想象的方式画河流。为了分支它，我画了单独的河样条。引擎内容中的默认水着色器对于我的目的来说是可以的。我不得不稍微调整一下材质实例的参数，以根据我的需求进行调整。主要是颜色和其他美学价值。河流的速度，宽度和深度以及岸边坡度在WaterBodyRiver演员的细节中控制。

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Then came the most important step. I took a couple of Megascans, rocky beach meshes and started dressing up the river. This gif is created now after I am done with the scene but it does show the simplicity and effectiveness of this approach for the construction of the river bank and river bed.
然后是最重要的一步。我拿了几个Megascan，岩石海滩网格，开始打扮河流。这个gif是在我完成场景后创建的，但它确实显示了这种方法在河岸和河床建设方面的简单性和有效性。
https://gamesartist.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Fig-13-Gif.gif

This is the most fun part because it tied the bigger mountains to the ground and also provided the river bed. I had to adjust the color of the materials a bit and in the end, these rocks, sand and water gave me the look I needed. I think I was lucky to have found such a simple solution. In the past, I have tried other methods using virtual heightfield, parallax occlusion, etc.

But this with nanite is the best solution in my opinion. I tried to get dynamic water foam but it was way too costly and did not look impressive from a distance. I hope that this will improve over time in the upcoming UE5 releases. For now, the river was not perfect but good enough for me.

So I completed the first iteration like this and moved on.
这是最有趣的部分，因为它将较大的山脉绑在地面上，还提供了河床。我不得不稍微调整一下材料的颜色，最后，这些岩石，沙子和水给了我需要的外观。我想我很幸运能找到这样一个简单的解决方案。过去，我尝试过使用虚拟高度场，视差遮挡等其他方法。

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但在我看来，这与nanite是最好的解决方案。我试图获得动态水泡沫，但它太昂贵了，从远处看并不令人印象深刻。我希望随着时间的推移，在即将发布的UE5版本中，这种情况会有所改善。就目前而言，这条河并不完美，但对我来说已经足够好了。

所以我完成了像这样的第一次迭代，然后继续前进。


The entire scene kept evolving but the approach and method remained the same.

The Player’s Path

I used spline mesh actors to create the paths for the player. Since I used a tileable texture on it, that alone was never going to look good.
整个场景不断发展，但方法和方法保持不变。

玩家的路径

我使用样条网格体为玩家创建路径。由于我在上面使用了可平铺纹理，因此仅凭这一点就永远不会好看。

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The same approach is used for the ground next to this path. I did not have to use any complicated landscape material to blend textures and assets together. All I had to do was adjust and normalize the Albedo maps of pretty much all Megascans assets that I used. It was all about choosing the right asset and making sense of it.
此路径旁边的地面也使用相同的方法。我不必使用任何复杂的景观材质将纹理和资源混合在一起。我所要做的就是调整和规范我使用的几乎所有Megascans资产的反照率地图。这一切都是为了选择正确的资产并理解它。

The flocks of birds

Since I don’t have humans in my scene I needed something to give a sense of scale to the viewer. Adding a generic white bird is a wonderful way of doing it.
This is achieved by using one skeletal mesh of a crow from Epic/Quixel’s medieval village environment. I changed it into a white bird. It is a fairly simple mesh with very basic flying animation.
成群的鸟儿

由于我的场景中没有人类，我需要一些东西来给观众一种规模感。添加一只普通的白鸟是一种很好的方法。
这是通过使用Epic / Quixel中世纪村庄环境中的乌鸦的骨骼网格来实现的。我把它变成了一只白鸟。这是一个相当简单的网格，具有非常基本的飞行动画。

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I made a blueprint in which a custom spline works as a path and I can move another blueprint along the spline in a loop. All I needed to expose was speed along the spline. Below is the Follow Spline BP.
我制作了一个蓝图，其中自定义样条用作路径，我可以在循环中沿样条移动另一个蓝图。我需要暴露的只是沿着样条的速度。下面是跟随样条 BP。

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The next simple blueprint contains the animated skeletal meshes with one single looping animation. I manually created a flock in the viewport. I can add more or fewer birds and offset their animation as well as adjust the speed of animation.
下一个简单的蓝图包含带有单个循环动画的动画骨架网格体。我在视口中手动创建了一个羊群。我可以添加更多或更少的鸟，抵消它们的动画，以及调整动画的速度。

