Recently I started tinkering with the buoyancy system out of curiosity and after a while I've figured out a way to make it work. There are some good tutorials on youtube but there are some key aspects that get overlooked, so here is a quick breakdown of how I got it to work:

First go to the content browser settings and show plugin and engine content.

(I'm assuming you have enabled the water plugin and created an ocean or river for your meshes to float on ).

Look for the Buoyancy example BP and open it. 

Create a blueprint containing the mesh you want to float on the water, then you can either add a buoyancy component to your own blueprint or copy paste the one from the example. 

Select the buoyancy component and in the details/buoyancy data drop down menu you will find the pontoons, this are invisible reference points that will make your mesh float on the water so make sure to adjust them so they cover a rectangular area around your mesh, the z value will determine where the water level will be relative to your mesh. You can add an arrow component to the blueprint to get some reference xyz values to use for the pontoons.(if there is a way to visualize the pontoons let me know I couldn't find one).

Now that you have your buoyancy set up select your mesh and check Simulate Physics and Mass, you can adjust the Mass later but I would leave it on the default value. 

And finally the Key information that was missing from other forum posts and tutorials is that you have to make sure that the pivot point is centered on your mesh and that the collision is as simple as possible, a cube or rectangle works best and the more complex it is the more probable it is that your object will sink. 

This is a trial and error process so start with a basic cube or prism and slowly adjust the size and test it to make sure it works. 

Also make sure to place your blueprint mesh a couple of meters above the water before simulating/playing, otherwise it will sink to the bottom of the ocean and end up in Davy Jones's locker, or so I'm told. Again this is trial and error so start higher and slowly try to get it as close to the water as possible.

Hope this was useful and if I missed something let me know! 

PS:

Another important factor regarding buoyancy is the waves, you can use the ocean or lake waves, make a copy of the original one and adjust the min max amplitude, small values like 2-4 or 4-8 should make it easier for your objects to have a stable floating movement. 

Practicing nigh lighting by reusing my latest environment in UE5. 

Thinking about starting another environment project soon and started doodling some ideas, for this one I'm going back to a scifi/cyberpunk theme after doing 2 fantasy ones in a row. 

Another weekly update, since last time I added rocks, cliffs, updated the water to a stylized texture, adjusted clouds an lighting a bit and some cloud shadows to give depth, and a little bit of grass mixed with the sand. Next I'll work on adding some more foliage to cover the cliffs and maybe  smaller props, details. 

Happy new year everyone! been a while since the last update, finally making some solid progress on this scene, since the last update I've made a messy sand material for the terrain, added some flatter and darker variations in the shader to vertex paint wet sand and have it transition smoothly into the messy sand. 

Decided to try a wood trim texture and tileable wood planks for the scene, did the trim normal in blender and the wood texture in substance designer, was originally going to sculpt all the wood but I'm quite happy how it looks, still I will try to detail it a little more later and still need to add iron nails to the boards textures for more detail.

The Roof tiles where a lot of fun, managed to get that sculpted chunky look in designer using parallax in Unreal, later on I will add a little bit more color variation, and some vertex painted variation and maybe some poop stains from seagulls :) . 

Next I'll work on adding boats and after start some work on sculpting some rocks and cliffs. 

Concept by Nara.

After watching and learning this week from the UE5 Lighting tutorial by the og daedalus51 , I've updated my Dragon workshop scene with an updated night version and a daytime/afternoon version. Full set of images can be found on my portfolio . It was a great excercise to better understand the new lighting systems in UE5 and learn a lot of cool stuff that I can use in my future scenes. 

Testing some palm trees for a new environment project. 

Did a quick flythrough animation of my latest scene, worked on it a bit more after the challenge was over. As with every scene I worked on I used it as an opportunity to try new things, first time sculpting in blender and first time using UE5 for a project.  

Finished texturing the sea creatures, plants and corals, will let it rest for a little bit and then maybe try some technical stuff now that the main assets are done.

This month I decided to revisit one of my old arstation challenge scenes that was left unfinished from 2018 (!!!!!) and give it a second pass and turn it into an underwater asset pack. I've created a bunch of anemone, coral, sponges and stars to dress it this past week and now that the modeling is done I'll start texturing the new assets. It was a lot of fun working on this type of environment again, so cool how the sea bottom resembles an alien planet with colorful odd shaped lifeforms. I always regretted not taking this scene to the level of quality that it deserved so hopefully now I can accomplish that, and have fun modeling some weird stuff along the way.