WEEK 5-12
Moving on from week 4, I started to model some more objects that could go throughout our room. Since the environment we created has quite a scholarly and academic feeling despite being also cathedral/church-esque, I thought an abacus would be a good object to add as it adds to the environmental narrative that work and study is done here.
After I’d modelled this I decided to go ahead and create the UV’s for the model’s I’d already created as well.
UVS
When it came to the table, I came back to this later and altered the UV’s somewhat, but it was scaling the UV’s for the cloth on top of it as they were too big before and meant the textures came out a bit strangely in substance painter.
TEXTURING
I had previously created concept art for my set of 4 tarot cards that would sit in the room, but I needed to take them and move them to be centred and cleaned to be added onto a model in Substance Painter. I added a transparent paper overlay on top of the concepts in Clip Studio so that I could give the drawing themselves a paper grain texture, which I hoped would come through in the final outcome and make it look more authentic instead of flat, even after Substance Texturing.
Having got the cards drawn out and ready to be added onto a model – I realised I wasn’t too sure on how to add them. My experience on Substance Painter was very limited at this point and consisted mostly of me adding smart materials and messing with some of the settings on them. It did the job, but it meant my knowledge on Substance otherwise left something to be desired. I figured I could export the images out on a transparent background and stamp them onto the card model, but I didn’t know how to do that.
I spent some time trying to figure it out by myself with no success so I researched online to see what I could do. I found this video on YouTube which was exactly what I needed! In the video, the guy goes through the process of importing images into Substance Painter as a texture, and that way you’re able to sort of stamp an image onto a model. I had tried to do this before but the image kept being warped and square instead of the card length I wanted it to be. I fixed this by following the instructions in the video and soon the Imaged were being imported at the right dimensions, and I could stamp them onto the card models!
https://substance3d.adobe.com/community-assets/assets/e7642c1e00fe465ed7668a3dfe9d09ab856904a7
I wanted to actually make the models look like a card, but didn’t have a paper material on my shelf in Substance Painter, so I looked online on the Adobe Substance Community website to find some community assets that I could download. There I found a wonderful paper smart material I could use for my cards. It also added little folds and stains in the texture that I think added a lot of character to the cards because it makes them look worn and used.
Then I started texturing the other main furniture I made. Joseph made a really cool wood texture that we all used on our wooden furniture models so that we didn’t both have two different woods textures in the room and it looks like we have two different styles competing in the room. I went ahead and gave the group members a few colour options that we can include, and we decided that since our environment is obviously going to have astrological elements a well as a few spiritual we’re best having colours such as blues, purples and golds. I ended up making the final texture a much darker and more muted purple. I think it looks much better than the brighter variants I had made before, and since purples colour language connotates regal feelings and class I thought it would be a good fit for our environment which includes a few church aspects to its architecture.
Finishing off the modelling and UV’ing of my crystal ball to accompany the tarot cards, I also started on some different variations of scrolls that could be dispersed throughout the room, on bookshelves and on tables. There are more than I’m sharing here as I’ve made multiple different versions of each different type of scroll. On one I decided to put a short poem about stars, and on another two different constellations across them. I also made plain ones in case they were needed, as I think they’d be great to have in the environment on tables and such.
With so much white in our environment – white floors, white pillars, white walls, I thought something should be put in that broke the room up. Something to break up all of the white. I created a bunch of different shapes for carpets to put in the room, and found this beautiful red velvet texture on the Substance3D Community Assets to texture it with.
I also added in folds to the long square carpet to add a little extra interest to the model.
https://substance3d.adobe.com/community-assets/assets/03cdedb1cd5fd91e51e92958a43c80bf18dbf6e6
I thought banners would also be appropriate to have across the room to break up the walls, so I created two different ones we could disperse across the room.
EARLY BLOCKING OUT
I started to lay out my earliest room layouts, without textures, just models. I put pillars in below the balcony, set up the balcony, put a table with my crystal ball and tarot cards in the centre focal point of the room, and made Josephs armillary model a giant centrepiece. The Armillary was originally just meant to be a small model we’d put on desks and tables but upon sizing it up quite a few of us realised it would make a very fitting centrepiece of the room. A statue of sorts. This early blocking out stage allowed me to experiment a whole lot with layout and what would go where, and it ends up changing a whole lot more as I start moving things around and adding textures.
TEXTURING A WINDOW DESIGN
At this point in the project, we had most things textured, but the stained-glass windows were still not. We talked about our workloads as a group and me and Benny decided to each texture windows. I used old concepts Joseph made to work off, and started texturing the detailed long window. The one on the far right I had hoped to recreate.
