Once I had roughly 80% of my models complete, I began to take everything into Unreal Engine, I wanted to start building my scene as I knew this will be a time consuming part of my Major project – to build and create the idea and vision I had in my head.
I started off with my exterior scene, I imported my Road and a few building in to start things off, however I did face some problems almost immediately. My road and buildings textures sat really badly on the models, and overall the scene wasn’t looking. Henry informed on a few reasons why:
- Lightmap Density – on my buildings, I wasn’t able to ever see green no matter how high I made lightmap density, this meant my textures looking really bad which is what I wanted to avoid.
- UV – when I brought my destroyed buildings into Unreal Engine, it was clear there were some issues. We tried to evaluate what was the problems, the SRGb ticked off the texture were very blocky. The only answer we could think of was due to the geometry in Maya as during this i used the Booleans difference – it caused a lot of Ngons and made Uv’ing very difficult which ultimately failed in Unreal Engine.
- Scaling issues, Once I brought my road into Unreal, the assets were very big – in future I will ensure I set my Maya assets into cm to match Unreal.
Computer issues
I fixed all the corrections and began Unreal again in university, I had imported my road and buildings and began to put my scene together as everything began working, although I ran into more problems as in University the computer used 4.26 in Unreal and due to my computer that I borrowed from University being very old, it was compatible with this update and I was only able to open 4.22. This cause a lot of stress for me as i was already behind my schedule by a lot, I attempted to update the computer however it was just not possible. Travelling everyday into university was my next option to use their in class computers, however it would have been extremely draining and time consuming as hours would have been wasted on travel. Luckily, I was able to borrow a brand new Mac computer which I then spent downloading and installing the updated Unreal Engine.
I then attempted to start my Unreal for the third time to try and get caught up with my planning schedule, luckily everything worked perfectly and I began to import all of my models into my scenes. I created my interior and exterior on two different project files and spent a lot of time creating these, both scene are filled with most of my own made and textured assets, then some I found from quixel and turbosquid and decals from quixel – I didn’t want to add to much as I wanted to show my modelling skills, however I felt to make my scene a lot better the decals and extra assets were necessary.
Unfortunately, I am still not 100% on creating things like master materials in Unreal, so i continued on with the method that I was used to – so importing the assets and all the materials, altho this quickly took up a lot of memory on the computer and began to see a warning telling me I was over in my texture streaming pool, I noticed some of my asset quality began to lack due to this and I started looking for possible solutions. I found some answers to overcome this, such as changing the normal map from 2048 to 1024 and changed the roughness/metallic map down t0 512 – which worked thankfully. I only changed these setting on some of the assets that wont be seen up close, in terms of hero assets such as my car and gun – I kept these all high resolution.
Set Dressing
i began set dressing my scene, I assured to make sure everything made sense – adding dirt on the ground and corners, adding debris to the road and leaks on the roof etc. I definitely need some more practice with set dressing as I wasn’t overly happy with the ed result, However t did make my interior scene look abandoned which was exactly what I was going for.
Decals in my interior scene
Reference Image
I really loved the process of creating my scene in Unreal engine, i found it very enjoyable – especially because I had been research and gathering references and preparing for it for so long – I was finally going to try bring my ideas to life. My process mostly consisted of, importing, texturing and adjusting then lighting which I found very challenging. Henry showed me a really amazing plug-in called ‘ultra-dynamic weather’ which I imported into my scene to add some cool weather effects such as rain and lightening. I also found a very useful package within the marketplace called the animal variety pack, this allowed me to add a deer into my scene which brought the scene more to life.
Unfortunately, 2 days before my deadline my Unreal files corrupted and I lost a large majority of my work and all backup files, which was severely disheartening and stressful as I have prepared for this for so long and put so much work, time and so much effort into creating my project. Moving forward from this, after a lot of tears and sleepless nights – I began to rebuild my scenes.
Filming
This was so challenging, I really struggled with the filming aspect for my scene as I ran into some issues with my camera shots lighting and exposure – I created 3 final videos, so I could pick which was the best. I am going to practice a lot more with filming as I feel it will let me down during the marking as I found it so challenging, however I tried my best in the short space of time that I had, as i wanted to film days before submission but with losing all my work it was not possible.
Post production
To finish things off, I edited my final video using imovie and used things like a faded black transition to make my video look more like a ‘trailer’ and added my sound and adjusted some of the saturation.
decals/Turbo/marketplace
- All decals from Quixel Megascan
- Pillows – Quixel
- Tarp – Quixel
- Tree’s – Unreal Marketplace
- Deer – Unreal Marketplace
- Pantry – Turbosquid
- Chopping board – Quixel
- Foliage – Quixel
- PS4 – Turbosquid
- Stool – Turbosquid
- Knife holder – Turbosquid
References
Clothes Hanger –
https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-model-clothes-hanger-3d-illustration-1889517
PS4 controller –
https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/playstation-play-sony-3d-1419763
stool –
https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-bar-stool-1521170
cabinet –
https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/document-cabinet-3d-model-1497629
Tarp –
https://quixel.com/megascans/home?search=tarp&assetId=vhtidbb
Knife holder –
https://quixel.com/megascans/home?search=knife&assetId=udzieg0hw
Pillows –
https://quixel.com/megascans/home?search=pillows&assetId=vishcehdb
Music –