UNREAL ENGINE 5 3D CINEMATIOC ENVIRONMENT
For this task the group work mainly started out with outlining our ideas and compiling suggestions around the given options of the 3D environment
overall we landed on a sci fi themed genre and as a group wanted to do something space like and creepy. as a group we honed down our decisions between a scifi diner/cafe and a science lab we took a very long time deciding as we were getting very creative and overloading alot of concepts into one environment genre
some of us particularly wanted to do sci fi some wanted to create a mechanical environment and some wanted to do an environment themed around food. I favoured all of these ideas but suggested to my group that we keep it in a creepy atmosphere to create a fun setting for the cinematics we later decided to choose just the science lab as it had a more creative aspect we all were interested in but we wanted to take a spin on it
we decided that we would do a kitchen to a space sci fi diner that the kitchen itself was actually a technological food lab that crossed spliced plants with meat. these combined ideas made sure equally everyone’s ideas were contributed into the final decision it managed to create good teamwork of inspiration as we were all very motivated to do this environment.
SCIENCE LAB
IDEAS
after out final decisions were checked by the teachers we made a list on paper of what we each wanted to contribute to the environment and creatively what we were going to be focusing on some took on the task of researching plants and creating the feature experiments that were going to be displayed in the environment
i decided to take on the responsibility to create rough concepts of how the setting should be presented for the visuals
i made a 3d model to use as a suggestion but also represent what i wanted my scene to look like i used it to highlight what kind of props and lighting should be in the scene for the environment i also created an entire mood board and mainly contributed towards the group production by managing and building up the fundamental ideas for what things should look like while creating outlines and plans this allowed me to also experiment with concepts, improvements and suggestions
DEVELOPMENT
i specifically picked out references for ideas that related to everyone’s individual suggested ideas by managing everything i was able to join alot of things together which meant we didn’t run into any road blocks or problems when sticking to concepts and designs for when we started to produce the 3D models
the images below were used as our groups main points of reference we used these refences to create a type of visual narrative or story about a genetic lab growing food but the experiment’s go wrong we mentioned breaking bad as a story idea toward the styled environment and heavily drew inspiration for Alien isolation and butcher shops
RESEARCH
PRESENTATION:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1D0Mck-Eo7mcMUug6azoGxOc6avWzQ3XgrxfH9LQ94pI/edit#slide=id.g164198702f9_2_106
the group eventually put together our joint efforts into a presentation i mainly roughed our the guidelines and content on each page for some people to add too here we stated what exactly our aims and goals for the project was and what props and models exactly we were going to create
our main props were:
- tanks/ fluid cylinders to grow experiments- for this i cut apart images to explain to the group how we were going to build the tanks like lego peices that would allow each member to interchainge the tanks when constructing their own individual envrionements. as a group we all decided and agreed we woul dbuikld our probs as interchangable so we could have custome outputs when handing the props to otehr members this leveled any creative disbutes
- pixel graphics – although most of my group were 3d based i really wanted to incorporate something 2d and something interesting to our scene that others were not doing and suggested to my group if we are doing mechanical machines like they wanted we could add virtual screens to where we could add a retro spin by creating animated 2d pixel art projected onto the screens i believed tis would add life into the still environment and also add some backstory and context to what had happened in the environment as we were all very intrigued into the story element of this task i decided from this i would animated pixel animation of warning signs and computer malfunctions alongside creating some simple sprites to fill shelves in the environment
- electronics – this collaborated with the 2d pixels and I worked with a team member on deciding dimensions and sized of the mechanical models closely at every step
we wanted our scene to stay simple more than anything so that only the focused props could have lots of detail we all had the passion to create something that cinematically looked very interesting and finally decided on using a shader which would give the entire scene more of a 2d illustrated look that was stylized and unique
assets:
here I typed what exact props were will try to do
during and online meetings the group had we discussed our time constrates and abilities here i explained who would be doing what props and 3d models and what models had already been done alongside what models we ended up not doing
for my modelling i wanted to take on a smaller task as i had contributed a lot into the pre production of the project i also struggled with 3d modelling and did not want to take on doing any of the highly important or detailed props as a group we decided mainly from the list we all have set things we wanted to model but in the short space of time we agreed we would create what we could and then come back and discuss what we have time left to do once finished the main props. i took on the task of modelling the leftover props
i modelled
- jars
- shelves
- fridges
- pipes
- lights
- small props- frying pan
- pixels
- command console
PRODUCTION
i managed to get my models done however most were later not used in the final scene as i ran out of time to uv map and texture everything but by that point we had enough models from each person we banded together and stuck everything into unreal engine as a test to see exactly how everything looked. here we noticed some issues and with the last amount of time fixed them to the best of our abilities and added a fun effect of neon liquid on the floors
pixel props:
each prop is animated with a glitch effect
some issues were caused when animating the pixel art specifically trying to get the renders the rite size scaled up to fit the 3d environment eventually i found a way to scale everything up and keep it square and accurate to the screen by going up 500×500
after having put everything together each arranging our own environment we each made sure to have camera angles and points of interest that were no to similar as we wanted each piece to be separate in its own way due to me being cut short for time i took longer than expected to set up the scene in unreal engine and then render it all out the cameras particularly were difficult as moving them along an arc sometimes cause them to spin and go the opposite direction when i animated the cameras moving this caused me to have to use the curve editor and adjust settings to correct the cameras linear path and it was very lengthy
I think ultimately this was the nicest ad easiest group i worked with the collaboration effort an the teamwork was very good i think overall the only problems and downsides encountered was how long everyone was talking to create the props and models this definitely could have been done faster and would have allowed a more detailed environment however with what we had to work with i believe it went really well and i enjoyed it and learnt alot from it