Vistas and Biome Environments

You can build immersion into your Fortnite experience through landscape and environmental design. The art templates for the Star Wars™ feature set include four distinctive environment designs: three biome-based and one space-themed. The templates were created with similar design workflows of using vista and gallery assets, along with landscape actors to build large immersive worlds.

This guide highlights workflows and assets for worldbuilding your galaxy:

• Creating vistas

• Working with landscape Materials and environmental biome assets

• Adding details with atmospheric visual effects (VFX)

Environment Templates

These Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) starter island templates highlight the vast, lived-in galaxy  that is depicted in Star Wars. 

They are designed to capture the sense of scale, wonder, and cultural richness of the Star Wars galaxy. The various settings in Star Wars reinforce the idea that the galaxy is home to countless civilizations, each adapted to its unique world. The starter islands were built using assets from the Star Wars feature set and general Fortnite assets.

You can use these templates as a starting point for your experience design and build on them, or alter the environment assets from techniques you learn in the following sections. 

To learn how to access the templates, see Accessing Brand Content. 

Template	Description	Image
Nevarro Inspired Starter Island	Explore the Nevarro-inspired city. Use the volcanic landscape to start building your next adventure. The template features: Nevarro City prefab and gallery assets City paths with swappable material layers Roaming NPCs Vista assets Volcanic environmental props Smoke VFX
Tatooine Inspired Starter Island	Follow the twin suns to the Tatooine-inspired town. Create your next desert themed game with this starter island. The template features: Tatooine styled prefab and gallery assets Binary Suns Skybox Sandcrawler spline tracks Roaming NPCs Vista assets Desert environmental props Sand VFX
Hoth Inspired Starter Island	Get started building with this Hoth-inspired starter island. Take the icy vista landscape and hidden bases as inspiration for your next experience. The template features: Hoth Base prefab and gallery assets Ice caverns Vista assets Roaming NPCs Snow environmental props Ridable Tauntaun Control Rig AT-AT Snow VFX
Space Starter Island	Start the adventure in space to build out your galaxy. The template features: Death Star prefab and gallery assets Hyperspace effect Space Skybox Planet Tatooine background asset Star Destroyer background asset Roaming NPCs Space Battle VFX

Vista Workflow

Vistas are large environment features, like a mountain, that players see in the distance. They are typically large assets that help fill the space of your island to immerse players. For Star Wars, the design team considered the scale of various locations and how large the universe could feel.

Another important element is the use of flying vehicles to traverse planets. With this in mind, they didn’t want to break the illusion for players perceiving to be on a large planet once they hit a certain point. 

Use the vista assets to create a sprawling open world to deliver the expansive environment players anticipate in experiences themed around Star Wars. They make the environment feel more like a planet instead of an island, and prevents water from appearing on the horizon.

The vista assets are combined with the landscape to create the world. You can use a similar workflow to build the layout of your environment, then refine it to fit your island style. 

Vista Assets

To achieve this goal, vista static meshes were created and combined using a layer technique to produce the looks you see in the plant-theme starter islands. The geometry is available in All > Fortnite > Meshes > Background Assets.

Dedicated materials were created for each biome, ensuring the vista assets are useful in a variety of contexts. These materials are designed specifically to match the UV of each mesh and can be customized to work with additional biomes.

The materials are located in All > Fortnite > Materials > Vistas > Material Instances. Drag the material on the associated mesh or create an instance to customize the look. To learn more, see Adjust the Look with Materials below. 

The table lists the available vista assets. 

Landscape and Vista Layering

The vista serves as the backdrop for your gameplay, acting as the background layer. The primary area of your experience should include environmental details to set the mood for your gameplay.

The starter islands are layered as follows:

• Foreground: A landscape asset holds the core gameplay and primary traversal area known as the playable space.

• Middle ground: Filled with gallery and geometry assets, this layer also includes some vista assets.

• Background: Filled with vista assets, usually scaled at a greater value to fill the background.

Foreground	Background

The landscape asset is created using Landscape Mode. You can use the tool to build the terrain and add details like paths, and holes to build caves. You can even paint the landscape with multiple surface layers to establish the look and blend with the vista backdrop. You can learn more in the Adjust the Look with Materials section below.

