Shop Front Project - Unreal Engine Staging, lighting, and particles (and project post mortem)

·         To finish this project for presentation, I had to import the assets I created as well as the textures I created and combine them with in engine lighting to create a higher quality final submission.

·         I also wanted to push myself and chose to investigate particle systems for added life to my building, since it obviously would be very static and still with no animated aspects.

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Staging:

·         To properly frame my model, I added a very simple framed bottom plane as well as investigated adding a sky sphere.

·         I created a very fantastical sky sphere originally inspired by a lilac sunset; however, it really made the building look very bland when surrounded by the bright colours and stars because it was so desaturated in tones.

·         I wanted to make my medieval shop seem like it was a presented piece, which meant making sure that the background was not distracting, and making it amplify the model as the centre point.

·         The bottom plane was a successful experiment too since it helped ground the model into some professional setting and let me use parts of my trim sheet again. The hardest part was trying to get the texture quality high enough that it did not look pixelated, but I think in the end I managed to strike a successful balance.

The sky sphere I made custom

The texture on my ground plinth

Final Sky sphere – simple gradient

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Particles:

·         Although this project did not state the particles were necessary – I really wanted to push myself to learn them since I viewed them as being key to simply animate my very still scene.

·         I made 2 sets of particles – 1 being a firefly made with a material set up in unreal, and 2 being a smoke particle effect utilising flip book nodes.

·         I think my fireflies were more successful than my smoke particle effects, simply because I think my smoke particle was not dense enough being 2x2 to make it look fluid and not so choppy – but for a first attempt on a very tight timescale I was happy I took the time to do it.

·         If I were to do this again I would have maybe attempted a material node set up over a flip book set up for my smoke.

Smoke Particle Sheet

Firefly node set up (the colour was a bright yellow not black)

Final set up with the particles – lighting was made darker to show the particles off better in the final result

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Lighting:

·         For the lighting in this project, I approached the house as it should be a night-time scene, seemingly illuminated with the fireflies, windows and some moonlight overall.

·         I also had some emissive green windows I wanted to highlight overall – so I especially wanted to have the lighting reflect the window light strength. I used a rectangular box light on the windows and tinted it green to make the windows glow stronger than just the emissive map I set up.

·         I kept most of the lights around the fireflies as point lamps around the scene, with 1 low level world light in a contrasting colour so that the top surfaces of my models could be illuminated.

·         If I were to do this again, I would maybe make the scene a bit brighter – its good for the atmosphere, but the whole scene makes it hard to see the assets I made in comparison to my original daylight version. I could have had 2 versions saved on separate maps for submission, since then I could have had the best of both worlds.

Emissive Material Set Up

Point Lamp set up around the scene

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Project Post Mortem:

·         Overall, I am very happy with this project and think I fulfilled the brief well. My shop, although a little stiff in form, looks like it could be a real structure physics wise and has many narrative elements. I also considered my shop from all angles, trying to decorate the back in a similar way to the front.

·         I took a lot of care early on in my project trying to understand a way of keeping my project well laid out and considered which I think really helped me break down what could have been a very daunting task doing a fully textured model for the first time. For this reason, I think this project was about as hard as I expected – as it was more the sheer amount of steps I had to do that seemed more overwhelming than the content in each step?

·         If I were to do this project differently, I would focus more on making the form of my shop more interesting and organic. I also really stuck to mathematical order with aspects like the beams? Where I could have made beams separate to my house and cut down time modelling so much more.

·         From this project, I have definitely learnt the importance of the early-stage planning and using good quality reference. My original house shape was heavily influenced by medieval architecture and other models made in this style, which helped streamline the process in learning the shape language and typical features to include. I really could have used my time better, and I jumped the gun early with what I thought would have been the best way to do the beams for example which lead me to waste a lot of tris and time instead of waiting for the video on modelling the house to be released – so I think I need to keep a sense of consistent effort over having really explosive initial bursts of progress, with a ditch in the middle and then the mad rush at the end to finish.

·         I have plans over the Christmas break to try a personal project that I am excited about – I feel inspired by how well I faired with this brief that I want to push myself in a more creative way, and even try new things such as water shaders and more dynamic materials.