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This setup can be further improved, where I can expose the controls to add or remove the number of birds, customize their position in the flock, a single file or random flight, etc. But I did not need those controls for this project. I am going to make a tool later to implement these ideas. In the end, I was able to get a fully 3D, dynamic shadow-casting flock of birds. Which is pretty cool. In a real game we probably don’t need shadows from birds but for a personal project adding these little details is fun.
此设置可以进一步改进，我可以公开控件以添加或删除鸟类的数量，自定义它们在鸟群中的位置，单个文件或随机飞行等。但是我不需要这个项目的这些控件。我稍后将制作一个工具来实现这些想法。最后，我能够获得一群完全3D的动态阴影投射鸟群。这很酷。在真正的游戏中，我们可能不需要鸟儿的影子，但对于个人项目来说，添加这些小细节很有趣。

The Mountains

Mountains were the key element of my environment and I went through various experiments. I like terrain building software like world machine, Gaea and World Creator, etc. However, the top-down height map approach does not produce a mountain that has full 3d rocks and protruding forms.
山脉

山是我环境的关键元素，我经历了各种实验。我喜欢地形建设软件，如世界机器，Gaea和世界创造者等。但是，自上而下的高度贴图方法不会生成具有完整 3D 岩石和突出形式的山峰。

In Houdini, we can convert any volume to VDB and use erosion techniques on them. I have seen some amazing results. But in order to get the high fidelity as this one, you will need enormous
amounts of detail and in order to make multiple variations each asset will be unique and that is not good for memory.
在Houdini中，我们可以将任何卷转换为VDB，并在其上使用侵蚀技术。我看到了一些惊人的结果。但是，为了获得像这样的高保真度，您将需要大量的
细节，并且为了进行多种变体，每个资产都将是唯一的，这对内存不利。

So once again, that world-builder mindset comes to the rescue!
I had a couple of generic-looking mountains made with simple height maps that I had placed in the level early on. Later I dressed them up using the same Megascans rocks I used elsewhere. This  approach is really helpful because;
因此，这种世界建设者的心态再次拯救了我们！
我用简单的高度图制作了几座看起来很普通的山脉，这些地图是我早期放在关卡中的。后来，我用我在其他地方用过的Megascan岩石来打扮它们。这种方法确实很有帮助，因为;

● I am creating the silhouette inside Unreal. Very dynamic approach and low maintenance.
● I am saving time by not sculpting and baking outside the engine.
● I am reusing the same rocks dozens of times. It makes them look part of the same biome.
● I can create an unlimited number of unique silhouettes and mountain variations.

I had to create a custom material on the base mountain to blend the additional rocks on it better. Here is how this mountain is made for example:
● 我正在虚幻引擎内部创建剪影。非常动态的方法和低维护。
●通过不在发动机外雕刻和烘烤来节省时间。
●我正在重复使用相同的岩石数十次。这使它们看起来像是同一生物群系的一部分。
●我可以创建无限数量的独特轮廓和山脉变化。

我不得不在山底上创建一个定制材料，以更好地混合上面的其他岩石。例如，这是这座山的制作方法：

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These are the individual parts that make the mountain.
这些是构成这座山的各个部分。
https://gamesartist.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Fig-22-GIF.gif

There are better ways of creating detailed mountains where we can reduce quad overdraw but due to the time restraint, this technique was good for the needs of this project.

Distant mountains are simple one mesh texture mountains, I add detailed normal maps tiled on top to give them the correct scale in the scene, nothing fancy.
有更好的方法来创建详细的山脉，我们可以减少四边形过度绘制，但由于时间限制，这种技术对这个项目的需求是有好处的。

远处的山脉是简单的一目纹理山脉，我在上面添加详细的法线贴图，给它们在场景中正确的比例，没什么花哨的。

The Hero Assets

Working on a hero asset is sometimes overwhelming and people get carried away. However, since I had clearly defined my scope in the beginning, it drastically reduced the amount of work on this asset.

