Like a lot of things in my life, this experiment took on a life of its own. I’d been working with Unreal Engine 4 for about a year, but everything I’d done up to that point was architectural visualizations or high-tech stuff. Then Ghost Recon Wildlands came out, and its graphics blew me away. I thought, “Why not try to recreate that in UE4?”

I had zero experience with landscape tools or blending materials in Unreal, so I hit up YouTube for tutorials and started my first scene. Next thing you know, my next three weekends were gone. Nights, too. The project took on a life of its own.

The goal shifted from recreating a single scene to building moody environments with meticulous artistic control. As a photographer and videographer, this was a dream come true. I could shape every detail, control the lighting, and animate everything in real time. It was like a ray-traced rendering on steroids, without the endless waiting. And I could even do post-production right in the engine, which felt almost as good as using DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro.

To top it all off, I made the music too. So yeah, dive in and enjoy the fruits of this unexpected obsession. It’s a testament to the power of experimentation and the thrill of pushing creative boundaries.