Snowy Minecraft like Level

 This week I learned more about Unreal Engine 4 as I created my own Minecraft-ish level.  This was a fun project as I had many ideas for the kind of level I wanted to create and ultimately chose a snowy sakura tree environment.  

Snowy Minecraft Level Angle 1

Snowy Minecraft Level Angle 2

Snowy Minecraft Level Angle 3

Before I started anything, I though about the colors I wanted in my level and took reference from nature.  After looking on the web for examples I made a board to get my idea across and the general look of the colors. 

Reference and Inspiration

To start my level, I opened Maya and created a cube.  I added bevels and in the UV editor I organized my UV's based on the face they were and cleaned them up. I then got them ready for Photoshop.  In Photoshop I created 7 different textures.

Creating My Textures

After I finished created all my textures, I brought my textures back into Maya and see if they were working.  I applied the textures by creating a Blinn material and applying the textures in the Hypershade. 

Applying Textures in Maya

I set up a small scene to see how the cubes would react to lighting and having multiple cubes in the scene. 

Creating Small Scene 

From here I exported out my cube as an FBX and imported it into Unreal Engine.  I created a new level and began working in the material editor to get my textures and materials working.  

Material Editor with Textures

I then began the process of creating material instances for each of the textures.  After getting the textures in, I changed the settings on the materials so that cubes with the ice texture have a different effect than the snow and ground textures.  

Unreal Engine Materials and Textures

From there I began building my level!

Built Minecraft Level