The Enigmatic Valley

Hello, everyone! It’s been a while. I’m excited to share a project that was a joy to work on, as it gave me the chance to explore a range of techniques. Inspired by valley-themed artworks, I began by gathering references and creating a mood board to guide the creative process.

I started by blocking out the level in Unreal Engine 5.3 using simple cubes and starter content assets. For the main rock formation, I used Blender to create the blockout, which allowed me to refine its shape effectively. Most of the scene was made with the help of Quixel Megascans library, while additional elements, such as the background terrain, were created using Blender, ZBrush, and Substance Painter.

The background terrain blockout was initially modeled in Blender with displacement details added using Megascans height maps. I refined these details and applied sculpting enhancements in ZBrush before exporting the terrain to Substance Painter for creating masks to texture using megascans materials in Unreal Engine.

For the waterfall, I developed a custom shader using a static texture combined with a flowmap to animate it, achieving a realistic sense of movement.

For lighting, I aimed for a dramatic and cinematic look by using spotlights and rect lights instead of directional light. Additionally, I created an animated sky using HDRI and flowmaps to bring dynamic movement and realism to the environment. I also used EasyFog by William Faucher to add fog cards and enhance the overall look of the scene. This approach, along with Lumen, helped me achieve higher-quality results and enhanced the overall atmosphere of the scene.

For rendering, I used the Movie Render Queue to produce EXR outputs in ACES color space with Tone Curve disabled, ensuring a high dynamic range. Post-processing was completed in DaVinci Resolve, where I adjusted highlights, shadows, and temperature, and added screen effects such as glow and chromatic aberration.

Main Concept by Toivo Huhtaniska: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/YeOEEX
and Gabriel Yeganyan: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/B4xLA