Castle Level
The Fantasy Level is a scenic 3D environment built in Unreal Engine 5, featuring a river valley surrounded by castles, forests, and natural landscapes. Designed as a learning project, it showcases world-building, lighting, and material editing skills while exploring Blueprints for future interactivity.
Game Engine
Unreal Engine 5
Terrain sculpting, foliage placement, modular environment design, Lumen lighting
3D Fantasy Environment
Solo Designer
Challenge
The challenge was to design a fantasy-style 3D environment that balances artistic creativity with technical execution. The goal was to create a cohesive, visually engaging level while learning the foundational features of Unreal Engine 5 such as terrain sculpting, modular asset management, and real-time lighting.
Results
The final level presents a vibrant river valley with autumnal forests and two contrasting castles—a majestic stronghold and a weathered cliffside ruin. Lumen lighting and PBR materials deliver realistic reflections and shadows, while modular construction keeps the scene performant. This project sharpened my UE5 environment pipeline skills and stands as a portfolio-ready example of real-time world-building.
Process
Terrain Sculpting & River Creation: Designed a natural river valley by sculpting varied landscapes and carving out a flowing riverbed, ensuring the terrain supported both castles and forest placement.
Foliage & Atmosphere Building: Placed autumn-colored trees and foliage using UE5’s foliage tools to give the valley a vibrant, seasonal feel while balancing density for visual richness and performance.
Castle & Modular Design: Built two contrasting castles, one intact with banners, the other a ruin, assembled from modular assets to maintain visual quality and efficient rendering.
Lighting & Material Editing: Applied Lumen lighting for global illumination and refined PBR material properties like roughness and metallic maps to achieve lifelike textures and dynamic reflections.
Blueprint Exploration & Scene Management: Explored Unreal Blueprints for interactivity and practiced scene organization with tools like World Outliner and Details Panel, reinforcing clean workflow habits.
Conclusion
This Fantasy Level project provided valuable hands-on experience with Unreal Engine 5’s environment creation workflow. It strengthened my skills in terrain design, foliage systems, modular world-building, and lighting, while sparking an interest in interactivity through Blueprints. More than just a practice project, it serves as a portfolio-ready example of my ability to design immersive, real-time fantasy worlds.