Been testing out the environment of the First of the 4 Main Areas of The Wanderer, called The Abandoned Mines for how it looks in Unreal.
I have to say I'm very pleased with the results.
It took a while to get some accurate materials, and understand how they all work, but it's definitely worth it. And there's so much more down the road, it's incredible what the engine offers, especially the material editor.
There's so much more left to learn and experiment, I'm very excited about it.
Good job, Epic! Appreciate ya!
One thing that I found very easy to implement, and that had a great impact is Exponential Height Fog.
Now, if you already know this (pretty basic) discard this info, and not sure if it applies for open world environments (might tho), but this could help improve the overall visual impact for your environments so here we go:
Easiest thing to set it up. You just go to modes -> Visual effects -> Exponential Height Fog and your drop it in your scene. That's it, doesn't matter where.
Another cool thing about it is that it's very cheap. There's no textures involved(although i think you could add)What's important is that you select it and go to details, and the most important thing is choosing the right color.
Try to choose a color that brings everything together, a color that is the tone of the environment. (Kind of like how eggs makes a batter more tied together)
Another important setting is Fog Height Falloff. This is how sharp or smooth the transition from no fog to fog is. I found that making it the smoothest looks best.
You can also set the strength and the distance from where it starts. You don't want to go overboard, so set a decent distance so that the effect is nice and subtle.
That's it.
No fog:
With fog: