Book Image

Architectural Visualization in Unreal Engine 5

By : Ludovico Palmeri
Book Image

Architectural Visualization in Unreal Engine 5

By: Ludovico Palmeri

Overview of this book

If you excel at creating beautiful architectural renderings offline, but face challenges replicating the same quality in real time, this book will show you how the versatile Unreal Engine 5 enables such transformations effortlessly. While UE5 is widely popular, existing online training resources can be overwhelming and often lack a focus on Architectural visualization. This comprehensive guide is designed for individuals managing tight deadlines, striving for photorealism, and handling typical client revisions inherent to architectural visualization. The book starts with an introduction to UE5 and its capabilities, as well as the basic concepts and principles of architectural visualization. You’ll then progress to essential topics such as setting up a project, modeling and texturing 3D assets, lighting and materials, and post-processing effects. Along the way, you’ll find practical tips, best practices, and hands-on exercises to develop your skills by applying what you learn. By the end of this UE5 book, you'll have acquired the skills to confidently create high-quality architectural visualizations in Unreal Engine and become proficient in building an architectural interior scene in UE5 to produce professional still images.
Table of Contents (24 chapters)
1
Part 1: Building the Scene
6
Part 2: Illuminating and Materializing the Scene
12
Part 3: Completing the Scene
16
Part 4: Rendering the Scene
Appendix:Substrate Materials

Preparing 3D scenes for real-time usage

As previously stated, I will be utilizing 3ds Max to create my scene, but you can choose to use any other software for this stage. Common options include Blender, Cinema 4D, and Maya. Rhino, Revit, SketchUp, SolidWorks, and other CAD/BIM modeling software can also be used, although some of the concepts mentioned here may not be applicable. This is because Unreal Engine only works with meshes, converting CAD inputs into meshes during the import process and not providing as precise control over polycount as a dedicated 3D software would.

Dealing with the polycount

One of the most challenging aspects of video games and game engines has been keeping the polycount (that is, the number of polygons composing the models) at a reasonable level, as a high polycount would result in a laggy scene that is too much for the graphics card to handle. A few years ago, real-time modeling meant sacrificing unnecessary details, baking normal maps to low-poly...