Unreal Engine 5 Ultimate Quixel Megascans Tutorial

Megascans and I have a complex history

My experience with Megascans is dismal indeed. I tried to run a megascan and it crashed my engine, i had to restart. So we have been assigned an article on Megascans. Well keep in mind, these are not really for low end computers like my own.

Alright let’s boot it up

Alright so I downloaded the megascan project, it was 13gb, had a smoke to wait for it. I have now created a project in 4.27, opened unreal 5, creating a clone project, and well see if this thing runs in unreal 5 better than it did in 4.27.

Unreal will be upgrading soon, soon the new standard will be Unreal 5, we’re getting in on the ground floor. After that all games will be in Unreal 5. Any good ones at least, no one sane will use anything else.

Project almost done loading

we’ll find out in t minus — 3 2 1

That a crash???

Yes

That’s a crash.

Well while I’m fixing this, check out our article on RTX vs Lumen Lighting, which is better? Find out here. The answer is both.

What are Unreal Megascans?

Epic Games acquired photogrammetry startup Quixel, and has made over 10,000 Megascan assets available for free to Unreal Engine Developers. Megascans is a library of high resolution scans of real life objects and environments.

How do I use Unreal Megascans?

Is Mega scan free?

Free for use with Unreal Engine only. If you have an Unreal Engine license, you can get unlimited access to the Megascans library for free, just sign in.

Back to testing

Perhaps megascans are just not for me. let’s try adding a more simple megascan to the project and see what happens???

Ok, that actually worked.

But this isn’t the really impressive stuff, let’s have a look at what megascans can look like when they’re properly utilized.

Isn’t that nice?

Megascans seem to be much higher quality graphically than standard scenes, as you can see, they are exceptionally beautiful. I wish I could get results like this in my game.

These images appear lifelike, not the crudely crafted 3D models I am used to, these images are truly beautiful. I am not sure what to say about them. I desire them, I covet them, I was found wanting them.

Megascans Ancient Temple finally loads an hour and a half later

This world is a very strange place, full of people so like everyone else, if not for beauty I would lose heart.

And with that, an hour and a half later, the megascan project finally opens, and crashes my web browser in the process….. It will take another hour just to finish loading it, and i do not have the time for that right now. Here I took a few pictures before I closed it.

Top quality high resolution assets

Looks like very high quality models. It has a more natural look to it. Yes this should be fine. Megascans look like a very beautiful type of scene. From what I hear these objects are ripped from reality, photographed from multiple angles in high defintion and then pumped into the game. The rocks in nanite and the valley of the ancients seemed to be megascans.

Beautiful interiors

So this is the quality of scans on offer. Yes I’d be pretty satisfied with this. As you can see, Quixel provides high quality scans of real life environments, at a reasonable price.

Modular Interior Environment

Right here we have a modular interior environment, the scan is very high quality and the light pours in through the window, illuminating the dimly lit house.

A stairway to a rich place

Here we have a stairway leading up to the higher floors, there’s bear heads at the foot of the stairs, with the sun coursing through the window, and a still plant sitting atop a table up above. The areas to the left and right of the stairs are obscured in darkness. A very beautiful megascan indeed.

A medieval village full of character

They also have this medieval village. The quality is unusually above normal, probably because this is a scanned real life scene rather than a 3D model created out of sackcloth and hair, and whatever is lying around at the time.

Here we have little patches of grass poking up through the soil, there is a muddy road leading to other farm houses, there is a spinning wheel discarded to the side, and the yard is separated with a fence. The painted walls are chipped, and the windows boarded up. Little flowers appear in the grass below.

In the distance is a still and foggy forest, and the sky is obscured by clouds.

The ruins of an ancient castle

Here we have the ruins of what looks like a celtic castle, the walls have fallen apart, the sky is orange and filled with birds soaring through the air, there is grass all upon the ground, it is overgrown and the castle has been abandoned here for a long long time. The sun is setting on this castle. You can see that once it was a strong and powerful structure, the center hub of activity of some dead king and his assembly of ghosts. The sun is setting on this old castle. The grass and plants creep up the side of the castle, growing into the pours of the structure, small stone windows make up what once was the defensive structure of the castle, now undefended, and unoccupied except by birds.

