Cinematic Photoreal Environments in Unreal Engine 5: Create captivating worlds and unleash the power of cinematic tools without coding (Paperback or Softback)

Achieve stunning photorealistic environments and create cinematic masterpieces by combining environment art, animation, VFX and cinematography with Unreal Engine Specialist, Giovanni Visai

Key Features

• Implement advanced shaders, effects, and post-processing to make your environment look cinematic
• Explore techniques for achieving realistic graphic complexity with incredible performance
• Create your own materials and enhance the visuals of your gaming environment
• Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Book Description

As Unreal Engine 5 continues to conquer all industries thanks to its real-time technology, UE skills are becoming more sought after than ever. This three-part book covers all the processes behind the creation of a stunning environment in UE 5.

Starting with the steps for installing the game engine and learning about its potential, you’ll quickly progress toward generating a variety of different upwards scaling outputs, each bigger than the previous one. After completing the first part and getting realistic shots of a single object, you’ll delve into the world of landscapes, procedural material and foliage, the Landmass plugin, and water tools by creating an environment using Megascan assets. At this point, you’ll know everything you need to create a fascinating and realistic environment. The final part of this book will teach you how to craft cinematic shots by working with cinematic tools, post processing, and framing tools, and by rendering a photorealistic shot in the last chapter.

By the end of this Unreal Engine book, you'll be able to create outstanding and realistic environments using the powerful tools provided by UE as well as have an understanding of the importance of filming and composition in world building.

What you will learn

• Generate a Master Material to create hundreds of different material instances
• Explore lighting principles and apply them to UE lighting systems
• Evaluate the pros and cons of real-time rendering in the world-building process
• Build massive landscapes with procedural materials, heightmap, landmass, and water
• Populate an environment with realistic assets using Foliage and Megascan
• Master the art of crafting stunning shots with Sequencer
• Enhance visual quality with Post Process Volume and Niagara
• Produce a photorealistic shot using the Movie Render Queue

Who this book is for

If you are a creative director, designer, or creator with a passion for technology and CGI, this UE 5 book is for you. Game developers and tech artists will also benefit from this book as it can help them understand an environment artist’s workflow and how to optimize performance.

Table of Contents

1. Creating Your First Project in Unreal Engine 5
2. Navigating the Unreal Engine 5 Interface
3. Exploring Unreal Engine 5 Project Structure
4. Importing and Working with Assets
5. Mastering Materials and Shading
6. Illuminating Your World with Lighting
7. Exploring Nanite, RVTs, and the World Partition Tool
8. Utilizing the Megascans Library
9. Mastering Landscape and Terrain
10. Creating Diverse Environments with Plugins
11. Crafting Cinematic Shots with Cameras and Sequencer
12. Enhancing Scenes with Post-Processing and Niagara
13. Rendering and Exporting Cinematic Shots

Giovanni Visai is an Unreal Engine Specialist, Game Designer and Teacher with extensive experience in real-time projects both gaming and virtual production. During the last 5 years, he has led a team in developing interactive solutions, software and virtual production projects in Unreal Engine. In January 2023, he was selected by Epic Games to be part of the World building fellowship EMEA as TA. He teaches virtual production and gaming storytelling at some of the best universities in Italy such as Politecnico di Milano and NABA. He has an MA in screenplay and directing at Scuole Civiche Milano and a BA in Computer Generated Animation at IED Milan. He has worked in the game industry as an environment artist and Lead Artist and now works as Unreal Engine Supervisor and Mentor.