PCG Forest & Metahumans

This project was a way to experiment with new pipelines. NPR, Post Process Materials, Metahumans, Substrate, PCG, and Blender grooms.

This started as a test in exporting a posed metahuman as a base to sculpt on top of. However, it quickly turned into a full blown project.

After customizing a metahuman in UE5.7 I created a pose and exported the animation so I could bring it into Marvelous Designer in order to create the dress.

From there everything was sent into ZBrush for clean up and extra details. After that I brought everything into blender in order to create the groom and organize my UV's. I then used Marmoset tool bag to bake and texture everything.

From there I sent everything back to Unreal 5.7 in order to create the scene. All the plants are from Quixel Megascans and were scattered with a mix of PCG and foliage mode. The particles are a homemade Niagara system. Once everything was set up I ended up rendering the scene out in two passes. The first was the main render and the second was a line pass. This was so that I would have greater control over the final look during compositing.

This project taught me a lot. For one, this was the first time I've played around with a non physically based render. Secondly it was a good introduction to PCG, this is exciting because now that I have started wrapping my head around it I feel like it opens a lot of doors for rapid iteration and tool making.

Final Render

Composition Timelapse

In Engine Stills

Render Passes

Zbrush Screenshots