Creating Photorealistic Environments in Unreal Engine 5.2 - A Complete Workflow Guide

Overview

Learn how to achieve photorealistic visuals in Unreal Engine 5.2 through an 11-minute video demonstration that focuses on advanced foliage and lighting techniques. Master the complete workflow from creating landscape mood boards to final rendering, including essential steps like height map implementation, material application, grass foliage placement, and path tracing optimization. Discover how to enhance scene realism by properly configuring grass culling distances, implementing HDRI skyboxes, and strategically placing environmental assets such as cobblestone walls, trees, barns, and hedges. Follow along with detailed material instance tweaking, landscape layer blending, and lighting finalization techniques to achieve professional-grade photorealistic results in your Unreal Engine projects.

Syllabus

Introduction
Landscape Mood Board
Creating the project
New level
Creating a landscape using a height map
Finding a nice view
Adding a material to the landscape
Adding grass foliage
Using path tracing
Fixing grass culling distance
Tweaking material colours in the material instance
Using a HDRI image for the sky
Adding the cobblestone wall
Adding trees
Adding the barn
Adding the hedges
Landscape layer blend for field materials
Finishing touches
Finalise lighting
Final render
Conclusion