I didn’t have much experience in Substance Painter so this was the most complicated thing I’d had to undertake yet, despite it not actually being that hard to do – just finicky. I made the window using a glass visor smart material, a gold material brush and a paint layer overlayed onto the glass. It took me about an hour or so all in all, since I had to paint the different segments by hand, And when it was finally done and I’d just shown my group members and made a new folder to compile the layers – the entire file died. I don’t know exactly what happened. But the file just stopped working. None of the layers would load properly or load at all. I thought perhaps my PC had just overheated from using Substance Painter for a prolonged period of time, but no – I sent the file over to my group members and it crashed Fionnuala’s Substance and froze Unas. I have no idea what happened or how to have fixed it, so I had to start all over again.
I was obviously very frustrated that I’d lost all my work, but the second attempt I got around to I thought actually looked better. I’d resigned myself to frustration so wasn’t working as closely off the concept art as the last one. As good as the concepts were I’m glad I deviated off the design a little as I believe it looks a little bit better and it’s very pretty. I laid it out the same way I did the last, glass visor smart material, gold material brush and a paint layer overlayed. I think the coloured are far more saturated and vibrant than the last, and the smaller circles coming outwards add more interest towards the centre of the design.
When this was done and my group was happy with it, I brought it into the Unreal room. I was very confused however when I brought it in – because it was green instead of the blues and purples I had made it with. As I continued to lay out my room and troubleshoot this as I worked, I discovered multiple errors I had made throughout my ENTIRE room. The window was green when it was imported into the room – because I forgot to turn off the sRGB when I brought it in. It was then when I discovered that with the window, with dread, I realised I’d neglected to do that with a NUMBER of my textures I had brought in and already applied to my room. I’d say a solid 60% of my textures hadn’t had the sRGB fixed when I brought them in, and it messed up A LOT of my textures, and this was after I realised I had been creating an entire material AND an instance for every single material I had imported thus far, and that was most of the models and textures. Needless to say – I was distraught.
So, I had to spend about an hour fixing the sRGB on a lot of my textures, and only then started to realise and make instances from materials I’d previously created. If I had known this before it would have saved me SO much time. This project really tested me.
After that whole kerfuffle though, I had finally laid out my room with no worries and no errors in how I’d imported models of textures, I could finally experiment with what I could do with the models. We’d all made a decent number of models, but I kind of wanted more to work with. As I thought about it more the function of being able to unlock my models in Unreal occurred to me, and I started to mess with unlocking models and deleting certain parts to make whole new models. I managed to create a shelf bookcase, a bench, and hanging scrolls out of it – and continued to mess with manipulating models as I continued to experiment with finishing laying out my room.
Here are some process screenshots of my room almost completely laid out. It changed a whole lot from my original layout before I added all the textures. For starters, instead of the crystal ball and tarot cards being on a table in the centre of the room, I tucked it in between the bookcases in it’s own little alcove. I also added all the books. I had also laid out most of the books and items in the bookcases, and just needed to wrap up some other small layout items, such as a few more bookcases, piles of books, scrolls, carpets and benches on the balcony, and letters and cards. I knew these items would add interest to the environment so I was excited to put them in, even though it’s quite time consuming to make these small details, I wanted my environment to look the best it possibly could.
Since this was one of the last hurdles, I thought it high time to figure out some music to accompany my cinematic of the environment at the end of the project. I wanted to choose some music that fit the mood of my environment, so I didn’t want something too somber or sad. I wanted my room to give the impression of an early morning or evening, with a warm atmosphere to it, almost like you’re staying behind to do more research after the buildings working hours on a warm summer evening or morning. I wanted there to also be a sense of wonder to it as well, like you’re entering this room for the first time and having your first impression.
I had a few possible pieces of media whose music I thought would be a good fit – I initially looked at music from Twilight Princess and Breath of The Wild, because I think their music is very atmospheric and some of the OST’s for places such as the villages or temples, upon listening to some of the music though, it didn’t fit quite right. Perhaps it was a little bit too reserved? Almost sad? Or almost too grand for my little room. I wracked my brain for a while trying to remember where I heard music that could be fitting, then remembered that the music in Slime Rancher had some great instrumentals I could use if they fit! After going through a playlist of all the Slime Rancher songs, I found one that I thought was wonderful for my room! The ruins theme! It’s gentle enough to fir the energy, but isn’t filled with sadness as it is with wonder, it feels like how I wanted my room to feel, like you’re walking into an impressive room for the first time, and the possibilities are endless.
