So, like a lot of cool things in my life, this little experiment started on a whim. I bought a landscape material for Unreal Engine 4 called Brushtify and just wanted to play around with it. After messing around for an hour, I started sculpting a terrain in UE4 to see how it held up on a larger scale. And as I sculpted, this idea of an apocalyptic scene just kinda emerged on its own. So, I grabbed some free assets from the Unreal Engine Marketplace and the web. The only thing I actually bought, besides Brushtify, was the Kitbash 3D Brutalist set (those big, weird-looking buildings), which I totally recommend.

Once the scene was done, I tried out some free songs from YouTube’s sound library, but none of them really fit the creepy vibe I was going for. So, I took matters into my own hands and composed the soundtrack myself. I used Ableton Live as my digital audio workstation and the Native Instruments Complete library for the sounds. Then, I did the compositing and post-production in DaVinci Resolve.

The whole thing took about 22 hours. But hey, I love this game engine, and the result was totally worth it. It’s crazy how a simple experiment can turn into something so unexpectedly cool.