Blender to Unreal Engine - 3D Plants and Vegetation

1. Introduction

This is the introduction to the course. This will be a short overview of what the course covers and what you will be learning along the way.

2. Blender Setup and Resource Pack

In this lesson, we will look through the basic setup of Blender and the course resource pack.

3. Blender Basics

In this lesson, we will be introduced to key information about Blender for 3D modelling artists.

4. HDRI Lighting

This lesson will be a complete guide to setting up realistic lighting to preview our meshes. You will learn to append a base skylight into our project and adjust its settings.

1. Setting Up Vegetation Form in 2D

Starting from this lesson, we will be introduced to foliage modelling. We will walk through the steps of creating a simple shrub shape from a 3D plane in Blender.

2. Creating 3D Thickness for Plants

In this lesson, we will find out how to add depth to our mesh and make the foliage look realistic in 3D space.

1. Setting Up UV for Our First 3D Vegetation

In this lesson, we will get introduced to the UV unwrapping toolkit in Blender. We will walk through the basics of setting up UV coordinates to be texture-painted later.

2. Texture Painting 3D Foliage

Starting from this lesson, we will be introduced to the texture painting toolkit in Blender. We will go through the basics of adding color to our foliage mesh.

3. Painting 3D Stylized Texture on 3D Asset Edge

This lesson will focus on adding more detail to our 3D shrub foliage and giving it more depth using base color painting techniques on our texture.

4. Creating Roughness Texture for PBR Material

In this lesson, we will be setting up our material parameters for roughness texture values. You will learn how to get micro detail within our 3D plane by making use of the PBR material shader and painting in glossiness textures onto our assets.

1. Creating Shrub 3D Vegetation Clusters

In this lesson, we will find out how to create a variety of 3D shrub plants bundled up together so that we can effectively populate a 3D environment.

1. Creating 3D Grass Stem from Cube

This lesson will introduce us to 3D modelling techniques for creating grass buds from a simple 3D cube primitive shape.

2. Creating 3D Grass Variation

In this lesson, we will look at creating grass bundles in Blender. We will be setting up grass variances to create visually pleasing shapes from any visible angle.

1. Painting 3D Grass

In this lesson, we will start adding color to our grass meshes. You will learn how to paint in consistent color textures using color pallets in Blender.

2. Adding Grass Texture Detail

In this lesson, we will start adding textures to our grass meshes. You will learn how to add grass texture details to our leaves in Blender.

1. Turning Digital Grass into Organic Shapes

In this lesson, we will find out how to use the proportional editing tool to manipulate our vegetation mesh to give it a more organic shape.

2. Modifying Vegetation Clusters

In this lesson, you will learn how to get more control over our plant meshes and manipulate our vertices to make the clusters look more natural.

3. Applying Adjusting Color Textures

This lesson will focus on creating depth in our grass foliage through texturing methods. We will also work on stylizing our foliage by breaking up the color with a custom brush.

1. Creating Mesh for 3D Wild Grass

In this lesson, we will be introduced to a foliage variant for our grass planes. We will work on creating more intricate mesh shapes and parts and combine them to create a small 3D plant as part of a grass field.

2. Using Bezier Curve for Plant Stem

In this lesson, we will continue to work on our wild foliage variance for the grass. We will focus on creating the stem part of the plant using a basic Bezier curve functionality in Blender.

3. Texturing and Setting Up Wild Grass Mesh

In this lesson, we will be setting up our wild grass 3D plants from the created mesh parts. We will make use out of stems and leaves to create an organic-looking plant asset.

4. Creating Wild Grass 3D Cluster

In this lesson, we will find out how to make use of the wild grass to make plant clusters for the grass fields.

5. 3D wild Grass Forming Organic Silhouette

In this lesson, we will be adding more details to our 3D wild grass.

1. Adding Texture Detail to Our 3D Wild Grass

In this lesson, you will learn how to add additional color detail by painting it onto our texture map after the modelling process is finished.

2. Using Color Overlay to Adjust Texture Tint

In this lesson, you will learn how to fix issues relating to the overall color of our foliage texture. We will make use of an overlay method to add a tint to our base color without ruining already created detail.

1. Starting the Modelling Process for 3D Stylized Flowers

This lesson will focus on creating the base mesh for our flowers in Blender. You will learn how to pick mesh from our previous work and recycle it to speed up our modelling process.

2. Modelling a Flower Petal

In this lesson, we will be introduced to local transformation for our mesh to model and shape our flower petals.

3. UV Unwrapping Flowers

In this lesson, we will start preparing our mesh for texturing by setting up our UV coordinates for the yellow flower.

4. Adding Textured Depth to Our Flowers

In this lesson, we will begin to texture our plants and add texture detail on top of our flower 3D foliage.

5. Painting in Detail to Our Flower Petals

In this lesson, we will be setting up our flowers with additional detail for the petals. You will learn how to make use of face-masking techniques for the texturing process to stylize the petals and highlight their shape.

