Deer Creation
I began production with my main asset, the deer, by sculpting in Blender. I was then planning on adding finer details there, doing retopology after. However my tutor suggested it would be best to retopologize my base mesh first, then use the multi resolution tool in blender to add details without affecting the base mesh. This technique saved me time and meant I could go back and make changes easily. UV mapping was also simplified as I was mapping a simpler mesh, then kept the same maps after I subdivided it more. I made 2 sets of UV maps, one with seams at the front and one with them at the back to hide them depending on which way you look at it.
Version 1 of Deer in Blender + retopology in Maya
Two sets of UV maps done in Maya after retopology
Subdivided mesh for detail sculpting using multi – res tool
Final deer sculpt
Next I worked on the deer’s rig and skinning. As I am not an experienced rigger I felt more comfortable using Advanced Skeleton to save time however the skinning was more complicated and took me longer. I was advised to try using NG Skin tools to help speed me up and although this helped a lot, I still had to make a lot of adjustments to eventually get it right. After some tweaking I did a small animation test to try out my rig.
Rig and controls
Skinning
Animation test
The deer’s shader took me several weeks to get right. With help from my tutor, I had a good start as to how to make the material transparent and shimmer using opacity fresnel and panner on the normal. I then added ghostly ripples using random vertex offsets and some refraction for it to look watery. For the final touches I added some subtle particle effects surrounding it. After several iterations and plenty of feedback I eventually found the right look.
Final version of deer material
Two main effects I had to perfect were the deer’s appearance and final dissolve. I got to work researching different ways I could have the deer form out of nowhere and fade away. I used a combination of dissolving materials with particle effects to create the prefect look for each. It took a lot of trial and error with the effects but I eventually I got there.
Tutorial I used for the deer’s material to appear and disappear
Tutorial I used for the final particle effect
Deer’s appearance effect
Deer’s dissolve effect
Asset Creation
Next, I worked on my other repeating asset – the portal doorway. As I had already figured out how to make the portal, I started modelling the doorway itself. I did some research online to find inspiration. I looked at fantasy doors such as ones from Lord of the Rings, Elvish style doors and Narnia style designs. I made sure to give it a interesting shape, one that would have a good outline against the dark forest.
Doorway inspiration from Lord of the Rings and Narnia
Final version of door
A key effect I wanted throughout all scenes was realistic foliage that moved with the wind. This is a common effect on most assets on the unreal marketplace however I wanted to learn how to make it myself to gain a better understanding of shaders in Unreal. I spent time researching online for different ways to make foliage interact with unreal wind or to even fake the movement. Eventually I found a tutorial that explained how to make use of vertex painting and the world position offset node in the material attributes, then went about creating this complex material in Unreal making it as customisable as possible, which allowed me to use one material for all my foliage. This saved a lot of time in creating different materials for each asset and gave me control over how much each asset moves/ is affected by wind.
Tutorial for foliage wind
Wind material
I moved on to create all my foliage assets. Starting with the trees, I tried to keep them low poly so I would be able to place lots of them in the scene without slowing down the processing. They were probably the most challenging foliage asset to make, I had a hard time figuring out the best way to make them, whether to use just planes with leaf textures or to model each branch separately. I eventually found that using image planes attached to modelled branch’s was the best way and I made sure to use a variety of image types to create variation in the branches. Texturing wasn’t too hard and I made sure to create 2 textures sets, one for the forest scene and one for the lake scene so I could reuse the same assets. I made the main oak tree in the lake scene with a much higher poly count as it would be seen up close and needed to look impressive.
The rest of the foliage was easier to make and I spent a few weeks going through them. I tried to keep everything low poly so I could have more instances and used real images for texturing the image planes on the reeds and flower heads.
I moved onto the only architectural assets I had to make – the old shack in the forest, the ruined city buildings and the main room for my second environment. These weren’t too complicated to make and didn’t take long. I kept the ruined buildings and shack simple as they would only be seen from a distance while I tried to add more details to the main room. To create damage in the room I took a small rock I modelled then placed it multiple times around the walls and ceiling, then used the Boolean function to create uneven holes and destruction. Feedback on the shack was that it was too low poly and looked too flat and fake. I was able to make a second more high poly version.
