Here’s how to make The Backrooms in UE5.
In this TUTORIAL, I show how to make The Backrooms Liminal Spaces in Unreal Engine. I demo a Liminal Forest environment, other pre-made liminal environments, and assets.
FULL INSTRUCTIONS BELOW
Tutorial and Article by Bodhi Werner (aka Bodhi The Movie Maker)
🔴 FREE Project Files and Instructions PDF: https://tinyurl.com/BTMMExclusiveContent
🔴 Liminal Forest “The Backwoods” Found Footage Liminal Space Video: https://youtu.be/-4vH8PUbO-E
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⏱ IMPORTANT VIDEO TIME CODES:
4:03 — Backrooms Liminal Environment Tutorial
14:42 — Found Footage Aesthetic Tutorial
17:45 — Liminal Forest Environment Demo
19:05 — Pre-made Liminal Environments / Assets
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TUTORIAL HOW TO MAKE LIMINAL SPACES IN UE5
By Bodhi Werner (aka Bodhi The Movie Maker)
NOTE: I am using UE 5.2.1, but these instructions should work for almost any version of UE. I enabled ray tracing and lumen, but if you don’t have the hardware to support those features, don’t worry, they are not required for this.
INSTRUCTIONS
Open UE> Under Project type select Game> Name it> check Starter Content, Check Raytracing > click Create
File>New Level>Empty Level
Change View Made to Unlit
Click Add to project>Shapes>Plane> drag plane into level ( This will be our floor ) > Expand width and depth to your liking
Save New level>Name it>Assign it to a folder I chose to name my folder “Maps” Select Plane> while holding ALT rotate 180 degrees> move up to make ceiling.
Add spotlight>Change to LIT.
Select Ceiling Plane> Holding ALT rotate 90 degrees to make the side wall, and repeat the other direction for the other side wall.
In order to add a mannequin for reference, we will need to get one first. > open content drawer> Click Add+> Add Feature or Content Pack> Select thrid person> add to project.]
Open content drawer> Select the third-person blueprint and drag it into the level for scale. Position camera.
Add> Shapes> Square scale up to ceiling > Adust ceiling height to desired level > Adust square to make a wall section > Duplicate and place around the space as desired to make an abstract liminal space, one large room filled with no descript vague walls.
TIME FOR MATERIALS
Add to project > Quixel Bridge > login
In the search bar, type “Carpet” Navigate to the carpet tiles of choice, set the desired quality ( I chose maximum ), and download.
Once they are downloaded, click “Export”
You will now have a folder called Megascans located in your project’s content folder open it and open the folder containing the Carpet Material.
Drag and Drop the material onto your “Floor” Plane. THE MATERIAL SCALE WILL BE WRONG AT FIRST.
Open the Carpet Material instance > In the details panel under Global, check the box labeled Tiling/Offset expand that section, and under Tiling X and TIling Y, change the number to your liking depending on the size you made the floor plane. In my case, setting both to 100 worked great.
Back in Quixel Bridge, type in “Ceiling Tiles” and download Soundproofed Ceiling> Export to your project. Now follow all the steps you did for the floor. It is the same process.
Back in Quixel Bridge, type in “Wallpaper” download, and export all the options you like. There are some really great ones. One, in particular, is basically a perfect match for the most viewed Backrooms video by Kane Pixels, the one that introduced most people to the concept of liminal spaces. So that is the wallpaper I will use. It will need a few tweaks to work.
For the wallpaper material, I am going to duplicate the material instance and make changes to the duplicate. First, I change the tiling just like the previous materials.
NOTE: one problem here is because the walls are cubes, the shorter sides have a different density of tiles then the larger sides. if you wanted to fix this, you could make the walls out of planes and have different material instances with different tiling settings.
But then expand Albedo in the materials Details > check Albedo Tint > check Albedo Controls > under Albedo controls reduce the saturation and brightness. Click Tint and drag the color wheel into the yellow to match the popular liminal aesthetic of a yellow tinge.
Now our walls are very accurate to the “Backrooms style”
Now I apply the wallpaper material instance to the huge side walls made up of giant planes, and we see the material tiling is much larger. I fix this by duplicating smaller wall sections and covering up the big wall with a bunch of little walls in a row.
THE LIGHTS (Office Fluorescent panel style)
Bring a square into your level, place it on the ceiling, and size it to your liking Add an emissive material to the shape.
