Buthan Palace

Try / Tuesday, March 20th, 2018

Bhutan palace in Unreal Engine 4

Summary

Bhutan Palace is a level where I focused on creating a beautiful environment in Unreal Engine 4. I wanted to enhance my skills in composition and visual storytelling. The level  starts as the beginning of a long journey where the player meets a mentor that sparks the Adventure. I added one extra week of production where I added scripted events that would enhance the storytelling. I added a puzzle to the Palace, solving the puzzle opens a hidden door where the player can find a reward.

Specifications

  • Walking simulator
  • Visual storytelling and composition
  • Blueprint Puzzle scripting
  • Made in five weeks half time
  • Tools: Unreal Engine 4, Maya and Photoshop CS6
First overview of the map

References and planning

The production started with finding a Asset pack in the Unreal Assets store that I could use. The assets where beatiful and stod out from the rest of the assets in the asset store.
Unreal Asset Store Buddhist Monestery Enviroment
Doing a realistic outdoor environment needed a lot of research and solid references. 
I found Tiger Temple in Bhutan and decided to base the level on that temple. There was a lot a imagery that I liked where the player would be able to look up on the Palace and walk along the mountain pass to reach it. I liked the shape of the Temple and tried to reimagine the Palace in my own way. I decided the location would also be in Bhutan so I looked at a lot of environment pictures from Bhutan and based the nature on that.
I watched some Speed Level design videos on Youtube where people created large mountain landscapes and tried to apply the methods they used for terraforming, painting ground, fooliage and placements of tree. This gave me some good tricks for creating a realistic nature enviroment effectivly. 

Reference pictures for the enviroment and palace

Creating a large outdoor enviroment

 I had to create a large environment with alot of parallaxes creating the depth of field I wanted and a lot of far distance tree foliage. So I made sure to use assets with Lod support and foliage with a low triangle count. Because of the high mountain in the background where so high I needed to create a second landscape in Unreal Engine 4 that would be elevated above the

About halfway through I made this overview so I could define all the details in the levels when I was proping
My first terraforming blockout

Telling the begining of a story

The level starts with a black screen and with the sound of a bus driving away, indicating that it is modern times. When i fade over the black screen the player don’t know what to do. So i added some flags and a small footpath throug the trees to goude the player there. After that I show the Palace and a clear goal for the player. I added some light to one of the towers indicating that tower was inhabited.  After i set a clear goal for the player the player jumps down from a large rock Making a visual “The point of no return”.
When the player reaches the Palace I wanted it to feel like it was closed down for some reason. Boarding up windows, stashed away pillows and items. Indicating that something has changed and there is only one person left to maintain the Palace. When the player comes closer to the Palace the tower with lights in it is always visible as a clear goal. 

Composition

I wanted the level to take place in the morning light. Having a blue cold morning. And then have the warm orange colors from the indoor enviroment. 
I used Post Processing to enhance the colors, with a warm orange post procesing volume in all the Indoor enviroments and a cold post processing for all the ourdoor enviroments
I wanted the level to consist of two main outdoor views one from below where the player would look up upon the Palace, creating a nice depth of field and framing the Palace in a inviting way.The other view the player should look down from where he/she came from. 

 

Post processing and light

I wanted the level to take place in the morning light. Having a blue cold morning. And then have the warm orange colors from the indoor enviroment. 
I used Post Processing to enhance the colors, with a warm orange post procesing volume in all the Indoor enviroments and a cold post processing for all the ourdoor enviroments

 

Blueprint Puzzle

So for the main room I added a small puzzle where the player would find a hidden passage behinde the budha statue. When you come in to the main room i wanted to catch the players attention with a large red prayer wheele

 

Closing Thoughts and potential improvmets

Doing a outdoor enviroment takes a lot of experience and recources. Setting the location Buthan as a frame of reference was super usefull and the images helped me. I learned so much on terraforming, terrain painting and fooliage placement. To make the nature feel natural was hard and I sometimes I started in the wrong order, for exampel adding the fooliage before I was done with terrain painting and tree placement. On this project there was a lot of question in what end I was supose to start in and a think I would be able to create this enviroment faster in the future knowing what order I should do things. 

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