The Hinterlands Pt.1 - A UE5 Cinematic - Dragon Age Inquisition in Unreal Engine 5

The continuation of my Dragon Age Inquisition in Unreal Engine 5 series! (I need a more pithy name for this. ‘Thedas Magic Mystery World Tour?’)

The Hinterlands! I feel like it gets a bad rep but love it or hate it, it had some really lovely environments. This one in particular is the little canyon just before you go and fight the Fereldan Frostback. I’d planned on doing one video per level, but since the Hinterlands is so darn big – I’m going to split it into several smaller videos for the sake of time.

While this series is in part just for fun (and maybe a little DA4 hype), it’s also in many ways a technical demo for the early access of Unreal Engine 5. As such, some of the limitations of Nanite and Lumen are highlighted here – for example Lumen’s current lack of support for translucent materials. Note how the foliage (especially the grass!) can tend to flicker when moving. This is something that should be fixed in the final release.

As per usual, a healthy amount of Quixel Megascans assets were used, along with some custom modelling with the basalt pillars and the trees/roots – done in Blender. Fully dynamic lumen scene, no light bakes. High resolution nanite meshes.

Another unforeseen thing (although not necessarily in a bad way) is how Lumen changes the way you go about lighting scenes. Something you may notice is that the original Frostbite 3 screenshot seems quite a bit darker – whereas even with a similar lighting setup, the Lumen scene is much brighter. Improved global illumination means … improved global illumination. Huh. If you’re used to UE4, it can be a bit of an odd thing at first – having all your scenes brighter than normal. More realistic, certainly – but different.