I had a clear location, viewing angle, light direction and time of day for this asset. I never wanted to make it perfect from all sides. I only sculpted the major details in ZBrush on 3 sides. I had to export this a few times to UE in order to check the silhouette & scale etc.

I had already planned to add additional details in UE. Surface details were going to be added via Materials/Normal maps. It was really crucial for me to get out of ZBrush as quickly as possible because the more I sculpt the more I commit to the details and the fewer options I have in the editor.

Once happy I did the first pass UVs in ZBrush and also separated the surface into 4 polygroups. Top, Bottom, damaged and flat.
英雄资产

处理英雄资产有时是压倒性的，人们会被带走。但是，由于我在一开始就明确定义了我的范围，因此大大减少了该资产的工作量。

我有一个清晰的位置，视角，光线方向和一天中的时间。我从来不想让它从各个方面都变得完美。我只在3面上雕刻了ZBrush中的主要细节。我不得不将其导出几次到UE，以便检查轮廓和比例等。

我已经计划在UE中添加其他细节。表面细节将通过材质/法线贴图添加。对我来说，尽快离开ZBrush真的至关重要，因为我雕刻得越多，我对细节的承诺就越多，而我在编辑器中的选择就越少。

一旦高兴，我在ZBrush中完成了第一次通过UV，并将表面分成4个多组。顶部，底部，损坏和平坦。

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Then I exported it to 3dsmax. Fixed some obvious mesh issues, Normals, reduced it further to under 400K triangles and refined/repacked the UVs in 4 material IDs.
然后我把它导出到3dsmax。修复了一些明显的网格问题，法线，将其进一步减少到400K三角形以下，并在4个材料ID中改进/重新包装了UV。

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I was able to reduce the production time even further by not baking any maps. This is not what I would do on a game project. If this had to be in an actual game used in a variety of situations and lighting, I would have taken a different approach. But as you can see in my project I have a very clear scope and a narrow window of time.

I must finish it without making it perfect. There are two materials, one used on the flatter surfaces and the other on damaged parts. Both Megascans materials
我能够通过不烘焙任何地图来进一步缩短生产时间。这不是我在游戏项目上会做的事情。如果这必须是在各种情况和照明中使用的实际游戏中，我会采取不同的方法。但正如你在我的项目中看到的，我有一个非常清晰的范围和一个狭窄的时间窗口。

我必须完成它，而不是让它变得完美。有两种材料，一种用于较平坦的表面，另一种用于损坏的部件。两种巨型扫描材料

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I started dressing up the base mesh with some brick assets inside Unreal. I made another material instance of the same material I used on the flat surface and applied it to the individual broken bricks matching the texel density. This is how it all blended together.

I added a few decals for watermarks. A few meshes to add moss in some corners etc. In the end, added a bit of grass in some areas where it could grow. There is enough geo to make the seam of the two textures look acceptable. So here is how it looked on a gym level.
我开始在虚幻引擎中用一些砖块资源来打扮基础网格体。我用我在平坦表面上使用的相同材料制作了另一个材料实例，并将其应用于与纹理密度匹配的单个破碎砖上。这就是它们融合在一起的方式。

我为水印添加了一些贴花。一些网格，以在某些角落添加苔藓等。最后，在一些可以生长的地方加了一点草。有足够的地理位置使两个纹理的接缝看起来可以接受。所以这是它在健身房里的样子。

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For now this is good enough. Let’s place it in my main level under the actual lighting.
就目前而言，这已经足够好了。让我们把它放在我的主要关卡中的实际照明下。

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So I move on to the other distant secondary assets. I improvised and designed these assets in the same shape language. With the same technique and mindset. I did not have to maintain a specific texel ratio on these. Since you never get too close to them. The only important thing was the silhouette and readability. As long as it reads well from a distance it is good. So it was rather quick.
因此，我转向其他遥远的二级资产。我即兴创作并以相同的形状语言设计这些资源。使用相同的技术和心态。我不必在这些方面保持特定的纹理比例。因为你永远不会离他们太近。唯一重要的是轮廓和可读性。只要它从远处读得好，它就很好。所以这相当快。

