Mineral Asteroid Set for Unreal Engine 5
This scene was realized with the new set of mineral asteroids in Unreal Engine 5, taking full advantage of Nanite and Lumen. I modelled the asteroids in Blender, using both hand-sculpting and procedural tecninques to make the rocks look fragmented and cobbled together.
As for the placement of the meshes in the scene, I created a blueprint that organized the asteroids in clusters and shatters them around, and it is controlled with a small set of parameters.
I also added volumetric clouds: they are in an early stage at the present moment and still need optimization, but the workflow with volume textures and materials seem to be on the right way.
I used Substance Painter for the main texture. This image was rendered in IRay, but the final material in Unreal does not use a diffuse texture, as it only takes data from the geometry textures and then colours can be manipulated in the material instance.
Ambient occlusion, Height, Normal, Curvature, Example diffuse colour.
For modelling the asteroids I used a mix of hand sculping and procedural techniques. I heavily customized some of the brushes in Blender, even though 90% of the time I used the scrape tool.
All the meshes seem to behave flawlessly with Nanite and Lumen.
The smart material allowed me to try different combinations: from rocks mixed with scarlet rubies, to icy floating mountains, to cracked stones filled with gold.
Volumetric clouds are still in an early stage. I am satisfied with how the look, but they are too heavy. I will try to optimize the system as much as possible without sacrificing the quality.
The asteroid meshes are created and placed by a blueprint that manages the size, the dispersion and the organization in clusters of the rocks. This tool still needs to be perfected, but it is quite powerful already.
