Build an Entire City in Unreal Engine 5 in Under 10 Minutes
01 What is ArcGIS CityEngine?
ArcGIS CityEngine is a procedural 3D city generator developed by Esri. It's used by urban planners, architects, VFX studios, and game developers to create massive, detailed urban environments — either from real-world GIS data or completely from scratch.
The key concept is procedural generation: instead of modeling every building by hand, you write simple rules and CityEngine generates hundreds of unique structures automatically. Change one parameter and the entire city updates instantly.
Who Uses It
- Urban Planners & Architects
- Game & VFX Studios
- 3D Environment Artists
- GIS Professionals
- Film & TV Production
Key Capabilities
- Procedural building generation
- Real-world GIS data import
- Multiple scenario testing
- Unreal Engine plugin export
- ArcGIS ecosystem integration
02 What You'll Need
Before you start, grab these two things:
ArcGIS CityEngine
Download from Esri's website. A free trial is available. This is where you'll design, procedurally generate, and export your city geometry. The Esri plugin for Unreal is free.
Unreal Engine 5 (5.x)
Free from Epic Games Launcher. Make sure to also install the ArcGIS Maps SDK for Unreal Engine from the Marketplace — it bridges CityEngine directly into UE5 with full material and LOD support.
Pro tip: Start a new Blank project in UE5 rather than a template. This avoids asset conflicts when importing large city geometry and keeps your scene clean from the start.
03 The 10-Minute City Pipeline
Here's the full workflow, broken into timed phases so you can follow along with the video tutorial.
Set Up Your City Block in CityEngine
Open CityEngine and use File → Get Map Data to import a street network from OpenStreetMap, or draw your own city block layout manually. Define the street widths, lot sizes, and overall city footprint using the shape tools. This becomes your procedural canvas.
Apply a CGA Rule File to Generate Buildings
This is the magic step. Select all your lots, then assign a CGA (Computer Generated Architecture) rule file in the Inspector panel. CityEngine ships with built-in rule files like BuildingFromFootprint.cga. The moment you apply it, entire city blocks of unique, textured buildings appear procedurally — floors, facades, rooftops and all. Tweak height, style, and density sliders to taste.
Export to Unreal Engine Format
Go to File → Export Models and select Unreal Engine (.fbx + Datasmith) as the format. The Datasmith export preserves materials, LODs, and scene hierarchy perfectly. Alternatively, use the live Vitruvio plugin inside UE5 which lets CityEngine rules regenerate directly inside the Unreal editor — no static export needed.
Import into UE5 via Datasmith or Vitruvio
In UE5, use Datasmith Import from the top menu and point it to your exported file. Unreal automatically organizes the city into actors, assigns materials, and sets up the scene hierarchy. If using the Vitruvio plugin, simply drag your CGA rule asset into the viewport and UE5 generates the city live in the editor.
Light It, Hit Play
Add a Directional Light and Atmospheric Sky from the Place Actors panel. Enable Lumen in Project Settings for global illumination. Hit Play — your city is alive, fully lit, and explorable in real time.
Performance tip: Enable Nanite on your imported static meshes (right-click → Asset Actions → Enable Nanite). For a city with thousands of buildings, this is a game-changer — Unreal's virtualized geometry system handles all LODs automatically at almost no performance cost.
04 Watch the Full Tutorial
See the complete pipeline in action. This video walks through every step in real time, from a blank CityEngine scene to a fully lit Unreal 5 city:
CityEngine + Unreal Engine 5 — Full City Tutorial
Complete walkthrough: procedural city generation, CGA rules, export, import, and real-time rendering.
youtube.com/watch?v=3NfcxDsYmYI05 Why This Workflow Beats Manual Modeling
Traditional Way 😩
- Model each building in Maya / Blender
- UV unwrap everything manually
- Hours or days per city block
- Changing style = re-model from scratch
- No GIS accuracy
CityEngine Way 🚀
- Entire districts in minutes
- Automatic UV, LOD, materials
- One slider changes the whole city
- Import real city data from OSM
- Iterates in seconds, not days
