Month: January 2026

I ran a quick in-engine test in Unreal Engine to check how my stylized materials read under real-time lighting. This pass helped me evaluate color balance, contrast, and silhouette clarity across key props (fence, grass, tractor) against the painterly sky. The goal was to make sure the scene’s lighting supports the Van Gogh–inspired mood while keeping the brushstroke textures legible, before moving on to final palette unification and more refined lighting/atmosphere.

In this update, I pushed the scene beyond the initial terrain + key props by adding trees and houses to increase visual density and improve the overall read of the composition.

The trees were intentionally designed as stylized assets: instead of aiming for realistic foliage, I built them with layered, ribbon-like forms that suggest stacked brushstrokes. This gives the silhouettes stronger rhythm and direction, and keeps them readable even at a distance. The houses add a mid-ground anchor, making the environment feel more inhabited and providing clearer points of focus for future lighting and color unification.

Blog | UE Scene Import Test (The Last Harvest)

I imported my early environment assets (terrain, fence, tractor) into Unreal Engine to test the scene in real time. I first checked scale, camera framing, and overall composition with simple materials, then applied my hand-painted stylized textures to key props to evaluate brushstroke readability and color response under UE lighting.

This test confirmed the scene layout works as a base, and my next step is to refine the palette and lighting to push the environment closer to a Van Gogh–inspired painterly look.

In this stage, I tested hand-painted, Van Gogh–inspired textures for The Last Harvest. The goal was to make the 3D assets feel “painted” rather than realistically shaded.

I started with two key props—the tractor and the wooden fence—because their clear shapes and large surfaces make it easier to evaluate brushstroke and color style. My process was simple:
1. Block in large color shapes to establish form and lighting.
2. Add directional brushstrokes to emphasize structure (wood grain direction for the fence, surface turns for the tractor).
3. Introduce subtle hue variation (small warm/cool shifts and hints of complementary color) to create a more lively, painterly flow.

After applying the textures to the models, the assets immediately moved away from a realistic look and closer to a soft, expressive “digital oil painting” style, matching the dreamy mood of the project.

I did a small stylized material test in Unreal Engine. The goal was to build a basic “brushstroke” structure first, as a foundation for a more painterly/oil-painting look later.

Core Idea

I split the material into two main controls:

• Brushstroke texture (TS_Stroke): shape + surface feelThe RGB channels provide the base texture detail. The Alpha channel works as a mask so the material only shows the brushstroke area, creating a silhouette that feels like a patch of paint applied on the surface.
• Noise texture (TS_Noise): irregular variationI introduced a noise texture as a “random control source,” and scaled it with UV × parameter to control the noise grain size. Later, I’ll use this noise to perturb the outline width or edge thresholds, making the edges more natural and brush-like.

Next Steps

Next, I plan to add an irregular black outline and subtler color variation (e.g., a slight hue shift) to push the overall look closer to a painterly, hand-drawn style.