This week, we began to learn the basics of Unreal and how to build a landscape using the engine, which honestly was a lot easier than I initially thought. I decided to create a rugged mountain scene with trees, shrubs and rocks. Although I am not too happy with the outcome, this was a great way to learn how to sculpt, build materials and props. If I were to redo this scene, I would most likely make it smaller and flatter and this is due to the placement of the props. When I tried to place props closer to the top of the mountain area, they wouldn’t place and although I am not sure why this happened, I feel as though it might’ve been due to the random levels of the mountain. By flattening this, and reducing the scene itself, not only would it allow me to place the props better, but it would also be a lot easier on my computer’s memory, which began to get slow. Ultimately, I found this task fun nonetheless and have definitely learned from experimenting in this session. Below are some photos that I took of the scene that I made in today’s class.
Front View
Upclose in person shot
After I finished this task, it was time to move onto the session planned for the afternoon, which involved blocking out a scene in Unreal. Although I watched the content of these lessons and understood thoroughly, I decided that I would do mine in Maya. This is due to how I wanted to create props themselves in the software, which would ultimately translate better using Maya’s software, especially if I were to reuse them later on. Moreover, I decided to begin blocking out the potential layout for the observatory room.
Here is the final outcome of the Block out. My plan is to continue adding props to this scene to aid me in the final interior of the environment project. Moreover, I will also probably go in and re-make the whole room itself closer to the deadline time. This is due to how there were some issues with the model’s geometry and I don’t want to risk messing the whole thing up, especially when UVS and textures are added/edited. Moreover, this is something that I have been trying to be more careful of, as there were a lot of occasions last year I didn’t pay enough attention to what I was doing and it messed my models up. By learning that the hard way, I have definitely become more wary and cautious whenever it comes to bad geometry line-ups.
Spare time activities
After class, in my own time I went ahead and started to lockout some props for this scene. These included bookshelves, books, a lampshade, bottles, ink well, and tables and chairs. Moreover, I worked on these for the rest of the day and although this doesn’t seem long at all, they really didn’t take that long to model. Below I have included imagery of the props I quickly instructed for this scene. I am honestly really proud, yet surprised at how well these turned out, given I did them in a shorter time span than usual. In future, I will try to keep up this efficiency as it really got me through the majority of my blockout within hours.
Table
Chair
Lampshade
Ink well
Science storage cupboard
Books
Bookshelf
Final Block out scene imagery
Conclusion for the week
I felt as though this week was a very productive one as I was able to pretty much finalise my block out the scene, whilst also learning how to use Unreal engine. From the description, this doesn’t sound like a lot, but I created many models and spent a good amount of time doing so. For just a mere week, this is quite a bunch of stuff especially since I am usually a slow worker. I can definitely tell that between last year and current that I have improved in my abilities to use 3D software. Last term, I would’ve taken far longer to do these tasks, so I’m really glad to see the hard work and experience paid off.