Major Prodject
https://campuspress.uwl.ac.uk/asne/
Brief: Create a short film with a Nordic surreal environment look, the main focus will be creating a detailed environment using Unreal Engine.
Response to Brief:
Idea 1: I will create a Nordic environment were the camera will move through the environment for about 30 seconds in 5 different shots, some close up and some far away. For example, I will start a close up on some water drips on some stones, then I will slowly move through the environment, perhaps move through a waterfall, then I will slowly show a cold and dark Nordic place. The weather will suddenly change from rain to sun/dusk to sunrise. The whole film is a story of a light/spirit who is traveling through the environment.
I will play around with the lighting, shadows, colour correction, brush tool, depth of field.
For this, I need to find shots, pictures, assets or other elements to create this environment. The whole environment will be created in Nuke
Idea 2: I will create an established shots with a surreal environment (if a got time the camera will move through the environment). This will be something familiar with the movie Annihilation. The main focus in the shot is there is something weird or unwell feeling in the scene. Even the timing will perhaps be reverse or some elements in the scene will be in slow motion. Everything is a mystery.
Inspiration
Major Prodject
I decided to develop my second idea. The environment will be inside a cold cave. My idea is to start to film outside the cave and then inside of the cave to get an overlook over the environment, the camera will have a small rotation. You can not tell what is up and what is down. The camera will catch something absurd the hero object/weird/glowing/in the scene. The camera will also have a close up at some dripping water or a river (in reverse or slow motion).
Camera will zoom in on different objects (like a path) and we can see flowers, backpack, shoes, skeleton and bones inside the cave.
I will create the hero object in Maya by using bifrost.
3D Skanner from app store to scan some objects
Unreal Engine to create the environment
Finely I will put everything together in Nuke, for grading and put in some atmosphere elements.
References
Moodboard
Colour palette
Storyboard
Environment process in Unreal
For my major project I decided that I wanted to learn Unreal Engine. I have never tried unreal Engine before, so I challenge myself to try to learn it. I watched some parts in the Unreal Engine 5 Beginner Tutorial and learned a bunch of stuff that was relevant for my project.
Since my project environment inside a cave a also watched a good tutorial of a guy who created a sandy cave, Unreal Engine 5 environment design tutorial by Magnet VFX.
First thing I did was to create a empty level inside Unreal Engine. I go inside env. Light Mixer and created a sky light, atmospheric light, sky atmospheric and height fog. Then I putted on the volumetric fog inside exponential high fog. Then I created a landscape and started blocking my cave.
I downloaded Rural Australian, temperature Vegetation, interactive Open World Foliage and Icelandic Collections plugin from Unreal Engine Marketplace. I also find some megascans from Icelandic Vol. 3.
I used the foliage tool to randomly place flower, bones and stones around inside my cave.
To create water inside the cave I used a plane and texture it with a water plugin from Rural Australian.
The black hole in Maya
I used Maya to create a abstract ring. The idea is to create a black hole who will be the sentrum of all destruction and change of the environment.
The first thing I did was to change the settings, 25 FPS.
I created a null object and a basic cylinder with 100 cm radius, 1100 cm height, 20 high segments and 3 rotation segments. Then I twisted it and bended it. I had my cylinder selected and used a deformer called twist and hold in shift for it to become a child of my cylinder. I twisted it 360 degrees in the angle. Again I selected my cylinder, hold in shift and used a deformer called bend. It is imported to have the twist above the bend in the hierarchy. That way it will affect it after the twist. I made the strength of this bend 360 degrees as well.
To do that I had to adjust my hierarchy, cylinder, twist and then bend underneath. So that everything will be a child of the null. In that way we can animate out cylinder without affecting the two deformers. I created an expression in rotation Y on the cylinder (cylinder Y = time * 50), since I wanted to animation to loop.
Then I wanted to clone some geometry across the surface to make it cool. I used Mash to create a cloner. I brought in a sphere and change the radius and made it a little bit smaller.
I change the mode from liner to object and drag the cylinder into the object section. I change the distribution from linear to mesh. Also I change the method from scatter to vortex. Then putted on flood mesh, so the hole mash is covered in small spheres.
I imported the mash from Maya to Unreal Engine. I texture it inside Unreal Engine. I change the material to glass to make it transparent.
Since I already was pretty happy with my abstract ring, I still wanted to do some more. I decided I wanted to create something inside Bifrost in Maya.
I watch Jasons video from environment FX module to get a recap from our lessons. Then I created a orb with strands and particle animation inside Bifrost.
Major Project Previs
Timetable
3D scans
For my project I wanted some megascans of my own. When I had Easter break I travel to Norway to scans some objects that could be relevant for my project.
Playblast
Stock footage in Nuke
After looking through my video a cupule times, I realize that every single shot looks good on their own but not as one story video. I started to put more attention to the storytelling and did some changes to make a red thread throughout the story and also build up the tension.
Then I showed my project to people who have never seen it before and made them say what the first thing that showed up one their mind or what they think the plot is. I wrote down everything they said and started to figure out what I can do for improvement. I showed it to my friends, classmates and family.
someone died
monster inside the cave
remind me of a scary movie
has tension but it’s confusing
Changes I need to fix:
Make the scene darker and darker
Make a rope in the cave or something that will lead the audiance
Fix the story telling
Red thread through the story, Easter egg
Fix the fire expression for the bonfire
i showed my project to Josh and got some good feedback and what I can do to improve even more.
one thing was to create the scenes darker throughout the story. He also said that it was confusing to watch and I had he suggested to create something that could lead the audience better, like to create a red tread in the story or make some breadcrumbs. In other words I had to fix my story and make it more obvious of what is going on inside the cave.
Chanages I need to fix:
Render every scene
Flame expression
Render scene one and two again
Draft 5
Changes I need to fix:
Make the black hole clearer, nuclear energy, force, fire melting
Fix the middle part in the story or the order
Remove "For" three days ago -> Three days ago
Fix the flame animation
Test the particle system in Unreal Engine, Niagara
the next thing I realised was that the black holes power was still confusing. Like what is its power and goal. Does it have some kinds of power like nuclear energy, power, force or can melt stuf. I took this has an opportunity to create something amazing and cool. That is when I started to create something inside Niagara particle system inside Unreal Engine.
I change the story of my text in the beginning, to make it more realistic in relative to the story.
Changes I need to fix:
Find a picture of a mother and daughter or a family photo, might use the AI generator in Lexia
Make the black cut longer, perhaps 3 sec long
Next, I used AI generator to create a family of a mother and daughter.
Then I used photoshop to grade the colours and create a more black and white look.
After that, I added the picture on a 3D plane inside UE. I also texture it to look more glossy and more like a picture print.
Niagara Particle System in Unreal Engine
Since I had problems with exporting the bifrost file to UE, I had to make a hard decision. Instead of using a lot of time to figure out why exporting did work, I started to learn Niagara Particle System in UE. I come up with the conclusion that I really did like what I had done in Bifrost or it was not relevant for my project. I did not like how the particles was just swirling around a sphere. Ra
Then I watched a lot of tutorials on YouTube to try to learn the basics has fast has possible.
Changes I need to fix:
Find a lamp or flashlight instead of a bonfire
Change the order?
Make the outside brighter since it is a little to dark and hard to see the elements in the scene
Defocused the background in shot 2, fix it in Nuke
Change the stock image, find something that is more splashy and realistic, less blobby
Change the camera movement in shot 5 and 4