This was the first stage of production, where I focused on collecting assets and building the foundational elements needed to shape the film’s environment and overall compositions.
Terrain
I wanted to experiment with Gaea 2.0 for generating the terrain. I spent a couple of days trying out different node setups, exploring various shapes, erosion profiles, and height variations. My earlier concept sketches acted as a visual guide throughout this process. I carved out a valley for the stepwell and created a raised ledge for the prologue shots, where the character first looks out over the polluted river.
After generating several terrain passes in Gaea, I placed mountains manually in custom positions to match the compositions I had in mind. The Transform node in Gaea proved particularly useful for placing procedural hills exactly where they needed to be in the background.
Asset Collection
Alongside the terrain, I began gathering assets such as rocks, chimneys, fences, and architectural pieces from Fab and CGTrader. These served as the building blocks for early kitbash environments inside Unreal Engine. For the stepwell, I reused the model I had already created in Blender during the pre-vis stage.
I also found a hover bike asset that suited the look of the world. After making some adjustments to its materials and handlebars, it fit seamlessly into the setting.
Character Asset
For the protagonist, I purchased a character model that aligned well with the tone of the film. It came pre-rigged in Blender, which was ideal since I planned to handle all animations there later.
At this point, I didn’t anticipate the rigging and weighting issues that would cause problems later in production (covered in Blog 7), but the asset allowed me to begin blocking out scenes and establishing scale.
Level Design in UE
Once the assets and terrain were ready, I began assembling everything inside Unreal Engine. The pre-vis became extremely helpful at this stage, guiding the placement of cameras and helping me recreate the planned compositions accurately.
I also laid out a rough geographical path through the level, determining where each sequence would take place. Organising the scenes into sublevels helped keep the project structured and ensured the story unfolded logically across the environment.
This stage provided the groundwork on which everything else in the project would be built, forming the basic world that would later be refined through lighting, animation, effects, and stylisation.