# Samford Solarpunk Homestead — Unreal Engine 5 project scope

Prepared 10 September 2026. Proposal only; no Unreal installation, import or project build has been performed.

## Recommended outcome

An editable UE5 architectural scene and a local Mac application for exploring the current homestead. Keep Blender as the source for building design; use Unreal for real-time presentation. The first release preserves the current layout, natural material palette, solar infrastructure and future expansion footprints.

Assumptions: one local user, keyboard/mouse or trackpad, this Mac as the first target, fixed golden-hour lighting, and no construction-grade or energy simulation. The scope reuses the existing concept models; a commercial-quality replacement vehicle or furniture library is additional art work.

## Existing source and local readiness

- Source: `samford-solarpunk-smooth-tour.blend` in this directory. Its hidden DETAIL collection contains the complete render geometry. Its FAST TOUR collection is a separate, simplified viewport copy. Exporting both would duplicate the scene.
- Existing assets: living/kitchen/dining pavilion; parents' bedroom and bathroom wing; connecting corridor and verandahs; meditation room; two future shadow footprints; sauna and shower; greenhouse and six beds; tanks; roof and ground solar; Starlink and homelab; driveway; garage, Tesla concept car, charging point, workbench and bikes.
- Existing tour: 115 seconds, 23 chapters, animated camera and lens, chapter labels and deliberate cuts.
- Measured Blender display: approximately 4,090 visible objects / 1.91 million faces before optimization, versus 47 objects / 198,000 faces in the fast version. These are Blender polygon counts, not Unreal triangle counts or Unreal performance measurements.
- Local hardware: Apple M5, 24 GiB unified memory. macOS 26.6.2; Xcode 26.6. Approximately 194 GiB free on the workspace volume at inspection.
- No UnrealEditor application was found by Spotlight; no Epic Games installation was present in the standard shared folder or Applications listing. An installation elsewhere remains possible.
- Epic recommends 32 GB or more memory. The current Mac is above the listed minimum but below that recommendation. The pilot must establish a practical visual-quality target on this machine. [Epic Mac requirements](https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/macos-development-requirements-for-unreal-engine)

## Approaches considered

| Approach | Estimated effort | Result |
|---|---:|---|
| Basic conversion | 12–24 hours | Imported geometry, basic materials, simple fly view. Useful proof, limited polish and interaction. |
| Optimized interactive homestead — recommended | 48–80 hours total | Walk/fly controls, complete tour, cutaways, future footprints, rebuilt materials and vegetation, tested local Mac application. |
| Showcase visualization | 100–180 hours total | Recommended version plus substantial model upgrades, richer botanical assets, more elaborate cinematics and atmosphere. |

These are planning estimates for one experienced Unreal architectural-visualization generalist, not measured execution times or a fixed quote. Installation downloads and first shader compilation add elapsed time. The options are alternative totals, not additive phases.

## First release: user experience

1. A simple start screen: **Walk**, **Fly**, **Take the tour**, **Quality**, **Quit**.
2. Walk at human scale through the home, meditation cabin, garage, sauna and garden. Floors, stairs/ramps and door openings must work physically; presentation-only wall transparency is not sufficient.
3. Fly freely to understand the terrain, solar arrays, road and spatial relationships.
4. Play the 23-chapter tour with pause/resume, restart and chapter selection. Recreate captions as screen UI rather than 3D camera-attached text.
5. In fly/exploration view, **See inside** toggles the presentation wall sections. Walk mode uses coherent physical boundaries and accessible doors.
6. **Future spaces** shows/hides the two existing ghost footprints and their labels. Fully furnished future buildings are outside this first release.
7. **Balanced** and **Fast** presets adjust foliage, lighting, shadows and rendering resolution. Keep the interface small and nontechnical.

The Tesla, solar arrays, server, tanks and sauna are visual assets. Driving, charging simulation, water balance, food production and heat simulation are not included.

## Conversion and scene design

### Asset preparation

Work from a duplicate of the detailed source. Create stable export names and pivots; apply necessary modifiers; check normals, openings, thin surfaces and object scale. Validate that Blender metres become the correct Unreal centimetres and that camera orientation, sun direction and site north remain consistent.

Use FBX mesh exports grouped by building and asset family, with an explicit placement manifest for repeatable imports. Run a small glTF comparison only if FBX material or hierarchy import is troublesome. Keep doors, removable presentation walls, roofs, floors and furniture as logical separate pieces. Merge minor static parts locally and instance repeated posts, panels and vegetation. Avoid importing thousands of unrelated tiny Actors, or merging the entire property into one mesh.

FBX scene import supports geometry and basic materials, but it does not guarantee the source appearance or animated-camera import. This is a conversion workflow, not a one-click format change. [Epic FBX scene import](https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/fbx-scene-import-in-unreal-engine)

### Materials and lighting

Create UVs where needed. Bake or rebuild the Blender procedural materials: timber grain, clay, concrete/stone, bamboo, metals, solar glass, glazing, vegetation and upholstery. Start with reusable 1K–2K texture sets and use higher resolution only where the close-up view requires it. Check texture colour spaces, normal-map orientation and transparency.

