Hi, I’m Jordan Nelson. A 3D Artist originally from Canada.
I’m fascinated by what Unreal Engine 5 can achieve so far, and as a result, I’m trying my first made from the ground up project for it.
A full link to my project can can be seen in my portfolio below:
Hi @JordanN, this is how all scenes should start. I also love to do a blockout first.
Nice little cubes to get a feeling how it should look in the end. I am excited to see how this nice little cubes evolve over time into something more.
Hello @Thorsten09
Hehe, thanks. Starting with the cubes definitely helped envision what a city with several different sized skyscrapers could look like. While I’ve made environments before, this is truly the first time I do it at a massive scale!
As for my next step, well, Nanite actually just changed everything for me. I was originally concerned about performance and was going to do the traditional low poly props seen in video games, but since UE5 is now able to handle polycounts traditionally reserved for pre-rendered CG Movies, I am going to model and import objects that have a bit more detail and even displacement.
Hello @JordanN
Love the energy that your blockout emits. Look forward to see the next steps of the project.
I’ve a question for you: did you use static meshes of cubes or BSPs to blockout your city?
I’m new to level and environmental design and started experimenting very recently with the static meshes and the BSP worflows.
I haven’t been able to decide for one or the other yet, so I like to collect opinions.
Hello @ProfCuca
Thanks for the kind words! I actually have news about this project. I unfortunately made the difficult decision to discontinue using UE5 and switch back to 3DS Max/Arnold for my renders. As much as I love the engine, I had only learned it in hopes I would land a Game Industry Job I was interviewing at the time. But since I’ve now been hired by the TV/Film Industry instead, UE5 is no longer a requirement for my resume.
But I can still answer your question. Ironically, when I did first play around with UE4 & UE5 at release, I did use the built in modeling tools.
For the city blockout, it’s entirely a single mesh that has been attached together in 3DS Max, and exported as an FBX file. However, this was purely for testing purposes and optimizations because my own 3DS Max file has them as separate objects.
Regardless, if you’re just starting out, my advice is to watch free youtube tutorials or find other Environment Artist portfolios on the web, and look for breakdown examples. Even if you have to start out with something very simple like say… a Bedroom, and then work your way up to bigger stuff like the inside of Convenience store, followed by a Shopping Center and THEN try something massive like building an entire city.
The bigger your environment is, the more work and planning that has to go into it.
If I was still using UE5, my plan was to actually build on top of the Blockout I posted. So I would start from the center of the map which is considered the “downtown” area, and then slowly expand around it until I reach the neighboring suburbs that are at the edge of the map.
But keep in mind, that’s just ONE way I would tackle this. I’m sure many other Artists have their own tips and strategies.
@JordanN to bad to hear you dont use UE5 anymore for this.
But maybe you could if you finish this anyway export the USD (or FBX) files later into UE5 and show the render image from Max and screen from UE5.
I think a lot of people would want to know how this compares.
I have a feeling they would look at least similar without need to wait hours of rendering time. 
Hello again @Thorsten09
It was definitely a difficult choice to drop Unreal Engine but ultimately, it came down to a financial decision. Because I got hired by an Animation Studio who uses Vray for their final renders, Unreal would have forced me to split my attention, since real time & CGI are still two different pipelines.
And even though UE5 does give faster renders, there are still some things about Lumen & Nanite that aren’t up to complete photorealism right now. For example, the Unreal documentation admits you still need to bake out material ambient occlusion maps to get better self shadowing quality. But for a project that’s this BIG, that’s way too much time & effort when Vray or Arnold can render it in a single pass. I’ve also read and played with other things that are still in development. Such as Nanite is unable to use certain blend modes, or the meshes can’t be animated. Mirror reflections in Lumen are also not supported at the moment.
I will give credit for Epic though for getting this far with the technology. I’ve been waiting since the original UE3 days for any kind of real time ray tracing so it’s impressive that we’re finally seeing the first signs of it. But unless my job I was hired for makes the switch to a real time pipeline, then I can unfortunately only focus on one at a time unless I get paid for it.
@JordanN this is understandable, i wish you best of luck.
Hello again @Thorsten09, I know it’s been 2 weeks but I have another update.
So, I received official blessing to continue my project in UE5. Even though Vray is still being used at work, there is a lot of interest going on, on how to bring real time software to the animation space. And my current project (even in its blockout form) is helping the team understand how we can utilize this for our CGI projects.
Given the usefulness, I’m going to restart the project in Unreal again.
Greetings @JordanN !
Your project looks impressively massive! I’m happy to learn that your project has been found useful and development on this project will resume!
We look forward to your project’s progression! Please do not forget to post updates as you go along. I see great potential! 
Hello @Get_DOVAH_it
Thank you for the reply. Resuming where I left off, I’m already in the midst of porting my new props to UE5 and seeing what they look like with stylized materials and shaders.
I also have someone on my team who is interested in seeing how VR works with this project, although I’m aware that Nanite & Lumen aren’t currently compatible with it yet. However, I can always save that aspect for last, if Epic ever releases a future update.
I’m personally a big fan of VR and had a lot of fun with it on Playstation 4, so I understand the next gen potential that could be had…
Hi @JordanN , that is great to hear. I wil have a look at this cause i want to know if it turns out positiv for your project.
Hello again everyone. Just an update to confirm the project is still going.
I’ve actually been doing a lot of internal presentations with UE5 at my company. So there are some things I can’t post publicly at the moment.
But for the Saskatoon city itself, I have been making more assets that will aid in my own personal research and development. So far, I’m at the stage where I want to bring CGI-quality ambient occlusion and soft shadowing to real time.
At the moment, it’s stuff most people will find boring, but it’s going to get better soon. This August month, I’ll probably start putting together a small scene and do more lighting tests.
There’s also a limitation I’ve come across. Everything you’ve seen so far has been untextured for a reason. I’m aware my own personal PC is not the best suited for UE5 until I do upgrade down the line. Especially hard drive space. I’m being cautious with everything I import into the engine, despite aiming to make full use of Nanite and its polygon count, or have 4k+ textures.
So cool!