1. Using Particles to Populate 3D Flowers with Petals

In this lesson, we will be using another one of Blender's functionalities, the particle system. We will use it to decorate the stem full of flowers.

2. Setting Up Weight Painting for 3D Particle Flower Petals

In this lesson, we will see our particle system come to fruition as we make use of weight painting to control the placement of the flowers.

1. Fixing Foliage Mesh for Blender Texturing

This lesson will focus on creating additional detail for our yellow flower assets. We will use leaves and grass buds to add more detail to our foliage.

2. Creating Roughness PBR Value for Our 3D Flower

In this lesson, we will finish creating the yellow flowers and move on to creating purple flower stems using Bezier curves.

1. Using Modifiers to 3D Model a Flower

In this lesson, we will be using another one of Blender's modifiers to create radial symmetry in our flower petals.

2. Overlaying Color Texture to Get Greater Flower Petal Depth

This lesson will focus on creating texture details for the purple flowers. We will make use of the already introduced masking and overlay techniques to paint in the detail for the albedo texture.

3. Giving Additional Detail to 3D Foliage Flowers

In this lesson, we will be adding additional details to our 3D purple flower.

4. Finishing Touches for Our 3D Purple Flower

In this lesson, we will continue working on our purple flowers and set them up with grass buds while shaping the flower instance to look more natural to emanate the wilderness of a grass field.

1. Reusing Mesh for White Flower Foliage

Starting from this lesson, we will be introduced to recycling entire mesh parts fully textured from our previously created material, to speed up our overall flower creation process.

2. Lowering Texture Resolution for Optimized 3D Foliage

This lesson will introduce us to working with a lowered resolution for the mesh to optimize the foliage pack. You will learn the importance of making use of different texture sizes when only some parts of a mesh need additional texture detail.

3. Texturing Pattern Based on Blender Perspective

In this lesson, you will learn how to use our custom brushes and paint in more unique detail based on the perspective of a camera.

4. Setting Up White Flower Petals

This lesson will use everything we have worked on so far to create white flower buds. We will set up petals by manually creating radial symmetry.

1. Using Sculpt Tool to Relax Our Vertices

In this lesson, you will learn how to fix issues with the overall shape of a plant. We will use the sculpting grab brush to adjust the silhouette of our 3D foliage bundle.

2. Setting Up 3D White Flower Variations

This lesson will focus on creating a white flower with the prepared assets we built beforehand. We are going to make use of proportional edit functionality to rotate our parts into nicer overall shapes for the foliage.

1. Setting Up Mesh for Water 3D Foliage

In this lesson, we will be introduced to the modelling process for water-based foliage. We will start creating reeds and grass to place them on top of the water planes.

2. Making Long Foliage with Customized UV Unwrap

In this lesson, you will learn how to fix issues with long grass foliage and density in UVs. We will make use of mark seam functionality to break off parts of the mesh and get more control over the density of the textures.

1. Texturing Reed

This lesson will use everything we have worked on so far to texture-paint our red foliage.

2. Setting Up Bump Values for 3D Detail

In this lesson, you will learn how to fix issues with flat textures and manually paint in additional detail for our reed buds.

1. Setting Up Reed Grass 3D Variations

This lesson will focus on creating multiple reed assets for the water.

2. Setting Up Reed Foliage for Water Planes

In this lesson, you will learn how to fix the mesh base of the water foliage. We will use Blender's bisect tool functionality to create a better foundation for our 3D plants.

1. Sculpting Our Lilypad Shape

In this lesson, we will look through the method for shaping the lily pad as part of our water foliage pack.

2. Drawing Custom Plant Stems

This lesson will be a complete guide to shaping foliage stems using Bezier curve functionality in Blender.

3. Texture Painting Water Lily Pads

In this lesson, we will begin to paint color detail for our water lily pads. We will make use of the custom brush to add more color depth within the mesh and bring out its shape.

4. Setting Up Lily Pad Foliage Clusters

In this lesson, we will find out how to create a bundle of lily pads, making use of them in foliage-dense water areas.

1. Creating Smaller Water Plants

This lesson will introduce us to underwater plants to get more depth out of our natural-looking digital water volumes. We will start creating vegetation that has horizontal and vertical placement depth too.

2. Texturing Underwater Vegetation

In this lesson, you will learn how to texture smaller vegetation in Blender and how to add a type of edge texture to make sure it looks nice as an underwater plant cluster.

3. Creating 3D Formed Underwater Vegetation Clusters

In this lesson, you will learn how to fix issues with the clusters of underwater foliage. We will work with the overall collection of smaller water foliage to get a nicely organized shape for them while maintaining the organic look of a plant.

1. Creating Lily Flower 3D Model

This lesson will focus on creating flower petals for water lily plants. We will make use of the techniques we have already learned and the associated modifiers to create more density in our plant mesh.