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Back to the megascans

When in Rome

Here we have some beautiful roman statues, carved angels made out of stone. They have a very realistic look to them, the tiny grooves and chips in the stone are visible and the age of the stone is apparent, time having worn down these statues like a rolling river whittles away at the rocks. Each of these angels had a symbolic meaning to it’s creator, they are draped in ragged robes, of the upperclass. The sun shines on the stone, making it look yellow and golden. The wings of the statues are feathered and segmented.

Roman Coins Litter the Table

Included as well in this pack are roman coins, the head of some time forsaken ceasar is sitting pressed into the coin, unfamiliar words wrap around the coin, in latin or something like that. A handful of these coins are dropped on the wooden table, the light seeps through a window and illuminates some of the coins. They shine in the light, and off to the side, other coins sit in darkness. The wood is ribbed and worn. Little flaws and imperfections scrape the edges of the wood, in a very natural way. Speckles of water sit on parts of the table. You could imagine some ruffian has dumped these coins on the table for pickup by the local barkeep for his tab of mead and dinner of chicken and potatoes with peas. As he scurries off with a woman of the night, for sport.

The wild west

In this image a realistic well worn saddle sits atop a carved wooden fence. The Fence is dented and worn with wear. There are speckles of black peppering the lower side of the fence’s top branch. The saddle looks to have been used for a long long time. It is not brand new straight from the blacksmith or amazon, it is a saddle which has seen many good and bad days, and been through rain and snow. The grass is lush and full, covering the entire soil bed, with little sprouts in the green utopia. You can imagine a horse was here, wearing that saddle. It is a sunny day, the sun touches and flutters through the grass, making it bright green, with tiny specs of yellow. This is some farmers backyard.

Campfire/dung/peat

Here we have a recently put down campfire. The coals are still ….. wait is that fireplace or is that cow dung? it’s hard to tell it might be steaming not burning…… Well whatever….. on the ground we have brown soil and little rocks all over the place, there are patches of green grass on the outside, and tiny flowers and plants sticking up. It might actually be a peat fire. That reminds me of peat.

You can find a link to the Quixel Megascans website here.

We also have a release from eurogamer about megascans being made free for all Unreal Users here.

A rusty old cannon sits waiting

Here we have a rusty old cannon. This was once the terror of the old west, killing folk who happen to come near someone well off enough to own one. There are red wheels at the side of it. And bags of sand have been placed to ward off wayward bullets and provide cover for their men in combat. There is a yellow path of sand and small patches of grass at the floor. Off in the distance are beautiful mountains eroded down to be nice a rounded and close the floor. There is a water tower there, with a windmill fan. Other cannons are found off to the side. There is a yellow sand road off in the distance, with brown grass at every side of it…. This place looks like some combat has recently been going down, someone is entrenched here and wishes to maintain his territory unshaken by the interference of outsiders.

The deep crevices of a mine

Here we have a beautiful shot of a mine, where men with arms like treetrunks toil away for 12 hour days to bring home hefty big wages for their family and kids. They probably won’t have a long life expectancy because they work here. There is a shovel here, used for mining, the ground is full of dirty rocks and water, below train tracks for the mine carts. There are lamps tied up on the walls, and the opening to the mine is clearly visible, with light pouring in through the entrance. Illuminating the grungy mine, still dark in places outside the reach of the sun. There are pickaxes strewn about the floor. And huge beams of wood keep the roof intact. Many rich and fine minerals are being dug out of this mine.

Final Thoughts

Overall, megascans are a very beautiful addition to any game, however they are so high resolution, they are borderline unusable on a more modest system like mine. They also take almost an hour to load a scene, which started opening the engine an hour and a half ago before opening unexpectedly and booting me out of my browser. But overall, if you have the power behind you machine and it’s good enough to run megascans, they are a beautiful addition to your repertoire of Unreal Engine 5 assets.

They get a modest recommendation from Baskin today.

Gonna go chat now,

bye.