Category: 3D Environment

During the third week, we were given feedback from our presentation. We were told the project is going in a good direction, and what we should focus on this week/next week is a strong sense of art style, and a list of roles for everyone to complete. We had a discussion that class about our feedback and prepared to make our list.

We have been finalising how our style is implemented into our work by making concepts for our key assets such as the Grandfather clock, Armoured Knight, Gramophone, Piano etc.

I have been working on the Grandfather clock, and the Main door.

I referred back to my clock sketches and decided on combining both of the monster themed designs to create the final design. I also used the reference from before to help guide me again. I made a small turnaround to help me model this asset later on. I made sure to add the key descriptions to emphasise this design. For example, I thought about the wonky/warped style – the clock is broken/tilted to the side a bit, and I thought about the decay of the mansion – the clock is scratched and work out.

 

I also came up with a design for the main door. I found some useful references to help my idea such as the stained glass window and the door handles. I also referred back to my clocks to implement the same monster theme in the door design.

My grandfather clock and grand door progress can be found through these links:

Modelling the Grandfather Clock

Modelling the Grand Door

 

As a group we also experimented and discussed how we will block out our haunted mansion. We visualised a layout from sketches, to Unreal Engine projects.

Jennifer’s Layout sketch

Alisa’s layout sketch

 

Matthew’s Maya blockout

My Unreal Engine blockout

 

With our layout ideas on screen, from here we decided we would all take the same one layout idea but incorporate it into our own environment individually. This way we can all have a bit of freedom to layout and position each asset the way we would like to. This also can encourage us to be more creative in how we present our scenes.

The second week of our project was spent creating a few more concept work on our assets primarily, and to make our presentation and showcase it to our class.

First, we had another discussion about our style and how we would describe it. We all discussed keywords that we all agree would fit the style and emphasise what visuals we are going to create. This was the list of words we came up with.

These words will eventually influence our work as we figure out, what makes the scene look wonky/warped? what made the room decay? Why would the furniture be antique/victorian?

Our teammate Jennifer helped to write out a paragraph describing our theme and style using the words above. This will help our visual direction and will give the class an idea of what we are going to create.

During this time, I made some sketches of an asset we would like to add to the mansion, a grandfather clock. I focused on the words and themes we discussed once before to give a theme to the assets, etc. monsters, animal/human bones, gothic look. These were fun to create and I tried to capture the keywords into my work as much as I could!

 

Next up was the presentation. I helped start us off with a template and we started filling in the slides as we communicated through discord. We spent the weekend designing our slides, adding our work, references and our plans for the upcoming weeks. We described our initial idea, listed our assets, described our concepts and our practice with Unreal engine and Maya. We voiced over the slides with an explanation and then edited together for next Mondays class to present!

Source

Link to presentation:

https://ulster-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/keaney-d_ulster_ac_uk/EQzBRsVZ949IsPzum2QPkcIB2zTo9pp4ruCkE_ir7naQxw?e=wUPqJ3

During the past Monday class we also had our first proper introduction to Unreal Engine. We took some time to understand the workspace and navigation, meshes and materials, nodes, instances etc.

We experimented with the landscape function of Unreal Engine as we will be using this in the future. We followed videos made by our tutors to create a nature landscape with foliage use and texture painting.

Lastly, we touched on blocking out in both UE and Maya. This process will help us roughly structure our layout of our Haunted Mansion later on. I used this method to practice blocking by making the year 2 room i was in at campus. This taught me how to use reference, and observe my surroundings to see if I can replicate it.

Sources:

https://learning.ulster.ac.uk/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_323028_1&content_id=_6087411_1

https://learning.ulster.ac.uk/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_323028_1&content_id=_6087412_1

https://learning.ulster.ac.uk/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_323028_1&content_id=_6089085_1

Our first assignment in the module ‘Animation strategies‘ is to produce a cinematic Short film using the 3D environment we create, as its storytelling medium. We will work in groups to produce, develop and model key assets to build the chosen theme of environment. During this assignment I will build my skills with Unreal engine to render the environment, coordinate with my team in person and remotely, organise an equal share of projects for each person to work on, and plan, research and help out my classmates.

 

For week 1, I joined a group of 5 classmates that were interested in creating the Haunted mansion environment. They are Alisa, Caithlin, Matthew, Megan and Jennifer. We started off our brainstorming by discussing in class and using a whiteboard to write our ideas. We wrote down our biggest inspirations, assets we could make, the look of the environment etc. Here are a few images of the brainstorm.

We conceptualised our own ideas of what a Haunted Mansion looks like and what it may contain so we wrote down essential assets such as staircase, clock, paintings, chairs and tables. We also thought about what rooms it would have – kitchen, grand hall, library, dining room. For a while we were stuck between choosing a vibrant cartoon style like Luigi’s Mansion, or a sophisticated, realistic style like victorian houses.

 

On the weekend we had a group call on discord discussing our initial style and what story we could tell from our environment. We collected many more references that influenced our ideas, we brought in our thumbnails and early concept pieces, and we found a way to describe a style we all like.

We used miro board to bring together all our ideas. We had collected many references from video games, animated films, live action films, local vintage shops, google maps, and cinematography genres.

We were very interested in luigis mansions asset style that create a fun/spooky vibe to a haunted mansion. We were also inspired by the colour palette from the game and took reference from them. More games that inspired us was Little Nightmares, and a student game, Bernadette – they helped us with picturing our visuals and assets. We found clips and screenshots from films such as 101 Dalmatians, The Addams family, The Nightmare before Christmas, Crimson peak, Beetlejuice. We were fond of all their takes on haunted places, their set design, their cinematography, and props they used. Additionally we looked into German expressionism for the set building and camera shots they make to create their eerie, haunted visuals.

I also was recommended to look through a website called on the Square Emporium – a vintage shop with many victorian style furniture and objects that would enhance our asset modelling in the future.

 

Later on we used these references, and made our own thumbnails and concept work as a group to put on paper, our imagination of how our haunted mansion will look. I had made a thumbnail page and a concept page, using ref from the On the Square Emporium site, and colour palettes from Luigi’s Mansion.

 

 

I made thumbnails of some room layouts and assets that could be included in the haunted mansion. I also made concepts of a sofa and desk from the vintage shop, and painted them with the colour palette below that our teammate Jennifer made.

 

Jennifers Colour palette

 

With my concepts, and the groups concepts together, we had made a better idea of how our haunted mansion was going to look, and how it will be presented. Next we will be continuing our concepts, organising our workflow, and making our first presentation on the project.