Now having my music, and almost finished with my layout, I decided to bake my lighting properly for the first time, and introduce some Post Processing Effects to get a glimpse at what my final outcome could be. I thought it was going to end up looking grand.
I wanted to add a little something more to my room though, sure it was a place of learning, but it was also an observatory, and I thought it time I could implement some more of the spiritual and mystical aspects of astronomy’s history. I found a tutorial on how to implement fireflies in UE4, and thought they’d look wonderful in my environment, whether you saw them as fireflies or mystical particles within the room. After following the video – which talked me through the process of making a new particle effect and editing it so that it became reminiscent of fireflies, I added them above my centrepiece armillary, around the table where my crystal ball was places, and in the dome the telescope was kept in. I think it made it look wonderful and really added that little extra something that would look great in the final render.
Considering the feedback I got in my presentation on week 12, the room obviously has cathedral or church motifs as one of its inspirations for the looks, so I decided to fill up the empty space in the middle of the room – with pew type benches. This does fit thematically into the concept, but these pews are not the religious, worshipping kind. I see it more as benches for lectures, or to watch someone look at the stars and relay what they see to a crowd. I had my room completely laid out and was happy at this point, all that remained was the final additions, piles of books and such, and other small aesthetic changes I think appropriate.
WHAT I WANT TO USE AS THE FINAL LAYOUT
Here is my final layout. I added modified pillars beside the benches in the centre to add some light to the centre of the room, and changed the carpet from a circular one to a long rectangle one. I also added piles of books and scrolls as I said I would. I also modified the metal bar from the banners to make hanging lanterns in the telescope dome – I think this adds so much to the feeling of my room and I’m really glad I came up with a way to do that! I also adding floating lanterns to the beams in my room.
I did have some issues before I could do my final render though, primarily just a silly mistake, I spent ages wondering why my lanterns light wasn’t bouncing off the walls even though I had the emissive turned up on them, but pretty much immediately after I decided to ask Henry for help I realised I just hadn’t set use emissive as static light on my lanterns. That was quite embarrassing, and a little tedious to go through all of my lanterns and change them, but it was fine in the end.
I also had to go and deal with the lightmap density in my room, I’d been keeping up with the large items in the room but had neglected the copious small items such as all of the books, pillars, and other things. This meant I had to spend an hour selecting piles of grouped books and changing their settings, unlocking bookshelves to fix the bottom part of them, as well as unlocking and editing lanterns, benches and banners. It took quite a lot of time but it needed to be done for my project and I probably should have just been keeping up with it from the beginning.
Now with my room laid out, light rendered and post processing effects and such applied, I could finally start placing cameras to start creating shots for my cinematic. All of this was coming together.
CAMERAS AND EDITING
I started placing my cameras and starting my renders – once I learnt how to manipulate the camera and set keyframes I created my first 2 shots. Something was wrong though – when I rendered the shots and went to watch them back for a few moments on rewatch something would glitch into my frame and then disappear. When I paused it, it was a wood texture, it looked like the bands of wood that I put on the walls! For some reason they were careening wildly when I rendered a shot, I figured their physics were probably wrong and there was an issue with that, but I didn’t know how to fix that, when I messaged Henry for help, it was a simple fix to turn the collision off on the mesh. I don’t understand how the wall bands deviated from the default and got that selected, but I’m glad I figured it out.
To edit my cinematic, I brought all my clips into Sony Vegas 16 and stated to lay them out, all together I had about 15 different clips I could use, and these were more than enough to bring my cinematic all the way to the end of the song, which was 2.15 minutes long. With that, I rendered it, and my cinematic was complete.
This final outcome is by no means perfect, and there are mistakes and issues that came across into the final outcome, but I am actually insanely proud of what I’ve created during this project. Unreal was an incredibly large learning curve for me and there was obviously no lack of issues and hurdles I had to overcome to get to this point. There were even issues I couldn’t fix, such as the scrolls texturing strangely, which I believe has something to do with overlapping lighting UV’s, and I know now how to avoid this happening again in the future.
Overall, I think my outcome was very good all things considered! I’m primarily proficient in 2D, so working in 3D is always more challenging for me to work with, but I made a pretty good environment and cinematic, and managed to even make it decently long at that! I think my environment is sound in its concept and execution – though if I had to re-do this, I would like to add more assets than we were able to, and maybe explore more of the mystical themes of astronomy. This project was by far the hardest thing I’ve had to undertake yet in my time in Animation, and I’ve put more man hours into this than I have any other project. Though, I’ve also had the most problems — I think this was one of the most mentally rewarding projects I’ve done yet. I struggled so hard to get this project to a good outcome, and I think it was worth it in the end.
FINAL OUTCOME