Changes
Going through the feedback from my presentation, I considered the changes that were suggested to me. The main one being to switch from an entire first-person story to a more cinematic film with some POV shots and the deer acting as the main character which allowed me to show off my environment in different ways. I also added a “main effect” in each scene, one that acted as the focal point. For the forest scene it was the deer’s appearance and then capturing it walking through the portal for the first time. For the ruined city environment, I planned on making one of the distant buildings collapse as the camera looks out across the skyline. Lastly, I now planned on having the deer disappear in a more spectacular way, by slowly dissolving over the water.
Storyboard
Before these suggestions, I had already began working on my storyboard. Below shows my initial plan for my shots and while I might not be using a complete POV look anymore, I was still following the same chain of events and using some of the POV shots. My storyboard took me a few days as I planned out how I wanted my deer to move through each scene. I found pacing hard to imagine as I wasn’t sure how long I should be spending in each scene. I ended up aiming for around 1 minute per environment. Eventually I figured out a path with good pacing that allowed me to show off all my effects in each environment.
Organisation
I began by extensively planning out every asset and effect I would need for my project and listing them out based on importance, how long they would take to make and which scene they would be in. This asset list would help me manage my progress and time. I also set up a Trello board and created a schedule for myself to tick things off. So far using a proper schedule has helped me feel motivated even as I keep adding new assets.
Concepting
To get a more vivid picture of what my scenes could look like I used Midjourney to create some AI images. This helped streamline my concepting dramatically and allowed me to gain a better visualisation of my environments. Using the AI images for help I went about creating concept art for each scene, showing the main hero shot for each environment, considering the lighting and atmosphere of each one.
Research and Experimentation
During this phase I researched and experimented with effects and special shaders I wanted to use. I began with the main effect used through my project, the portal, which was an effect I was very unsure about how to make. After spending some time watching tutorials and reading online I eventually figured out how to go about making it. I was even able to make it functional and teleport the default Unreal character between my scenes. However, I ended up not needing this as my idea changed to not having POV throughout. Instead, I experimented with creating a smooth camera cut transition between the scenes which worked out well.
Tutorial video I used for the portal
Test of using portal functionally
Test of smooth camera cut between scene
I experimented with creating realistic POV shots using virtual cameras in Unreal. By using my phone as a camera its movements were recorded in Unreal. I had several difficulties setting this up due to connection issues but eventually it led to some very interesting camera shots that I can see working well in my film. While I was doing this to fit my first-person perspective version of my project, I still planned on using some shots of this type as I found they looked good.
Tutorial video I used for virtual cameras
Test shot of me using my phone to record a shot in Unreal
I then quickly made the dancing glowing lights I wanted to move between the trees which worked very effectively.
Particle trail along a path test
With the next presentation coming up I began making my 3D previs. I made a basic version of each of my scenes using Quixel assets and put in the effects I had been working on.
3D previs
Pre – Production Presentation
After my presentation I received lots of valuable feedback. I was advised to add more of a shimmer/ distorted effect to my portal when passing through, use blend shapes and decals for the deer’s snow prints rather than getting real-time interactive snow and to use a mix of cinematic and POV shots, utilising the virtual camera technique I was testing. It was also recommended that I try speed up the pacing a little as it felt quite slow near the end. I hope to take this advice going forward and make sure that the pacing feels right and keeps the audience interested.