To learn more about creating landscapes, see Create a Custom Landscape.

Biome Kit

Biomes are specific geographical areas with distinct climate, foliage, and animal life. The vista static meshes are part of the biome kit provided in the general Fortnite set, to get you started creating theme environments.

Additional assets include an array of biome cliff and rock props, gravel and vista materials, various biome related VFX and a few textures. You can search the keyword biome to view all the available assets or search the names in the table below.

These assets were introduced to help create the Star Wars starter island templates. 

The kit includes variants of the same asset for each biome. This helps blend assets to quickly build your biome without worrying about misalignment. You can find more environment-based galleries in All > Fortnite > Galleries > Nature. 

Adjust the Look with Materials

To further design your landscape and create distinctive looks, material instances are available. You can use these materials to adjust the vista design and blend landscape and environmental props. Since the vista assets are static meshes, you can apply a predefined or a customized material to them.

Vista Material Instance Parameters

The vista material instances include settings you can adjust to customize the look. These settings are parameters from the Material Graph that are exposed as public variables in the Material Editor from the parent material. For more information, see the Material Editor Guide Unreal Engine page. 

To adjust the material properties, you must first create a copy of the material for your project: 

1. Right-click the material and select Create Material Instance.

2. Save the material.

3. Double-click to open the Material Editor.

The material consists of the following parameters. You can access these values in the Details panel of the Material Editor. 

The Base Coloration parameter group adjusts the underlying colors of the material. These colors are driven by the Splatmap texture values. The red channel of the Splatmap is a general noise texture that is used to drive most of the coloration of the asset. 

The Cliff parameter group adjusts the appearance and textures of the cliff layer, which is determined by the slope mask. These values are based on the packed channels in the Splat map texture, specifically the green channel which is used as the mask where the cliff appears.

The Detail Color parameter group adds a world-based extra layer of noise to adjust for potential scaling of the asset.

The Texture Inputs parameter group includes the texture maps that drive the material and general appearance of the vista asset, as well as adding the cliff specific textures.

The Normal parameter group adjusts the appearance of the normal map and normal details of the vista asset.

The Roughness parameter group adjusts roughness. This is derived from the same information used in the base colorations.

The Specular parameter group adjusts how mush light is reflected on an asset. 

The Top Layer parameter group adds a vertically based color layer to mimic things like snow, sand, and grass as the asset is rotated and adjusted.

Material Layers for Landscape Painting and Blending

As you create and sculpt your terrain, you can use the landscape materials from the kit to establish your biome design, then start to place biome gallery assets for additional visual appeal. You can apply the landscape material directly to geometry. However, you may notice a stark transition between the biome geometry and the landscape material. 

Use the tools in the Sculpt and Paint tabs of Landscape Mode to unify biome gallery assets and your landscape.

With the Paint tools, you can use material layers to add details to your terrain and blend assets. This is a design practice that reduces clear borders between assets and adds visual variety to your environment design.

The method includes having at least one material in the layer that will help blend the geometry and the primary base of the landscape material. This typically includes a noisy based material, like a gravel look, to create a more organic transition. 

Before	After

Each biome landscape material instance includes 6 layers of a different surface material that you can use to paint on top of the base layer. The layers overlap based on their order. You can use the different paint tools, like Noise, to adjust the look further.

Desert (Tatooine) Layers	Snow (Hoth) Layers	Volcanic (Nevarro) Layers

To learn more about using this workflow, see Editing Landscape Material and Painting the Terrain. 

Add Additional Environment Details

Your environment design does not stop at sculpting the landscape and adding vista assets to the background.  Use prefabs and architectural gallery assets to build out structures and create points of interest. The Space Starter Island template consists of no landscape, but instead uses the Death Star prefab to establish the starting location.

Roaming NPCs can liven the environment. The Star Wars feature set includes a variety of characters designed to help fit the vast galaxy. Add NPC Spawners and AI Patrol Path Node Devices to show a populated environment.

You can use gallery assets to build around the landscape or use the Spline tool in Landscape Mode to create roads and pathways to further establish and encourage movement in your environment.

