Unreal Engine is Ideal for Solo Devs
Unreal Engine is a popular choice for game developers who want to create stunning realistic environments, which can be achieved even with limited resources. This has been made even easier since Epic acquired Quixel, the world’s largest photogrammetry library, featuring highly detailed 3D models and environments based on real-world high-definition photography. It’s fundamental to the development of Lushfoil Photography Sim, a game about taking pictures in natural real-world locations that live up to the title’s name.
Making a Game out of Photography
As a solo developer, Matt Newell’s interest in photography goes back to high school when he was learning about cameras, which also got him interested in color design and cinematography. "Game development was never first," he admits. "But I always had an interest in games that leveraged new technology that was coming out to produce amazing visuals."
Unreal Engine is Ideal for Solo Devs
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[Image: A close-up view of a vibrant red torii gate, a traditional Japanese gate, in a lush green forest setting.]
As a solo developer, he tells me that making the game has only been possible with not just Unreal Engine but also Epic’s accessible resources. "Epic had made the Megascans library free, that’s a huge library of photo-scanned assets. Without the Unreal Marketplace and things that are available, I’m not sure this project would have been possible," he explains. "Working by yourself, you can’t really allocate a lot of time into every single asset and just have to repurpose stuff."
Lushfoil Photography Sim’s Locations
Lushfoil Photography Sim’s locations, spanning across the world, from alpine mountains of Le Prarion to the countless Torii gates that line Fushimi Inaira Taisha in Kyoto, are largely places that Newell has himself visited and taken loads of reference photos and footage and then browse through asset packs to try and recreate them as faithfully as possible, comparing the process to music production: "It reminds me of browsing through music samples and then selecting ones that you want."
Game Development with Unreal Engine
Since the project began around 2018, Lushfoil Photography Sim’s development has moved over to Unreal Engine 5 (the game engine is seen as a game-changer for indies) but Newell admits he hasn’t opted to leverage the new engine’s flagship features like Nanite or Lumen, referring to it more as "a very optimised Unreal 4 project." "I made the project in UE4 and all of the environments in UE4, so all of the models were already optimised," he explains. "I had already figured out distance like LOVs, which is the swapping of the model with the lower quality one when it’s further away. I had already configured all of the settings based on that. So I thought there’s not really much point in Nanite because it’s more optimised this way."
Conclusion
Lushfoil Photography Sim does not have a release date but you can try the demo now on Steam. Read our guides to the best game development software as well as picking up some tips in our tutorial on ‘How to use Unreal Engine 5’s new procedural tools’ to create environments.
FAQs
Q: What is Lushfoil Photography Sim?
A: Lushfoil Photography Sim is a game about taking pictures in natural real-world locations that live up to the title’s name.
Q: Who is the developer of Lushfoil Photography Sim?
A: The game is developed by Matt Newell, a solo developer.
Q: What is Unreal Engine?
A: Unreal Engine is a popular game engine that allows developers to create stunning realistic environments, which can be achieved even with limited resources.
Q: What is Quixel?
A: Quixel is the world’s largest photogrammetry library, featuring highly detailed 3D models and environments based on real-world high-definition photography.
