Build Your Dream Environment With Unreal Engine 4

Translate your ideas into amazing 3D renders

- Ricky Thomas

Developing 3D environments is easier than ever with free software like Unreal Engine and Blender. Often the most difficult part of the process is finding inspiration. Making use of the internet and drawing on real life is a great place to start, but it depends on your goals. If you want to create an environment from your imagination, then coming up with a theme and thoroughly researching it is a good idea. Creating concept art will help you plan before you jump into 3D, or if that’s not your style then being prepared to quickly iterate on your art can also work well. However, if your goal is to further develop your skills for a job one day, then it might be better to put yourself in the shoes of that position and work from there.

For example, this project was developed using pre-existing concept art from another artist (Minjeong Kim), a common workflow in creative studios. This allows you to cut out the leg work and quickly get into 3D. Tackling the process this way helps focus your attention to learn what you want, sharpen your planning skills, and break down a project into easily manageable chunks. This tutorial highlights my method of environment building.

01 BLOCK-OUT THE DESIGN

Using basic primitive shapes, block out the scene as best you can. It’s a good idea to get in a standard character at this stage to keep things to scale along the way; it can be easy to veer off track without one. If you don’t have a figure to use, you can either export the robot dummy from Unreal Engine or simply create a cube with the dimensions of 180H x 60W x 30D.

02 PRIORITISE ASSETS