Version 1 of forest shack + final version
Environment set up
Blocking out and setting up the environments was time consuming. I began with the forest – sculpting the landscape, carving a pathway to travel down, then small hills and uneven terrain around it then placed the foliage. I experimented with different densities to see how dark I wanted the forest to be.
Forest landscape and block out
To finish off the forest scene I worked on the particles effects and materials required for the snow storm with the aid of a helpful tutorial. I followed this tutorial and eventually had several particle effects to make blowing clouds, falling snow and a fog effect over the environment.
Tutorial for snow storm
Storm test
The ruined city room was easier to set up as it was smaller and in a contained space. I set up the lighting, making sure to get sun beams coming in through the hole in the wall. I then placed the outside skyscrapers, lining them up to make it seem like a dense city. Lastly, I painted the foliage, creating dense areas in the corners, carving a path through the room and totally covering most of the outside buildings. I added some small dust particles and extra fog as some last details. Although this environment was easy to set up, I feel like it is very effective in creating contrast to the others.
Ruined city block up
The lake took more time as there is a lot more light than in the forest. I took my time in sculpting the landscape, then adding in the water. I used Unreal’s default Niagara water plugin as it was easy to use and gave great results, then added in all the foliage. I had to make sure that from the lakes perspective you could not see any blank spots so spent a lot of time double checking everywhere was covered with grass and trees, this meant the scene ended up with a very high poly count. I then cut back the foliage to help the project run smoothly. Finishing touches included a blanket of fog over the water, smaller rocks and pebbles on the edges of the lake. Looking back over everything I felt the grass didn’t look quite right as it was too bright compared to the ground textures. I spent some time editing the brightness on the colour map for the ground and the grass, trying to match them to each other and achieve the right colour, then went back and created some ferns to break up the grass and blend the colours more. I was initially unsure on how this environment would turn out, but I feel it works well and creates a nice contrast to the others.
Lake landscape and block out
Production Presentation
During the presentation I received very helpful feedback. This included fixing the opacity of the deer and correcting its skinning and that I should try make my foliage blend better with the snow as there were some obvious lines. After some research online I learned about virtual runtime textures (VRT) which are dynamic textures you can use on your landscape that blend with whatever you place on it, thereby hiding hard edges. I went about creating these textures which turned out to be complicated and took me a week to get right. I had to also add snow clumps to the bottom of my trees to make the landscape textures blend better. My tutor also showed me how I could use the “dither” node on my materials to help fade the edges more. Combining these two techniques really made a difference and helped make the landscape look more realistic. I was later advised to also add some grass around some of the trees to help break up the colours as there was too much white everywhere. All of this made the forest look more realistic.
Snow clumps on trees with use of VRT
VRT nodes
Dither to fade edges
Another interesting technique my tutor told me about was using LUTs to help better achieve the look I wanted in each environment. I took an image of each scene into photoshop and edited it until I got the colours and contrast I wanted. Using these edited images I was able to apply a filter to the entire look of each scene, completely changing the atmospheres. This worked well and really helped me get the look and feel I was after in each scene.
Environments with LUTs
Archway
One asset that I had trouble with from the start was my growing archway that the door would appear in. I first tried using blend shapes to transition the arch but this did not give me my desired effect. I was advised to try using Maya’s sweep mesh tool to create multiple spiralling branches to make the arches final shape which allowed me to animate the sweep meshes, growing from the start point to the end, and this looked and worked great in Maya. Unfortunately, this method did not work in Unreal and the software would crash many times when importing the alembic file. I began brainstorming alternative ideas with my tutor and we came up with using shaders in Unreal to make it look like it was growing instead of animating it. In the end, the effect was very convincing.
Failed blend shape
Failed sweep mesh animation
Final arch growth effect
Nodes for arch growth
Effects
For the main door appearing effect I would need to use multiple effects at once to make it dramatic. To make the material slowly appear I realised I could reuse the effect I used on the deer’s appearance. This worked well and with the addition that the material’s glow grew brighter as it formed so it had a crescendo effect. I thought of adding some type of warm up sparks before the door formed to help build up the effect more. After the arch way grows, I added some small electrical looking particle bursts to give the effect of energy gathering. This was all working great especially with the door animated to swing open. As some final touches I made the changes suggested to me in the pre-production presentation and added a lens distort effect to the camera and a plane of shimmering light to make the transition more magical and smoother in appearance.