In the Tatooine Inspired Starter Island template, extra detail is added by using the Sandcrawler Track static mesh combined with the spline tool to mimic the Sandcrawler vehicle traveling through the terrain.

Foliage Tool for Quick Asset Placement

Use Foliage Mode to optimize your workflow for placing environment-based static meshes around your island. For example, if you sculpt paths in your landscape, you can use the tool to add details like gravel and plants along the borders to make the paths feel natural. 

Dithering (a softening of the edges) the foliage also helps better blend the foliage with the landscape. This method involves adjusting the Cull Distance paint setting to gradually fade out the foliage as it moves further from the camera. 

You can find foliage assets, like plants, trees, and pebbles under All > Fortnite > Environment > Foliage. To add the assets to the tool, you must save them to the project files. To do so, drag the asset from the Content Browser into the Foliage list.

Background Assets

Beyond the vista assets, there are other ways to fill in the environment. Fortnite content includes additional assets that are designed to be placed at a distance. They establish the theme, set the scale of your environment, and are often designed so players cannot view them up close. These are background assets.

The Star Wars feature set includes various background assets:

• Planets

• Ion Cannon

• Death Star

• Star Destroyer

Visibility and Optimization Tips

After you place a background asset, you may not see it when playtesting. By default, a distant actor is typically culled  during gameplay to optimize rendering. Be sure to disable distance culling on the actor to keep it visible at all times. 

To adjust the visibility:

1. Click the mesh, and navigate to the Details panel.

2. Search for Never Distance Cull, and click to enable.

You can also adjust how it appears in the sky using the Day Sequence device's settings, like the sky parameters.

To further optimize your project, make sure assets are not unnecessarily evaluating World Position Offset (WPO). WPO creates procedural animation using material logic. An example of this is a flag blowing in the wind.  Evaluating WPO includes a more expensive shadow rendering pass.  Any static mesh actor that does not feature WPO should not evaluate it.

You can disable the evaluation in the actor's Details panel under Rendering > Advanced > Evaluate World Position Offset.

To search for actors with the feature enabled:

1. From the View Mode dropdown, click Nanite Visualization > Evaluate WPO.

2. Select any green actors that should not evaluate WPO, like the Star Destroyer, and disable the feature in the Details panel. The actor should turn red.

3. Switch back to Lit mode (Alt+4).

If the actor does not expose a toggle to evaluate WPO, select all static mesh components in the Details panel to make the toggle appear.

Planet Material

The planet assets include 4 designs: D'Qar, Hoth, Nevarro, and Tatooine. You can also use the planet materials in the Star Wars™ Content > Materials folder to design your own planet (make sure to create an instance). The folder includes a base material for the planet design and another material for the atmosphere.

You can use tools from Modeling Mode to create the planet mesh and define UVs to uniformly apply the material. The materials include parameters for adjusting attributes like atmosphere color, textures, and lava intensity. 

Atmospheric Visuals

You can further establish your environment with atmospheric visual effects. The table below highlights some of the effects used in the starter islands. 

Cloud Drifts

The biome kit includes drift visual effects that you can drag directly into your environment as is.

The asset includes parameters you can adjust in the Details panel, like spawn rate and particle scale. As seen in the Hoth and Tatooine inspired templates.  

Heat Ripple

Tatooine also features a heat ripple effect to capture the desert's heat.

This effect is created with an instance of the FNEC_MI_PPV_HeatRipple_Day material, which is applied to a Post Process Volume. You can find the material in the All > Fortnite > Materials > PostProcess folder.

To apply the material to your environment:

1. Right-click FNEC_MI_PPV_HeatRipple_Day, and then click Create Material Instance. Name and save the material instance in your project folder. 

2.  In the main toolbar click the Place Actors icon to open the actors dropdown menu.    

3. In the menu, navigate and click Volumes > Post Process Volume. The volume should appear in the Viewport and Outliner. 

4. Scale to volume to fit your desired area for the effect. 

5. In the Details panel of the volume, navigate to Post Process Materials. 

6. Click the plus icon to search for and add your material instance.   

You can adjust the visibility level of the material in the Details panel of the volume. The material instance includes parameters like the ripple intensity and speed that you can adjust.  It also includes a debug feature to see where the effect is applied. To edit the parameters, double-click the material instance to open the Material Editor. 