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These assets fit and look good from the angles I had in mind. Quick and dirty works in this case.
This approach is key if you want to finish your personal world-building projects. Especially of this scale.
这些资产适合我，从我心目中的角度来看，它们看起来也很好。在这种情况下，快速而肮脏的工作。
如果你想完成你的个人世界建设项目，这种方法是关键。特别是这种规模。

The Fog and Light Shafts

Fog plays a very important role in this environment. It works with light and ties everything together. I don’t like to use fog with crazy values. That was never the desired look for this project. When you add this much detail you don’t want to kill it by hiding everything behind a thick layer of fog. In this environment, the river is the source of fog/mist. Also notice that I am only placing my custom fog actors where the light is strong. With a very subtle exponential height fog and many custom fog actors, here is how the environment looks with and without it.
雾和光轴

雾在这种环境中起着非常重要的作用。它与光一起工作，并将所有东西联系在一起。我不喜欢用疯狂的价值观来使用雾。这从来都不是这个项目想要的样子。当你添加这么多细节时，你不想把所有东西都藏在一层厚厚的雾气后面来杀死它。在这种环境中，河流是雾/雾的来源。另请注意，我只将自定义雾演员放置在光线较强的地方。具有非常微妙的指数高度雾和许多自定义雾演员，这是有和没有它的环境外观。

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Here is the material applied to the fog cards.
这是应用于雾卡的材料。

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I made a custom plane mesh for light shafts and made a simple material for it. I wanted to keep them very subtle.
我为光轴制作了一个定制的平面网格，并为其制作了一个简单的材料。我想让它们保持非常微妙。

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The Sky

I tried a lot of methods to make the kind of clouds I wanted. I tried placing custom volumetric cloud actors mentioned by William Foucher in one of his youtube videos. I also tried a custom cloud material shared by Michael Kinsy. These and other methods are wonderful but nothing was making sense in this scene. Eventually, I went back to a less desirable method and added the HDR sky from Epic’s valley of the ancients dark mode. All of a sudden the sky made sense. It had the perfect ambiance, light direction and the kind of lines I wanted in the clouds to compliment my composition..
天空

我尝试了很多方法来制作我想要的那种云。我尝试将William Foucher提到的自定义体积云演员放在他的一个YouTube视频中。我还尝试了Michael Kinsy共享的自定义云材料。这些和其他方法都很棒，但在这个场景中没有任何意义。最终，我又回到了一个不太理想的方法，并从Epic的古人黑暗模式山谷中添加了HDR天空。突然间，天空变得有意义了。它具有完美的氛围，光线方向以及我想要在云中恭维我的构图的那种线条。

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Lighting

Lighting is the most important element of this project. It was one of my main objectives to push lighting to the next level. It did take me some time to figure it out.
As a rule, there are multiple correct ways of lighting an environment. It depends on what we want to achieve. If performance is the top priority then the approach is slightly different. However, in my case, I wanted an epic fantasy look. The very dramatic and almost surreal atmosphere is reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, God of War, etc. But once again, I have a story that informs all of my artistic decisions.
照明

照明是这个项目最重要的元素。将照明提升到一个新的水平是我的主要目标之一。我确实花了一些时间来弄清楚。
通常，有多种正确的方法来照亮环境。这取决于我们想要实现的目标。如果性能是重中之重，则方法略有不同。然而，就我而言，我想要一个史诗般的幻想外观。非常戏剧化和近乎超现实的气氛让人想起指环王，战神等。但再一次，我有一个故事，它影响了我所有的艺术决定。

Gameplay considerations

In this case, the player is entering the realm so the starting point should be in a bit of a darker area. Then there is the first stop where the player has to make an alliance, get a weapon, a horse and stuff. Maybe some dialogues/cinematics etc. So a beam of light is guiding her towards the guild. This is also the location where she can see the entire valley.
游戏玩法注意事项

在这种情况下，玩家正在进入领域，所以起点应该在一个较暗的区域。然后是第一站，玩家必须结成联盟，获得武器，马匹和其他东西。也许有一些对话/电影等。所以一束光指引着她走向公会。这也是她可以看到整个山谷的位置。