2. Painting Water Lilies with Color Overlay Functionality

In this lesson, we will find out how to start the texturing process for colorful water lily flowers. We are making use of custom brushes and painting from the top perspective to add nicer details to our petals.

3. Creating Water Lily Clusters

This lesson will focus on creating lily pad variations with flowers attached to them. You will learn how to make cluster variances to make them look more realistic in a 3D environment.

1. Organizing the Project

In this lesson, you will learn how to fix issues with the overall sorting of a foliage pack in Blender. We will take our time to rename and pack our plants in different collections to have better control over what we have created.

1. Setting Up Grass Foliage Particles

In this lesson, we will set up our particle system to be used for placing foliage within a terrain. We will make use of our created 3D foliage and start adjusting parameters for placing density in each of our collections individually.

2. 3D Foliage Particle Setup

In this lesson, we will find out how to set up a particle system for the other variances in our foliage collections. We will make use of particles to place each collection created onto a preview plane to ensure that the density of our plants is set up properly.

3. Setting Up Terrain Scene with Grass Particles

In this lesson, we will see our 3D foliage pack and flower plants come to life as we finish up our Blender foliage creation and start setting it up within a custom terrain provided by the course. We will make use of weight painting to control the areas of grass growth within the terrain.

4. Adding Flower Field for Terrain

This lesson will focus on creating flower-density fields within our terrain. You will learn how to make the best use of the flower vegetation to break up the silhouette of a terrain.

5. Planting 3D Water Foliage

In this lesson, we will be using another one of Blender's particle systems we previously set up. We will add water foliage for the Blender scene. We will make sure to get not only the plants on the top but also the ones underwater to add more depth to our virtual swamp area.

1. Animating Our 3D Foliage

In this lesson, we will begin to bring our foliage to life. We will add a wind system with a turbulence force to get motion in our scene.

2. Blender Rendering

In this lesson, we will find out how to set up and render a video in Blender. We will go through the optimizations of rendering and how to get a camera set up to get a nice video out of our scene.

1. Adjusting Textures and Exporting UE5 Assets

Starting from this lesson, we will be introduced to the Unreal Engine 5 setup. We will begin by making sure we have optimized all assets and they are ready to be used for UE5 by repositioning them.

1. Unreal Engine 5 Basics

In this lesson, we will start working with Unreal Engine 5. We will get introduced to the launcher, create a new project, and walk through the UI setup.

2. Viewport and New Map

In this lesson, we will find out about viewport and its controls in Unreal Engine 5. You will learn how to navigate our perspective using the viewport to help us gain more control over the UE5 project.

3. Importing Assets Creating Materials

In this lesson, you will learn how to take a whole foliage pack previously created and set up within Blender and import it into our UE5 game engine. You will learn how to make use of our import settings to unpack FBX format and how to set up normal maps from our terrain to be converted from OpenGL to DirectX format.

1. Setting Up Water Material

In this lesson, we will look at the setup for creating water material. We will make use of shader tools to create partial refraction and add parameters to have control over our opacity values from within the material instance.

2. Setting Up UE5 Material Instance Controls

Starting from this lesson, we will be introduced to the setup of our foliage material. We will begin our process by creating a master material with adjustable parameters to be used on all our foliage.

3. Reassigning UE5 Materials

In this lesson, you will learn how to fix issues with imported materials. We will change the default materials to use our own custom setup material instances.

4. Converting Bump Map to Normal Texture in UE5

This lesson will focus on creating master material with a bump texture map converted as a normal map to get more detail out of our reed buds.

1. Vertex Painting Wind Motion for UE5 Foliage

In this lesson, we will start setting up a wind system for our foliage pack. We will make use of the vertex painting mode built-in within Unreal Engine 5 to have control over the motion of our foliage.

1. Setting Up Foliage Mode in UE5

In this lesson, we will begin to set up foliage mode within Unreal Engine 5. We will cover how to set basic static mesh as a foliage asset and how to control its settings to get better results from painting our vegetation.

2. UE5 Painting in Terrain Grass

In this lesson, you will learn how to make use of the density functionality in the foliage toolkit to get better painting results out of our grass.

3. Setting Up Flower Composition

This lesson will use everything we have worked on so far on foliage mode to set up flower density for the scene. We will paint our terrain with flowers to enhance the environment's visuals.

4. Setting Up Water Foliage

In this lesson, we will be using another one of Unreal Engine's 5 foliage tools to set up vegetation for the water area. We will make use of elevation options to offset the height of our 3D plants and make them look nicer within our water plane.

5. Creating Depth in Our Swamp

This lesson will focus on creating additional details for the swamp. We will make use of our foliage in combination with a negative offset for its placement to plant underwater vegetation.

1. Render Unreal Engine 5 Video

This lesson will be a complete guide to setting up the camera and rendering out a video project for our 3D foliage environment.