Show
Hey 3D Artist! In this tutorial we’ll be looking at a few settings we can use in the Sky Atmosphere to totally change the look of a scene in Unreal Engine. We then take a look at how to correctly use the Exponential Heightfog in conjunction with the Sky Atmosphere. This Applies to both UE4 and UE5. Tutorial released by William Faucher.
Keep in mind: you may need to go in the project settings and search for “Support Sky Atmosphere Effecting Height Fog“, and make sure that box is checked. Tips for Sky Atmosphere & Fog – Unreal Engine 5 (& UE4)Click here for more Unreal Engine Tutorial.In main, as of this writing, the CesiumSunSky doesn't show an atmosphere at all on Android and iOS. In #459, we added
a manually-enabled I noticed while working on that PR that when we try to use the regular desktop atmosphere rendering with emulated Android ES3.1 rendering in Unreal Engine v4.27, it displays a message:
The 4.27 release notes imply this isn't a new capability but rather a new message intended to help diagnose problems with the SkyAtmosphere on mobile:
And that in turn implies that we can use the SkyAtmosphere on mobile if we play by the rules, rather than replacing it with something else entirely. So enabling vertex fog on mobile is easy in the project settings, just uncheck this and restart the Editor: With just that change the surface looks nice on emulated Android, like it does on desktop, but there's still no sky shading: So then I added a new "Static Mesh" component to the CesiumSunSky Actor, gave it a huge Scale (1000000000.0) and set its static mesh to the engine "Sphere_inversenormals" mesh. And give it a Material (again from the Engine) of It looks kinda funky when you zoom out. And who knows about performance. But we should at least consider whether this is a better solution (default) on mobile. Category: UE4October 29, 2021Overcast day creates a very distinctive atmospheric feel - melancholy, somber, emotional, quiet and desolate. Overcast lighting scatters light in all directions and removes strong light and shadows. This introduces additional artistic and technical roadblocks you wouldn't normally experience. Standard sunny daytime lighting tends to be simple. You pick a time of day that creates interesting light/shadow play such as morning or evening. Usually you get pretty good results right away without much work. But overcast lighting is different. It is more subtle and subtlety is hard to achieve in game art. There are a number of ways to create overcast lighting in UE4. These include using Sky Atmosphere, Sky Light or HDRI image-based lighting. In this tutorial I will show you how to do overcast lighting using Sky Atmosphere. Overcast Lighting ResultsHere are some overcast day lighting scenes created using this tutorial. Scene Setup I am UsingI already have a scene setup that I'll be using for this tutorial. So it already includes some important actors inserted into the level. To understand what is going on and what actors I have in the level, take a look at this tutorial first - UE4: Recreate the Dynamic Time of Day Template Level - Why You Should and How-To. What You Will Need to Adjust
I will go through each actor one-by-one and what you'll need to change. Although, you will often jump from one actor to another adjusting various settings all at once. Video Tutorial
Sky AtmosphereLet me give you the answer right away that will give you overcast lighting. In Sky Atmosphere, increase Mie Scattering property above 1+. This will give you diffused overcast lighting and soft cast shadows. The number to increase to will depend on the Directional Light intensity and its position in the sky. If it's mid-day, you may need to increase it to 5 or more. Mie Scattering will get you 80% but there are more settings you need to adjust. Sky Atmosphere has two primary Scattering Methods:
Now, here are Sky Atmosphere settings you need to adjust. Atmosphere - Mie
Atmosphere
Atmosphere - Rayleigh
Atmosphere - Absorption
Art Direction All the settings here are optional. Most important setting here is Aerial Perspective View Distance Scale. Lowering this will help to remove thickness of the atmosphere and reveal the sky clouds.
Directional LightDirectional Light is your sun. It has few important settings you need to adjust - light's intensity, color and removing the sun disk.
Sky LightSky Light helps to illuminate indirectly lit areas of your environment; parts that are in shadow.
Exponential Height FogYou don't need to use Exponential Height Fog, as Sky Atmosphere is capable of rendering its own fog. So this is optional. However, Exponential Height Fog adds additional fog effect into the environment and I do like how it looks. Additional benefit of Height Fog is it helps to fill the bottom part of the world with a solid color, something that Sky Atmosphere can't do. If you are going to use Exponential Height Fog with Sky Atmosphere you must enable it in Project Settings. Go to Edit > Project Settings and under Engine: Rendering, enable Support Sky Atmosphere Affecting Height Fog.
Also remember that in Sky Atmosphere you can adjust Height Fog Contribution property. Post ProcessI already had the following properties enabled prior to this tutorial:
Post Process will allow you to adjust how your scene looks such as changing colors, saturation, white balance, contrast, shadows, mid-tones, highlights etc. on the entire environment. You want to always do Post Process Color Grading last. So make sure you get the lighting figured out first before adjusting the colors and brightness of the scene. Volumetric CloudYou also want to adjust Volumetric Cloud actor and Volumetric Cloud Material Instance to make the clouds pop in the sky. If you lowered Aerial Perspective View Distance Scale in Sky Atmosphere to make the clouds visible in the sky then adjust Volumetric Cloud Material Instance and Volumetric Cloud actor properties. Next TutorialUE4: Analysis of Volumetric Clouds and How to Use Them UE4 Fundamentals Vol.1 Tutorial CourseThese Quick Tips are just a small part of a very complex Unreal Engine. Get started with UE4 as an absolute beginner by downloading "UE4 Fundamentals Vol.1 - The Essential Beginner's Guide" tutorial course. |