Rebuild the warm morning lighting and restrained haze in Unreal. Test software Lumen first, with a simpler fixed-lighting alternative if necessary. Epic currently lists software Lumen on Apple Silicon, hardware-ray-traced Lumen/MegaLights as unsupported on Mac, and Nanite/Virtual Shadow Maps on M2+ as beta support. Nanite will not be a baseline dependency. [Epic rendering feature support](https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/macos-development-requirements-for-unreal-engine)

### Terrain and vegetation

Retain the existing terrain shape for the first release; introduce a native Unreal Landscape only if sculpting or foliage workflow materially benefits. Convert trees, groundcover and garden plants into reusable meshes with distance-based detail and culling. Preserve the open views and subtropical character. Use instanced static-mesh foliage; large amounts of individual Actor foliage would repeat the current scene's object-overhead problem. [Epic foliage workflow](https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/foliage-mode-in-unreal-engine)

### Tour, interaction and updates

Build one Blueprint-based local experience and a Sequencer tour. Transfer sampled camera transforms and lens values, then verify axes, cuts, interpolation and all chapter boundaries. FBX camera animation needs a dedicated Sequencer workflow or a sampled-data importer; it should not be assumed to arrive with the static scene. [Epic cinematic animation import](https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/unreal-engine/import-and-export-cinematic-fbx-animations-in-unreal-engine)

Use separate groups for present buildings, future outlines, cutaway faces, landscape and services. Keep interaction logic separate from imported geometry so subsequent Blender reimports do not erase it. A full live synchronization system is not included.

## Work packages and effort

| Stage | Work and checkpoint | Hours |
|---|---|---:|
| 1. Compatibility and pilot | Confirm engine/toolchain; import one furnished room, glass, one tree and a short camera move; package and benchmark on this Mac. Choose rendering approach. | 4–8 |
| 2. Geometry conversion | Clean and export the whole site; organize assets, pivots and instances; repair openings and build simple collision. | 8–12 |
| 3. Materials | Bake/rebuild the material palette; validate indoor and outdoor appearance and texture memory. | 10–16 |
| 4. Landscape and lighting | Optimize vegetation, terrain, shadows, warm lighting and haze. | 10–16 |
| 5. Interaction and tour | Walking/flying, doors as needed, 23 chapters, simple menu, future and cutaway toggles. | 10–16 |
| 6. Performance and delivery | Profile packaged build, tune quality presets, test the entire tour and deliver editable project and local app. | 6–12 |
| **Total** | **Approximately 6–10 eight-hour working days** | **48–80** |

The pilot is included in the total. If it cannot meet a usable baseline on this Mac, resolve the lighting/foliage approach before converting the remaining assets. Installation/toolchain problems or substantial remodeling can move the estimate outside this range.

## Acceptance criteria

- Local Mac application launches without the Unreal Editor open; editable project reopens successfully.
- All listed current structures and contents are present at the correct scale, with no duplicate FAST/DETAIL export.
- All intended rooms and outdoor paths are accessible in walk mode; no falling through floors or invisible blocking presentation walls.
- All 23 chapters play in order, pause/resume/restart work, and each chapter shows its intended subject without unintended clipping.
- Future and cutaway toggles work; reopening the application returns to a sensible starting state.
- No missing textures or materially incorrect glass, black surfaces or severe light leaks on the agreed inspection route.
- Initial performance target: 30 FPS at 1920×1080 output in Balanced mode, using upscaling if needed. Aim for 60 FPS in Fast mode. Both are targets, not promises before the pilot.
- Benchmark the packaged application after shader warm-up over a repeatable exterior/interior route; record average and slow-frame timings, quality settings and memory behavior. Complete a ten-minute session without crashes or sustained memory pressure. Profile editor performance separately.

## Deliverables

- Editable Unreal project with organized assets and an asset/source map.
- Local Mac application, tested on this machine.
- Preserved Blender original and a documented export/reimport workflow.
- 23-chapter tour, room navigation and the agreed toggles.
- Performance results and a short illustrated controls guide.
- Optional recorded walkthrough video; final video resolution and quality can be set independently of real-time playback.

## Budget, dependencies and exclusions

Engine fees may be zero under Epic's individual/small-business terms. Commercial use must be checked against the applicable revenue and licence rules. Optional licensed plants/material assets: allow A$0–500 initially; no purchases are assumed. [Epic licensing](https://www.unrealengine.com/license)

For comparison only, hiring 48–80 hours at an assumed A$100–160/hour implies approximately A$4,800–12,800 in labour before GST where applicable. The hourly rates are budgeting assumptions, not researched vendor quotes. This is separate from the cost of constructing the real house and from any Codex subscription or usage charges.

Allow approximately 100–150 GB of working storage for the chosen engine, project, imports and caches, subject to installer options and measured cache growth. Avoid a source-engine build or large unneeded content libraries for this first release.

The installed Xcode is 26.6. Epic currently lists 26.1.1 as recommended for UE 5.8 and specifically excludes 26.4; this does not establish whether 26.6 works. Verify a compatible engine/toolchain pair in the pilot. Do not globally replace the user's developer-tool configuration as a default setup step.

Additional scope: Windows packaging/testing; public distribution signing/notarization; VR; browser streaming and hosting; multiplayer; a driveable Tesla; realistic weather/time-of-day controls; fully built future dwellings; a material configurator; photogrammetry/site survey alignment; substantial remodels; architectural compliance; energy, water or construction-cost simulation. The current terrain is a concept landscape, not a surveyed Samford property.

## Recommended next milestone

A 4–8-hour compatibility and visual pilot using the living pavilion, a tree, key materials and one camera shot. Its output is a runnable Mac sample, measured frame times, confirmed toolchain and a recommendation for the final visual settings. That makes the full conversion estimate concrete before committing to the remaining work.