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

Outdoor lighting

Exterior lighting is made from several actors combined; specifically, you must use some of the following actors:

  • Directional Light (also called atmospherical light): This is used for the sun/moon and is the main light source in a scene.
  • Sky Light: This captures the background and projects it back as an ambient light. It requires SkyAtmosphere or SkySphere actors to work.
  • Sky Atmosphere: This component works closely with the directional light to create realistic or stylized sky and atmosphere effects for different planets and times of day. It also supports ground-to-space transitions with proper curvature and perspective. It has various properties that control the sky and atmosphere appearance.
  • Sky Sphere: This is an alternative to Sky Atmosphere but is less commonly used. It is a geometric mesh (spherical or hemispherical) with a sky material applied. You can define the material properties to customize the look of the sky and bind it to directional...