Rural PCG Roadside Tool- UE5
I worked on this PCG for PLAZAMEDIA GmbH as a tool to generate rural roadside environments which are highly customizable (for more details on what is adjustable take a look on the PCG graph instance settings which are listed down below in this post). One can use it for multiple projects and adjust it for their needs. It's meant to be used as a background in a virtual production environment for car scenes seen in movies and tv shows.
-----------------------------------------------
How the core system works:
The PCG (Procedural Content Generation Framework in Unreal Engine 5) gets the location of the road via the spline data of the landscape. Everything that is been spawnt is caltulated from the middle of the road (road spline). That makes it possible to define regions which are adjustable regarding to their width, for instance the grass and bush strip. Every strip is separate from each other, that makes it possible to do overlaps when needed. At the end there is a fade so less trees are spawnt. This is better for performance since you wouldn't miss some more in the distance.
-----------------------------------------------
Explanation PCG: It means Procedural Content Generation, so easily spoken, with such PCGs you can populate/ fill a bigger area with something (sattered plants, full bioms, etc.) without placing everything by hand. It uses a logic one defines. It can be seen for instance as a tool for level designers or environment artists, also it can generate stuff on run time if needed.
-----------------------------------------------
I created the scene from start to finish:
- PCG Graph to spawn roadside assets
- modeling placeholders: trees, lamps, street marking posts, grass and other plants, street
- example lighting to demonstrate how it could look
- also, it contains Megascans assets and other third party assets
All realistic assets are used to showcase the PCG tool's capabilities but of course they can be exchanged and adjusted to match much better in relation to each other in a real production scenario.
Volumes to spawn or remove PCG actors
Adjust fast your environment
General street settings
PCG debug settings
Example on how it would work inside an production environment as a background for a car scene e.g. in a movie.
PCG graph instance with lots of possibilities to adjust the environment
PCG graph instance with lots of possibilities to adjust the environment
Volumes to spawn or remove specific assets.
PCG graph that drives the environment
WIP