Swedish Highlands UE5

Video I made showcasing the environment, added some audio to help sell the atmosphere

Progress gif

Progress gif

The grass, with gusts of wind going through

The shader I set up for the grass. Obvious optimization would be to pack the grass mask in the diffuse texture to get rid of a texture look-up.

The shader I set up for the grass. Obvious optimization would be to pack the grass mask in the diffuse texture to get rid of a texture look-up.

I needed a cheap way to create the V-formation of geese, and since it would only be visible as a silhouette I could keep it simple. By using the per-instance random node I offset the sine wave for each individual bird.

Since the birds would only be viewed at a great distance, I could get away with a very basic mesh. Using vertex color to mask out certain parts of the mesh, to control the amount of influence the sine wave would have in offsetting the vertices.

Since the birds would only be viewed at a great distance, I could get away with a very basic mesh. Using vertex color to mask out certain parts of the mesh, to control the amount of influence the sine wave would have in offsetting the vertices.

Swedish Highlands UE5

I recently went on a camping trip to Sweden. While there we did a 3 day hike in the Swedish highlands. With this project I tried to recreate the feeling and general atmosphere I felt there. Trees with only a few green branches battered by the constant winds and long winters looked gnarly, as if hundreds of years old yet they were only a few meters tall. The ground though looking a dark green from a distance, was surprisingly colorful from up close. Orange and white mosses, bushes with purple and reddish leaves, and a constant buzz of insects. It's clear that summer doesn't last long here, which made it feel extra precious.

Besides this, I also had the personal goal to be more loose in the way I approach the scene and focus mainly on the general composition and colors. The quality of the individual assets was secondary on this project - and I went back to some older projects to grab relevant assets like some of the foliage and tiling textures that I could use. I felt like to really convey the feeling I was aiming for, I needed a short video with some audio as still images didn't really do this for me.