Hello @Euneas !
Iām loving the designs so far! Your composition is also really fantastic. Iām very excited to see further development on this environment! Will the atmosphere still stay a sunny midday or will it be a foggy/paled wintery morning?
Weekly Progress Report
Completed This Week
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Continued environment development in Unreal Engine.
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Refined the overall layout and composition of the village/sect environment.
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Added and positioned lantern assets to improve atmosphere and visual guidance.
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Developed the central temple area and integrated it into the environment.
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Created and placed the sect banner asset and integrated it into the scene.
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Improved environmental storytelling through architecture, vegetation, snow, and prop placement.
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Adjusted lighting and exposure to enhance the contrast between warm lantern lighting and the cold winter setting.
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Conducted scene reviews and captured renders from multiple camera angles to evaluate composition and readability.
Current Progress
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Main environment layout established.
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Temple area, pathways, lanterns, banners, and major architectural elements are in place.
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Winter-themed visual direction has been maintained throughout the environment.
Challenges
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Balancing scene exposure while maintaining the mood of the lantern lighting.
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Improving visibility of architectural details in darker areas of the scene.
Plan for Next Week
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Complete the gate model and integrate it into the environment.
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Finish texturing the white shop building.
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Complete the wall modeling and texturing work.
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Refine lighting, exposure, and post-processing settings.
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Add final environmental details and continue scene optimization for presentation.
UE WEEKLY REPORT
This week I focused on continuing the development of my Chinese-inspired winter village environment in Unreal Engine 5.
I spent most of the week working on scene assembly, lighting, and material creation. I continued placing and refining the main architectural structures, lanterns, banners, vegetation, and environmental props throughout the scene. I also worked on improving the overall composition and visual flow of the environment, making sure the central temple remains the primary focal point from multiple camera angles.
A large portion of my time was spent creating a procedural damaged brick material in Substance Designer. I built the material from scratch using a brick generator, directional warp, slope blur, damage masks, height information, normal generation, roughness variation, and ambient occlusion. I experimented with different methods for creating believable surface damage and protrusions before finalising the material. The final material now includes Base Colour, Height, Normal, Roughness, and AO outputs and is ready to be used within the environment.
In Unreal Engine, I continued working on the lighting setup for the village. I adjusted the lantern lighting and tested different intensity and colour values to create a stronger contrast between the warm lantern glow and the cold winter atmosphere. I also refined several composition shots to evaluate the overall mood and readability of the scene.
I encountered some technical issues with Unreal Engine and the Epic Games Launcher, where the launcher temporarily failed to detect the engine installation. After troubleshooting the installation path and manually locating the engine files, I was able to relaunch the project and continue working.
Current progress includes:
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Main temple and surrounding buildings assembled.
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Winter vegetation and snow elements integrated.
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Lantern lighting pass established across the environment.
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Custom damaged brick material completed.
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Central courtyard and surrounding architectural details further refined.
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Multiple portfolio screenshots captured to evaluate composition and lighting.
Next week I plan to:
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Finish the shop texturing.
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Complete the wall texturing and material assignments.
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Continue polishing materials across the environment.
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Refine lighting and atmosphere.
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Improve visual hierarchy and focal point readability.
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Add additional environmental storytelling details.
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Continue preparing the scene for portfolio presentation and final renders.