The player will savor the moment and will be fully immersed in the environment. Down the road there is a village she will travel through and then there is another post, a mini-battle. After which she walks on the bridge, another cinematic moment perhaps. After that, she climbs up the castle wall and gets to some secret door or something. She reaches the castle and eventually fights the boss and wins. The point is, that lighting must not ignore this progression.
玩家将享受这一刻，并将完全沉浸在环境中。在路上，有一个村庄她将穿过，然后还有另一个哨所，一场小型战斗。之后，她走在桥上，也许是另一个电影时刻。在那之后，她爬上城堡的城墙，到达了一些秘密的门或别的什么地方。她到达城堡，最终与老板战斗并获胜。关键是，照明绝不能忽视这一进展。

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Now the technical part.
I did not use directional light as my main source of sunlight. I did not use light functions and I did not use occluders. Nothing is baked. Everything is dynamic and real-time.
现在是技术部分。
我没有使用定向光作为我的主要阳光来源。我没有使用光照功能，也没有使用遮挡器。没有任何东西是烘烤的。一切都是动态和实时的。

Ambient Light

I am using a dim skylight with real time capture ON. Also a very subtle top down directional light to
enhance the impact of whatever little bit of blue sky is visible through the cloud layer. This directional
light is giving me not so sharp contact shadows. It also adds a slightly brighter “top” surface to
everything. This adds to the definition and readability of geometry.
This setup is my ambient light source.
Lumen does take my albedos and emissives into account. My custom fog is emissive only, so it
automatically adds to the ambient light in those areas. Which is cool.
环境光

我正在使用带有实时捕获的昏暗天窗。还有一种非常微妙的自上而下的定向光，以
增强通过云层可见的任何一点点蓝天的影响。这种定向
光给了我不那么清晰的接触阴影。它还为
所有内容添加了稍微亮一些的“顶部”表面。这增加了几何图形的定义和可读性。
此设置是我的环境光源。
Lumen确实考虑到了我的反照和发射。我的自定义雾仅是自发光的，因此它
会自动添加到这些区域的环境光中。这很酷。


Mood, Key & Rim Lights


We are not trying to recreate reality. We want to make it believable. So do not look up the Lux values
for evening sun etc. those are for some other situations. 🙂
Now the key light is coming from multiple spotlights loosely set up to imitate the sun’s direction but not
100%. Some of these lights provide the rim light effect on mountain tops and trees. Most of these spot
lights have no shadows. Important for performance. Except where the shadow is visible to the camera.
Lumen is doing a lot but I am still faking/enhancing some of the bounces. Again I am using very subtle
values here without shadows to enhance the bounces. So here is the set up from one angle.
By the way, quality of life tip, I change the actor size in the editor so i can select them without leaving
the Camera frustrum. Even if they are 30000 units away.
Mood， Key & Rim Lights

我们不是在试图重现现实。我们希望让它变得可信。因此，不要查找傍晚阳光等的Lux值
，这些都是针对其他一些情况的。🙂
现在，关键光来自多个聚光灯，这些聚光灯松散地设置以模仿太阳的方向，但不是
100%。其中一些灯在山顶和树木上提供边缘光效。这些聚光
灯中的大多数都没有阴影。对性能很重要。除非摄像机可以看到阴影。
Lumen正在做很多事情，但我仍然在假装/增强一些反弹。我再次在这里使用非常微妙
的值，没有阴影来增强反弹。所以这是从一个角度设置的。
顺便说一句，生活质量提示，我在编辑器中更改了演员大小，因此我可以在不离开
相机的情况下选择它们。即使他们是30000单位。

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Organization

I name my lights for convenience and as you can see the entire world outliner is organized. It can be
further organized by adding colors/subfolders for quicker selection, however this was good enough for
my needs.
组织

为了方便起见，我命名了我的灯，正如你所看到的，整个世界的轮廓都是有组织的。可以通过
添加颜色/子文件夹来进一步组织它，以便更快地进行选择，但是这足以满足
我的需求。

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This video below shows the exact contribution of each of these lights in a sequential manner. It is fun to watch.

