Sir, you amaze me and inspire me to push my work and become as good as you (or better :o). is the quality I want for a game I’m developing in my spare time to really engage the player and like I said, REALLY INSPIRING and motivating. Nothing is out of hands reach, so long as you put forth the effort.
So, it’s time to give some more informations 
On performances :
I have absolutely not optimize my scenes, the trees can have less poly, the lods can be tuned better, the quality settings are maxed … in short, there is lot of room for improvement.
On my i7-3770 / GTX970, in editor (1080p), I get around 30fps for the forest and mecha scenes and around 60fps for the snow scene.
What is killing the performance the most is the sun shadows. On “epic” quality, it divide my framerate by two ( is why the snow scene run at 60fps).
On the process :
(I use the 4.7.0 Preview 8)
I start by making some trees/plants in . I use trees from the store as a base, do some tweak untill I get something I like.
I activate the distance fields in UE4 (Project Settings - Rendering - Generate Mesh Distance Fields), and import the trees.
In the static mesh properties I check “Generate Distance Field as if TwoSided”.
For the leaves material, I use the new “Two Sided Foliage” shading model and plug the diffuse texture in the subsurface color slot.
For the lighting, I use a movable sky and sun (no special thing here, I just change the min occlusion in the sky if the AO is too dark).
Concerning the DFGI : It’s a great but it’s “the icing on the cake”. I don’t use it on the snow scene and it’s barely noticable on the mecha scene. The that give good result it’s the DFAO.
I totally forgot to say that the mecha scene was inspired by the artist Simon Stålenhag
https://farm9.staticflickr/8633/16434187458_2064167409_z.jpgUE4 - by kooooola, on Flickr
(I hope it’s understandable, my english is not very good.^^)
looks rather fammiliar.
://www.simonstalenhag.se/bilderbig/akersnuten_1920_badge.jpg
Thank you so much for sharing.
Your picture perfect scenes are my biggest inspiration on creating in UE4. Looks like it’s HDRI lit, but that isn’t the case then?
Looking forward to more from you.
Really appreciate the insights into your process, your work continues to astound and inspire me!
And your english is just fine 
is probably the best advertisement for possible.
Amazing work!
your work is amazing
Not only look real but also very emotion
DFAO does not shadow Landscape Actors correct?
Totally reminded me about Simon’s stuff! You managed to capture the same feeling.
Found an article about your work ! Thought you might like to know
://www.tweaktown/news/43710/unreal-engine-4-video-details-gorgeous/index.html
P.S. I told them it was yours, since they didn’t seem to mention it in the article.
Man… is great, you surprised us again (I didn’t think it could be possible after the Archviz/Lighting thread). You really the mood on all your scenes. You can see a lot of amazing visuals over there in forum, but few of them have such a great atmosphere like yours.
Just a question. Do you use Temporal AA? Don’t you have trouble getting foliage details with method when they are moving (wind animations)? Disabling mipmaps on foliage textures helps with the sharpness when they are still, but when they are moving, it gets really ugly…
Inspiring as always . You’ve proven on more than one occasion that the future of real-time rendering looks incredible and is not far away.
real time ? enable lpv? like Web ? https://wiki.unrealengine/Light_Propagation_Volumes_GI
I enable . it’s right?
Thanks a lot for all these precisions !
Really have to dig more into and UE4’s foliage system, and no excuses now that the 4.7 release is out !
Super boulot en tout cas, chapeau bas !
, are you placing your trees by hand or using the foliage painting? I ask because instances placed by the foliage system aren’t shadowed correctly as far as I can see. I have really strange artifacts as well with the DFAO. I presume is because I’m using a landscape which is currently unsupported, but oddly it also shows up on static mesh actors and NOT foliage instances. Mostly just curious if you are using the foliage instancing and how you get around the shadowing problems.
I believe the latest release just added DFAO support on instanced meshes, including foliage.
Do you use Temporal AA ?
Yep. And yes, with the wind, the leaves get very blurry.
Are you placing your trees by hand or using the foliage painting?
I use the foliage painting tool. Like ZacD says, with 4.7 dfao now works on instanced meshes.
I have really strange artifacts as well with the DFAO
Yep, same thing here. It occur time to time, I just switch to fullscreen (F11) and switch back and it fix the problem … for a while.
DFGI？what is it，How to enable DFGI? what’s the difference between LPV and DFGI ?
Greetings!
Very nice work !
would you make like video tutorials for the noobs like me. Like ur steps and process. Would love to know how comes together!