During my time at UWE My dissertation explored how next-generation systems in Unreal Engine 5 can improve the workflow and visual quality of real-time environment production. The research focuses on key technologies including Lumen dynamic global illumination, Nanite virtualised geometry, Procedural Content Generation (PCG) and Runtime Virtual Textures (RVT).

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As part of the project, I developed a real-time coastal environment to explore how these systems can be integrated within an environment art pipeline. The work examines how procedural tools can accelerate landscape development, how Nanite supports high-detail geometry without traditional optimisation constraints and how Lumen enables fully dynamic lighting for more natural global illumination.

 

As part of the project, several reusable tools and systems were developed to support efficient environment creation and improve artist workflow as well as be used for other projects.

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Procedural Landscape Generation (PCG)
A procedural scattering system was created using Unreal Engine’s PCG framework to automatically distribute assets such as rocks, vegetation and debris across the landscape. This allowed large areas to be populated quickly while still maintaining natural variation and artistic control.

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Landscape Master Material
A modular landscape material was developed to blend multiple surface types such as sand, rock and vegetation. The material uses layered textures and runtime blending to create natural transitions across the terrain while remaining flexible for future environments.

Several reusable material functions were created to keep the shader system organised and modular.
These include functions for:

• Albedo and colour control

• Slope detection for terrain blending

• Specular control

• Distance-based texture scaling

• Parallax Occlusion Mapping and Nanite Tessellation

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Runtime Virtual Texture Blending System

A Runtime Virtual Texture blending system was implemented to seamlessly blend static meshes with the landscape.

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Fog Card Blueprint Tool

A fog card master material and blueprint actor tool was created to allow fast placement of atmospheric fog layers in the environment.
The blueprint generates dynamic material instances so artists can duplicate fog cards without creating new materials, enabling quick iteration on atmospheric effects.​​​