Portal appearance
In my initial previs and storyboard I planned to have a distant building collapse in my second environment. However, now I realised this event wouldn’t tie in well with the overall atmosphere. I changed tack to a different effect – having the plants and flowers grow from the deer’s presence and worked out that I could combine the gradual appearance of the archway with the glowing forming of the deer to have the stems grow up from the ground and then flowerheads materialise. This looked great on individual plants appearing however when I applied it to all of them at once, it looked too flashy. After showing this to tutors and classmates, I was advised to try offsetting each type of plant so they appeared at different times. This looked much better and much more magical.
Plant growth effect
One effect I briefly attempted was snowflakes hitting the lens of the camera in the forest scene. I thought it would be a simple subtle effect that would add to the realism of the snow storm. I found a tutorial on how to do rain and was able to follow it through and get results however whenever I attempted to make my own custom texture for snowflakes it turned out barely visible. I ended up not using this effect.
Snow flake on lens test
Animation
As this was my first time animating a quadruped I was unsure how to begin. I got some helpful advice and was told to start with a walk cycle and divide up the different body sections into different animation layers to simplify the keyframes. Making the walk cycle also meant I had a base walk to reuse later in the proper animations. After a week using reference videos I was able to produce this.
Walk reference
Walk cycle
I found the trot cycle a lot more difficult as I struggled to understand the timings of the feet. I spent weeks on this cycle and thankfully got lots of help on how to improve it.
Trot reference
Trot cycle
Next, I began working on the actual animations starting by blocking out each sequence and adding in the walk and run cycles I had created. After a week I was advised to change my cycles. I had initially animated them moving off the global control however it was suggested that it would be better to have the deer moving on the spot. I then went back and redid my trot cycle to have it moving on the spot and tested it out in one of my blocked-out sequences. However, when I brought it into the sequence I found it difficult to stop foot slide as the deer wasn’t always moving at a constant rate. I spent a long time trying to correct each foot however there were too many steps and it was taking too long. I ended up going back to my initial cycles as using them meant I didn’t have to correct each foot step. Eventually I completed the sequences and went to get feedback on how to improve them. The main pointers I got were to fix the deer’s jump as it looked too floaty, to work more on the deer’s change of pace from trot to walk and to add more subtle movements to the deer’s head and body. Eventually after 7 weeks I finally finished my animations.
Part of deer animation
I moved onto dealing with the deer’s footprints in the snow. Taking my tutors advice from the pre-production presentation, I now planned on using blend shapes and decals to animate the foot prints rather than making interactive snow. I had already taken my landscape from Unreal and brought it into Maya to use when animating the deer. Now I was subdividing it to sculpt tiny foot prints wherever the deer stepped. Once in Unreal I quickly made a texture of a deer’s foot print and used it as a decal to place over the sculpted prints.
Foot print decals + ground deformation
Camera setup
My next step was setting up the cameras for each shot. I changed each shot multiple times as I continued working as I kept adding things. One challenge I faced was using the virtual cameras I had tested out at the start. I was able to record my shots ok with them but I wasn’t able to play my deer’s animation at the same time so I was guessing the timings. After multiple takes of each shot I eventually got one that worked.
Embergen
After going through my shots with my tutor it was suggested that I try adding more life to the ruined city scene and make it look more like the deer is bringing life with it. As I had already created everything myself so far and the deadline was coming up soon, I sourced some bird assets from elsewhere to use in the background and give the feeling of more life. To make it look like the deer was giving off an aura that brought life, I looked into how to make a smoke effect drip off him. My tutor suggested I use Embergen for this and after some quick tutorials on how to use it I spent a few days creating my smoke effect. I found the software very confusing at the start and I did have some exporting issues but eventually I got the look I wanted and was able to get it working in Unreal. It was a last-minute effect but I happy I added it as I feel it adds to the magic feel.
Smoke effect