(Watch my tutorial here on how to make a flickering emissive material)
Time code 2:07-2:55 show you how to make a basic emissive material (non-flickering) OR JUST use the emissive material in the project files I provided.
In the project files, I provide emissive materials, flickering emissive materials, and flickering LIght Function Materials.
You can see here examples of the light panels, one flickering and one not flickering the corresponding tutorial.
BASIC POST-PROCESSING VOLUME #2
Add > Visual Effects > Post-processing Volume > Drag a post-processing Volume to your level. Select the volume in the outline, and in the details panel, navigate to Infinite Extent Unbound > Check the box.
Expand exposure > Check Metering Mode box > Switch to manual > Check Exposure Compensation box > Set to 15.
OPTIONAL STEP: If you want more light, you can add a spotlight under your light panels. I find the emissive material casts enough light to work for me but you can add a spotlight or rect light. Keep in mind that if you use a flicking emissive material, you will also want to use a matching flickering light function material on the light.
FINALIZING LIGHTS
Now let’s zoom way out to bird’s eye view and delete all but one light, with movement snapping on, let’s duplicate the light, as many times as you want so you get a bunch of rows of lights with equidistant spacing.
BASIC POST-PROCESSING #2
Adjust exposure to darker, more contrasty
Adjust color grading global saturation to bring out the yellow tinge vibe
FINALIZING WALLS
Zoom out to a bird’s Eye view and duplicate, and with rotation snapping set to 90 degrees, rotate walls so you only have right angles. Place walls throughout the map to create depth and a surreal layout that doesn’t feel like any real space, but more like a random dreamscape.
Now Walk through the space to see if the layout works for you. And fix any lights that intersect walls if you want to.
NOW THE FINAL TOUCHES THAT REALLY BRING OUT THE LIMINAL VIBE THE ENVIRONMENT IS ONLY ONE PART OF THE EQUATION the next is the presentation
Videos that evoke the liminal spaces vibe often are in the “found footage genre” meaning they are shot from a handheld camera perspective. Furthermore, the imagery is processed to look like it was shot on a handheld camera, usually one of the 80/90s era VHS recorders. For my short film Liminal Forest, I employed these techniques to make my video look like it was recorded from the helmet camera. I actually did all the post-processing in Final Cut Pro X after exporting the footage untouched from Unreal Engine.
Right now, I am going to do a basic overview of how to give your unreal engine project that handheld video camera look inside an unreal engine using the Post Processing Volume. This is relevant for people who want to make a videogame or other interactive experience and need to have this found footage look baked into their project.
In my next video, I will do a deep dive on how to post-process your footage and how to get shaky handheld footage, and the differences between using the post-process volume in Unreal Engine vs doing it in a video edition software later and the pros and cons. So make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss that.
FINALIZE POST PROCESS VOLUME
Epand Bloom > Check Method > Set to Convolution > Check intensity > Set to desired number (I chose 1.98)
Expand Chromatic Aberration > Check Intensity > Set intensity ( i chose 0.73 )
Dirt Mask is a great way to add the illusion of your project being from the POV of a camera. I did not use one because there was no default dirt mask provided, and I am lazy) you can.
Expand Camera > Check Aperture Box > I chose to Set it to 2.8 because that is the standard for cinema.
Go back up to Exposure and check the box next to Apply Physical Camera Exposure. Now, back down in the camera section. Check ISO Box > Set it to fit the exposure level you want.
Expand Lens Flares > Check Intensity box> NOTE: I leave the intensity HIGH while I choose the other settings so it is easy to see what I am doing. Then, I lower the intensity so the effect is subtle and realistic.
Check Bokeh Size box > Adjust to your liking. I chose 20 for a large diffuse bokeh, which to me looked like the flare you get on a smudged old handycam lens.
Check Tint box > I change tint to yellow > click ok
Lower intensity to 0.135
Expand Image Vignette > check box > set to 1.0
Global illumination
Check the method box > select lumen.
Expand lumen global illumination> check the boxes > and tweak settings to get a look you find realistic.
Expand Motion Blur > Check amount box > tweak to your liking
Expand Film Grain > Check film grain intensity box > Turn up to your liking (I chose 1.0)
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If you have any questions, please let me know in the YouTube comments or feel free to reach out via email: BodhiTheMovieMaker @ Gmail . Com
If you found this useful, please drop a like and let me know if this helped you in the YouTube comments.
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