UE5: Complete Guide to Player Scale, Environment Dimensions and Creating to Proportions

Category: UE5

April 20, 2023

Number one mistake beginner's make is creating environments that are either too small or too big.

The entire scale of the world and its proportions are off and you can easily tell when you see it.

When you begin working on a new environment, you need to know the player and world geometry dimensions to avoid problems with scale.

Here is what you need to know:

Character scale (height)
Average wall height, width and depth
Door/doorway height and width
Step height and depth

In this post you will learn all the dimensions you need for creating to correct scale.

Video Tutorial

Important Thing About Scale

Scale and dimensions of your character and architecture will always be relative to the game and the environment you are creating.

Art style and gameplay mechanics will determine the size of the world and scale of the props.

If you created realistic environment that match dimensions from the real-world but when you walk around it feels small, then you need to re-work your environment to make sure that your environment scale "feels right". All depends on how the player perceives your environment.

Remember: Everything is relative to the player and how the player sees the world.

Dimensions listed in this post are a good starting point but they will always need to be tweaked to the player scale you are using in game.

Scale in UE5

Unreal Engine uses centimeters (cm) as the measurement system. In UE5 centimeters are called Unreal Units (uu).

Unreal Units (uu) = Centimeters (cm)
1 unreal unit = 1 cm

Character scale is the most important metric to know first.

Everything is relative to the point of view of the player and how they view the world.

Base dimensions of a player character in game are:

Character Height: 180cm/uu (about 6ft)

180cm is a good starting point to use. But always remember, if you have a custom character in-game, the size may be different.

Character/Player Reference Scale

Great way to reference everything in the world is to insert a Player Reference Scale mesh into your level. This is a Static Mesh or a Skeletal Mesh of the character that can be placed all over your map to help you judge proportions of the environments you create.

You can use:

Basic Static Mesh Box (180Hx50Wx50D)
Mannequin Skeletal Mesh (comes with UE5)
Custom Character (imported into UE5)

Third Person Game Template Mannequin

If you used Third Person Game Template project, you will have 3 different mannequins to use.

Go to Characters > Mannequin_UE4 or Mannequins folders:

Characters > Mannequin_UE4 > Meshes
Characters > Mannequins > Meshes

Left-Click and drag any of the following:

SK_Mannequin (From: Characters > Mannequin_UE4 > Meshes)

SK_Mannequin, SKM_Manny, SKM_Manny_Simple, SKM_Quinn, SKM_Quinn_Simple (From: Characters > Mannequi > Meshes)

If you didn't use Third Person Game Template but want to use these mannequins, you can add the Third Person Template into an existing project by going to Add > Add Feature or Content Pack:

Then choose Third Person and Add to Project:

See this tutorial for getting UE Mannequin into your 3d modeling application.

UE4 Mannequin: Mobile from Marketplace

There is a UE4 Mannequin: Mobile available in Epic Games Marketplace for free. You can add it into UE4 or UE5 projects.

Go to Marketplace and search for Mannequin to download:

Then in Library under Vault section, Add to Project:

It will not be compatible with UE5 but you can still add it into any project and it will work.

Click on:

Show all projects
Choose any UE5 project
Select latest available version
Add to Project

UE4 Mannequin: Mobile will now appear inside your content browser to use inside your project for reference scale.

Basic Cube Scale

If you don't want or have ability to use UE4/5 mannequins then use a simple cube Mesh. Either import one from 3d modeling software or use Modeling Mode in UE5 to create it.

Go to Modeling Mode (Shift+5) and under Shapes, select a cube and enter the following dimensions:

Width/Depth: 50
Height: 180

Place it into your map and hit Accept.

Custom Character Mesh

If you have your own player character already created, you can import and use that as scale reference. It doesn't have to be rigged. Static Mesh will do just fine.

Walls

Walls height and width will always vary based on architecture style but there are standard dimensions for height to start using.

Standard Wall Height/Width: 300-400uu
Standard Wall Depth: 20uu

Here are two walls, one at 300uu (left) and 400uu (right) in height:

Always test in-game from point of view of the player.

Interior with 300 unit height walls:

Interior with 400 unit height walls:

Door/Doorways

Standard doorways/doors has the following base dimensions:

Standard Doorway Width: 110-140uu
Standard Doorway Height: 210-230uu

Add 10-20cm/units for a door frame that you may include for aesthetics.

You always want to test it in-game and see if you can walk through it due to player collision in-game.

Here is a doorway/door at:

Door Height: 230uu
Door Width: 140uu

Steps

Standard stair height and depth that looks good is:

Step Height: 15uu
Step Length/Depth: 30uu

One thing to consider when you are creating stairs is the height of the entire stair set.

If you have a wall that is 300uu high then you would need 20 continuous steps to reach that height.

20 steps x 15uu each step = 300uu

If you have a wall that is 400uu high then you would need 26.6 steps to reach that height. This causes a bit of a problem that you will have to compensate for in order to make sure that your stair set reaches the top of the wall. That is of course if you are using the stair height of 15uux 30cm to begin with.

If you use stair height of 10uu or 20uu and depth of 30uu, these will work for most walls without any decimals due to 10/20uu value. But the step height of 10uu is too small and 20uu is slightly larger than you may want it to be.