Medieval Village
Tools
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Unreal Engine 5
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Quixel Megascan Assets
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Blueprints
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Blockout Tools Plugin
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Audacity
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DaVinci Resolve
My Role:
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Level Designer
Goal
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Design a realistic environment utilizing Quixel Megascan assets and bring it to life scripting sounds, post-processing, procedural foliage volumes, and level streaming.
Overview
The Medieval Village environment was constructed using Quixel Megascan assets. I had a simple goal for this level, put together a realistic environment that was interesting to walk through and was performant. The first step I did was use the Blockout Tools Plugin and the landscape sculpting tool to get a feel of the space. Once I was happy with the layout, I began placing the large props first (buildings, points of interest that act as landmarks), then slowly layered the foliage using the procedural foliage volumes to dramatic effect.
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The result was already incredible, but I felt I could push it more using moody lighting. First I enabled light shafts and played around with fog to acheive the look I wanted (calm early morning fog). I then wanted to experiment with level streaming to see how the day/night lighting profiles looked like. It was hard for me to choose which lighting scenario I liked the most, so I scripted it to hop seamlessly between the day/night profiles!
Medieval Village
Realistic Environment
Initially there was no plan to add gameplay to the environment, just a desire to use the Quixel assets to see what I could put together with my knowledge at the time. Much of the scripting that I did was to add life to the level like sounds (wildlife, water, creaking of the windmill, etc.) and lighting changes.
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Eventually I began adding gameplay elements like object interactions and enemy AI (see test below). These additions were heavily inspired by Resident Evil Village, a game that I was obsessed with at the time!
Walkthrough
Intro View
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This is the view that greets the player upon starting the level. I had done my best to compose all the assets in the frame to invite the player to drink in the visuals and guide their eye to the right of the road. The muddy road and fence were made using spline meshes.
Abandoned Dwellings?
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The first pair of dwellings that you walk by exploring the village. I used the procedural foliage volumes to give a sense of disrepair and negligence. If this place is occupied, why did their owners allow the foliage to obstruct their entryway?
Branching Paths
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I played with elevation as well as branching paths to make exploring more interesting. The village was broken up into sections, the small farmland, the mill, the village square, dock/fisherman, the church, and finally the manor.
The Church
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It took quite a bit of fine tuning to get the composition of this shot just right! Large trees were grouped tightly together on this crossroad to make it darker and then I adjusted the directional light to make it so light shafts radiated down toward the player from the church.
The Mill
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The mill was fairly important to the people back in medieval times, so I made sure to utilize it as a landmark that can be seen from nearly anywhere on the map. Some LoD adjustments had to be made to ensure the camera did not cull them away.
The Dark Path
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This is my favorite shot with the night time lighting scenario. It was really neat working with the level streaming tool. In addition to modifying the lighting, I also used it to change the type of wildlife sounds you'll hear. During the day, small "happy" birds will chirp in random places at random times. During the night, those sounds are replaced with the soft hoot of owls, crickets and harsh sounding critters. I had been playing a whole lot of Resident Evil Village at the time, and this was as close as I could get to getting the creepy vibes!
The Blacksmith
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What medieval village is complete without some kind of metal worker? I designed this space to be open air, with the blacksmiths quarters possibly located either right behind or beside the building. All the tools of the trade are located conveniently nearby and plenty of examples of their work are on display for potential customers.
Village Overview
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An overhead view of the entire village. It's small, but dense with details. Really proud of how this one turned out!