Overgrown District, UE5 Environment and Lighting

In engine

The viewport shot is the same district as the plate above it. Foliage scatter and landscape sculpting are done in the editor, then graded down for the final composition.

Keeping the editor view in the set is the point: it shows where the scatter and the sculpting actually happen, before the grade does its work.

Scene assembly, landscape sculpting, foliage scatter, lighting and grade are mine. Models, materials and textures are Brushify and Quixel Megascans. Straight from engine. No paintover on this plate.

The generative pass

Abandoned, overgrown cityscapes. These are about scale, atmosphere, and what happens when the architecture starts losing to the plant life.

The road running to the horizon is the whole point of the frame. It gives the ruin a depth you can measure, and it is the first thing blocked out before any building goes in.

Scene assembly, landscape sculpting, foliage scatter, lighting and composition are mine; models, materials and textures are Brushify and Quixel Megascans. The build act above is the scene this frame comes from.

The finish runs in two passes: a generative pass in Leonardo over my engine renders, then paintover and compositing by hand in Photoshop. The renders set the world: the towers, the reclaimed road, the light. Leonardo resolves the close-range ruin and surface decay the kit assets do not carry at this distance. The hand pass settles the final frame.

The engine had already settled scale and atmosphere. What the image needed was decay that holds up at full width.