I know that there are some expert lighting gurus cursing me for going this route, but as I said this is one way of achieving the look I wanted.
下面的视频以顺序显示了这些灯中每一盏灯的确切贡献。观看很有趣。

我知道有一些专业的照明大师会因为走这条路而诅咒我，但正如我所说，这是实现我想要的外观的一种方式。


Rendering

Part of the scope of this project was to produce rendered sequences. From the start, I had a clear frame in my mind. You must decide on your frame ratio otherwise you cannot settle on a composition.
This is my Camera Set up.
渲染

该项目的部分范围是制作渲染序列。从一开始，我就有一个清晰的框架。您必须决定帧率，否则无法确定构图。
这是我的相机设置。

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As you can see I went with a 1:2 ratio. I also rendered my sequences at 24 FPS and I had a very subtle (0.5) motion blur ON. This gives the cinematic look we all are familiar with. This motion blur was the
only effect other than a subtle vignette that was achieved through Post Process Volume. No color grading, no LUTs, No other adjustment.

This is why you see in real time what you get in the rendered sequence. In order to enhance the scale of this realm, I kept my camera movements to a consistent pace and minimum travel. The camera almost never rotates. These are all conscious decisions. I used Sequencer to add the simple camera animations and used Movie Render Queue to render out the sequences. I used the following settings for anti-aliasing, the rest is the default.
如您所见，我以1：2的比例进行了选择。我还以24 FPS的速度渲染了我的序列，并且我有一个非常微妙（0.5）的运动模糊。这给了我们大家都熟悉的电影外观。这种运动模糊是除了通过后期处理体积实现的微妙晕影之外
的唯一效果。无颜色分级，无 LUT，无其他调整。

这就是为什么您可以实时查看渲染序列中获得的内容的原因。为了增强这个领域的规模，我保持相机运动的一致速度和最小的行程。相机几乎从不旋转。这些都是有意识的决定。我使用Sequencer添加简单的摄像机动画，并使用电影渲染队列来渲染序列。我使用以下设置进行抗锯齿，其余的是默认的。

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These settings produced faster renders. I put together these sequences in After Effects. There was no effect added on top. Only the blending between the sequences and a music track was added. You can do it in sequencer too but I like After Effects for simple editing/mixing. I rendered the final outputs using adobe media encoder as MP4.
这些设置可产生更快的渲染速度。我在After Effects中将这些序列放在一起。顶部没有添加任何效果。仅添加了序列和音乐曲目之间的混合。您也可以在音序器中执行此操作，但我喜欢After Effects进行简单的编辑/混音。我使用Adobe媒体编码器将最终输出渲染为MP4。

Tips and Takeaways

1. Having an overall method of organizing and finishing a project is very important. I did this by having a list of clear objectives and well-defined scope. Writing these down and making yourself accountable will help stick to them. This is indispensable for the completion of large-scale personal projects.

2. Story/narrative should inform all creative and artistic decisions. I incorporated my story into the world, composition, lighting and atmosphere.

3. Develop the mindset of a world builder and apply it until it becomes a habit.

4. Optimize the amount of work based on what is visible in your final medium of delivery and resist the temptation of making everything to perfection.

5. Spend as much time in the blockout stage as possible before committing to a design or composition.

6. Repeat your process and refine it with every iteration.

7. In the end I must acknowledge that I have benefitted from some of the articles on gamesartist.co.uk in the past. It is a great source of technical knowledge as well as motivation.

I really enjoyed working on this project. My new year resolution was to finish at least two projects in 2022. Wish me luck for the next one!
提示和要点

1.拥有组织和完成项目的整体方法非常重要。我通过列出明确的目标和明确的范围来做到这一点。写下这些并让自己负责将有助于坚持下去。这对于完成大型个人项目是必不可少的。

2. 故事/叙事应告知所有创意和艺术决策。我把我的故事融入了世界、构图、灯光和氛围中。

3.培养世界建设者的心态，并应用它，直到它成为一种习惯。

4.根据最终交付媒介中可见的内容优化工作量，并抵制使一切完美无缺的诱惑。

5. 在投入设计或构图之前，尽可能多地在封锁阶段花费时间。

6.重复您的过程，并在每次迭代时对其进行优化。

7.最后，我必须承认，我过去曾从一些关于 gamesartist.co.uk 的文章中获益。它是技术知识和动力的重要来源。

我真的很喜欢这个项目。我的新年决心是在2022年完成至少两个项目。祝我下一个好运！