Skybox

With Star Wars brand islands are two day sequence actor additions to the World Time of Day Manager: Binary Suns and Space.  

This sky effect is set in the World Settings panel under Time of Day > World Time of Day Manager setting. If the panel is not active in your editor you can open it from Menu Bar > Window > World Settings.

You can further refine the look with the Day Sequence device.  To capture the intended theme, some settings have no effect, such as changing the sun size and adding clouds. 

Hyperspace

The Space Starter Island template showcases the hyperspace effect, which creates the illusion that the player is teleporting right into an intense battle scene.

The Star Wars feature set includes both an Enter and Exit Niagara System asset, located in Star Wars™  Content > VFX > Hyperspace.

The hyperspace VFX shot is created using a Verse device, hyperspace_sequence_device, to trigger level sequences and position a curved plane in front of the player (re-positioning) as the player moves. The level sequences drive the material and Niagara parameters, creating the illusion of jumping into and out of hyperspace. These level sequences are accessed using the Cinematic Sequencer  device. 

The design team uses a data layer to unload the Death Star prefab when the hyperspace VFX activates, reducing memory usage. You can use data layers to dynamically load and unload assets. To properly see data layers, you must enable the Data Layer Outliner by selecting Window > World Partition > Data Layer Outliner. To learn more, see the World Partition - Data Layers Unreal Engine page. 

The additional assets used to create the effect in the template, including the sound, are located in All > [Your Project Name] > Hyperspace. Along with the hyperspace_sequence_device Verse device in your top-level project folder. 

using { /Fortnite.com/Devices }
using { /Verse.org/Simulation }
using { /UnrealEngine.com/Temporary/Diagnostics }
using { /Fortnite.com/Characters }
# using { /Verse.org/SpatialMath }
using { /UnrealEngine.com/Temporary/SpatialMath }

# A Verse-authored creative device that can be placed in a level
hyperspace_sequence_device := class(creative_device):

You can recreate the shot by migrating the assets into your project:

1. Right-click the Hyperspace folder and click Migrate. This activates the migrate tool, which selects the content in the folder and all its dependencies.

2. Uncheck the NPCs and UI folders, and the project level file. Click Ok.

3. In the explorer, select the project location to which you want to move the assets. You must place the assets in the project's Content folder.

4. Open your other project to view the files.

5. Place the BP_Hyperspace asset in your level to represent the start of the effect. This Blueprint class represents the combination of the static mesh plane, material instance, and Niagara System assets.

If the migrated assets do not appear in the folder, try either of the following:

• Right-click an asset that does appear in the folder, and choose Asset Actions > Fix Validation Issues.

• If using Revision Control, make sure you are synced with the latest version and try refreshing the file.

• Restart UEFN.

To add the Verse device:

1. Create a new Verse device named hyperspace_sequence_device. To learn how to create a new device in Verse, see Create Your Own Device Using Verse.

2. Open Verse Explorer, and double-click hyperspace_sequence_device.verse to open the script in Visual Studio Code.

3. Paste in the code above, compile, and drag the device onto your island.

4. In the Content Drawer, search for and add three Cinematic Sequence devices to your island. Name the devices and connect a level sequence to each one.

5. Search for and add a Volume device. This device triggers the start of the hyperspace effect.

6. Select your Verse device in the Outliner.

7. In the device's Details panel, assign the object references. You can use the eyedropper to select the device in the Viewport, or use the dropdown and search for it.

8. Save your project.

In the level sequences, reconnect the curve plane and hyperspace Niagara System assets. The level sequences also control the visibility of assets, like the hangar room and Star Destroyers. Swap the assets as needed with your environment assets or delete them. To learn more about using Sequencher, see Gameplay Events in Sequencher.

You can add other non-Verse template-specific assets to your other Star Wars brand island projects using the migration tool. To copy Verse files instead of creating new ones, you can open the explorer window and manually copy files to another Content folder.

To learn more about the available Star Wars assets and available gameplay templates, see Working With STAR WARS™ Islands.