A Ghost of Tsushima-Style Abandoned Temple Made in Unreal Engine 5

Introduction

Hello everyone, my name is Waner Guo. I'm a Level Artist from China with a focus on the environment art and lighting.

Since the first time I came into contact with Unreal Engine in college, I've been impressed by its powerful 3D real-time creation capabilities. From then on, I started teaching myself 3D. Now, I work at S-Game as a Level Artist, participating in the production of the Phantom Blade Zero.

Abandoned Temple

My abandoned temple project is a fan-made tribute to Ghost of Tsushima, one of my favorite games. Its environment art, cinematic shots, and lighting style have inspired me greatly.

The unique atmosphere and visual effects of Ghost of Tsushima evoke specific emotions and moods, enhancing my immersion in the game world and emotional resonance. Even while I was still playing the game, I decided to create a scene in the style of Ghost of Tsushima.

Assets & Vegetation

I used Unreal Engine 5 to create this scene based on the concept art and used a lot of high-quality scanned assets from PBRMAX and Megascans.

PBRMAX is a high-precision native scan PBR digital asset library that continuously scans 3D digital assets from the real world. It particularly scans many assets from East Asian scenes, digitizing and reconstructing various unique natural and cultural landscapes of East Asia. It has provided my project with many high-quality scanned models as well as high-quality textures.

In terms of composition, I utilized vertical framing because it typically emphasizes the presence of vertical lines, highlighting a sense of height and dimension in the image. This composition technique is particularly suitable for scenes like mine where there are prominent vertical lines such as trees.

When creating vegetation, I utilized a very handy tool called Smart Spline Generator. It's a Blueprint that allows ivy to automatically climb up trees or houses. It significantly increased my efficiency when I needed to place a large amount of ivy.

I processed the assets of reeds using Maya. The original reed model is from 3D66, but it cannot be directly applied to the engine and needs to be processed first.

To enhance the richness of the terrain, I added some procedurally generated vegetation models on the vegetation layer of the terrain. Combining this with manual brushing, it appears more natural and harmonious.

Rendering Setup

The lighting in Ghost of Tsushima is worth delving into. Whether it's the morning mist, the evening sunsets, or the twilight glow at night, the atmosphere in the game is exceptionally well-crafted, leaving players in awe.

In creating my own work, I relied on Lumen and ray tracing to simulate the feeling of the morning mist on Tsushima Island. I used HDRI to create the base for the sky lighting and added sunlight, mist, and post-processing cinematic color grading on top of it. As a result, I achieved the current effect.

Conclusion

Being invited by 80 Level is an exciting opportunity for me because when I was still in university learning Unreal Engine, I often followed articles and shares on 80 Level.

Moving forward, I will continue to learn and improve my skills, striving to create more high-quality work. Additionally, I also hope to engage with more environment artists for learning and exchange. If you enjoy my work, you can follow me on ArtStation. Thank you all.

Waner Guo, Level Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine