Month: November 2023

The last thing to do on my list is to set up the different cameras throughout the scene showing the violin and the piano from different positions and viewing the room accordingly. For the camera I have set up 10 different shots where I use the transform to move them a slight bit, I also made sure some movements are linear. I used Cine Cameras in UE5 and also played around with the different focal lens and the focus distance so some parts in the background would view more blurry (best seen at the chess camera)

After I had finished setting up the camera and all the animations in the different time frames I felt confident into rendering out my first version of the scene. After the render I had seen some glitches (like the balcony door for example) and some things I would still want to add to the scene, you can view the video below this text.

Now for the final additions to the room I still needed some simulations that would run while everything was playing, I had added the animations to the scene but first of all, I was missing 2 main parts, A Dust system that would make it look like there are many dust particles floating around, and A fire system that would go in the fire place that would give a warm red glow. for this I found 2 tutorials to follow that you can view below this text.

I followed these 2 tutorials to work on the scene and get the last steps in. I had created both the fire and dust as a Niagara system and added these to the scene, At first it was hard to see the dust and the fire was quite small, this is because the scene that I had created seemed to be massive, which throughout this process had cost me some issues that I talk about later in this post.

Problems with the animations due to size of assets problem

Throughout the process in unreal a lot of things went very well but I had created a problem for myself that created texturing issues with mainly the piano but also some of the other assets. I did not understand at first what the problem was so I went to Emily’s class to ask if she could figure out the problem. At first, she was also stumped so she asked me to send her 2 of my Maya files (the piano and the desk) to see if she could figure it out in a clean file.

Later she sent me images of what see found to be the problem and how to solve it (These are emily’s images):

As seen in the images The problem causing this weird white outline and some other hole issues in other assets was due to the fact that my assets in maya where very small comparing them to the assets that are placed in unreal, so to fix this problem I had to go back into the specific assets that had these problems and scale this up in maya and then export. Some examples of assets that had this problem: Violin, piano, walls, desk, balcony door, and so on.

Now that I have placed all the assets in the room I had to work on the lighting since if you would close off the roof it would be very dark inside. In one of Emily her classes she had talked about the different light possibilities and I had noted down a few of the ones that were very important for different parts of my scene.

Use lights (Class):

• Point light for the lanterns (activate gpu lightmass plugin)
• attaniation radiust change scale
• use chromeball for light to see all options
• Directional light is option for outside (ctrl L)
• Skylight: ambient light
• Sky atmosphere: real sky
• Look for lightmixer menu
• Exponential height fog (for low and heigh)
• Volumetric fog (inside the exponential height fog)
• Mess with the fog density 
• Tick volumetric in the spotlight (directional light)
• Have the “post process volume”
• Activate method lumen

Using this list I had also found 2 tutorials that would help me in some of the specifications in the lighting process plus that the Volumetric fog was an important part to make my scene look a bit dusty. (see the two tutorials below)

Having all this knowledge gathered I started making the lights for my scene, I had put in different types of lights to make sure everything was lit up properly. I used directional light to slightly light up different parts in my scene and then I also used point-light for where the lightbulbs were supposed to be. (the texture of the glow strings in the lightbulb also had a bit of luminance)

Now that I have done all my parts that are regarding the modeling and getting texture ready for the models I started to implement my scene in unreal, This is one of my first times working in unreal other then what Emily already had shown us. so for these parts I had to look up quite a few basic tutorials into how to implement my assets and the same goes for with doing the textures of the assets.

First I tried implementing the assets on their own without their textures. Though most of these assets seemed to be lowpoly so I had to reimport them when I got to the adding the texture phase this was a good start to trying to put it all into unreal.

After I placed the assets kind of in the same way as the assets in the Maya block out I felt like I was getting the hang of moving around in unreal and then decided to implement the assets with their textures one by one.

ADD VIDEO OF ALL ASSETS TOGETHER

Then I placed all of the assets in their rightful places in the block out and saw how big the bottom platform had to be to fit everything in, Which also included the walls that I had created. I have put it as shown below in the images.

Since I had finished all my textures the next step would be creating the animations for the scene, I had counted the piano, the violin, the chessboard, the world globe, and the balcony door as individual animations that I had to do in Maya.

For the violin and the piano I had gone to a composer to create a sound that would fit in the scene, I had given her the theme of my project and also had sent her my asset list padlet so she could get a feel for it. I have already been working with her on the sound for a couple of weeks and we ended up with this sound that I think fits perfectly in my scene, It has a bit of a dramatic melody to it but is still more in the up feelings which I wanted.

When she let me listen to this I had gone to one of her recordings to shoot some reference footage of them playing the piano and the violin that I could then use as an example for my modeled piano animation and violin animation.

for the animation of the violin, I followed the reference footage I had been given. I started it off with the violin being in the violin stand and simply floating out of there and then when the violin was done playing it would put itself back into the stand where it belonged.

Then I had done the same thing for the piano, I used the reference footage too decide how long a key should be hold down for to make it look somewhat realistic to the eye.

Then I also did small animations that would keep the scene interesting to the viewer’s eye. So I added the animation of a piece of the chessboard being put back into place and the globe spinning around. For both the chessboard and the globe this was a first try on the animation, I want to go back into it and change it a little bit.

For the bookshelf, I also needed some books of course to make it look like it has been used a lot before. So I created this book and scrambled it throughout the bookshelf randomly as you can see in the image below. Then I combined all the books in groups that were randomly spread out (see the image below with the lit-up books as one group).

For each of these groups, I would make an individual texture and assign it to the group. Below this text, you can see individual textures I made for the groups. Also for these, I found a flat image online and used this to create the texture by image tracing it and implementing it in Substance Painter. Then I also gave the books a leather feel to it and some scratches.

Texture of Doors, Balcony, and the pocket watch

These are almost the last textures on my list of all the models that I made, After these, I only need to add the textures of the books that would go on the bookshelf. But first I will show you the textures I did for the doors in the scene, I have one door that is to get into the study room and one door that is connected to the balcony.

Then after the doors I created the texture for the balcony to match up with the balcony door, the idea is that the end frame is a wide shot pointing towards the door while it closes.

ADD IMAGES OF THE BALCONY HERE

And then In this list, I also did the textures of the pocket watch, for the number part of it I used the same technique as I did for the globe and used an image to image trace. Then I added this golden look to it:

To make the Watch look quite realistic when it is put down on the desk it needed to have a bit more of a scrambled chain than how straight it now is. For this, I used the Rigid body dynamic on the watch and dropped it to a hard body surface to let it scramble itself up.

Fire place, Sofa, Chair

for the fireplace, I had to go with a bit of a different texture since the look of the fireplace gave off more of a marble feeling to it. Which still could fit the scene when done right, But just to be certain I also tried a version with wood (Left image)which just seemed too dark and did not feel right to me. So I ended up making a lighter marble version as shown in the image on the right. and then I used the Golden Smart material for some of the details in the fireplace.

Then for the sofa, I used the textile material that I had already made as a base but also decided to add another textile material on top of that textile material that would show more of the ‘sewing’ work that would have gone into the sofa. And then I used the wood material for the frame of the sofa.

And lastly, I made the texture for the Chair that would go next to the sofa in the scene. For this I just reused the textures of the sofa and changed the lightness of it a bit.

Bookshelf, Coffee table and Wall Lanterns

Now in this session I started off with the bookshelf, which when I modeled it I added the Staircase to it since these two things should be together. So while doing the bookshelf I also will be doing the Staircase

For these assets it is quite nicely split into two segments; A more wooden vibe that goes all over the bookshelf, and a more metallic vibe that goes over the stairs. I already had quite a few smart materials set for this to create my bookshelf and staircase.

When starting off with the bookshelf I had a weird stretched texture that happened when I applied the wood material. So for this, I had to go back into Maya and fix this in the model and in the UVs. after finishing I went back into substance and applied the textures.

After the bookshelf I did the coffee table which was super easy since it only needed like one texture as shown in the image below:

And then I did the Wall lanterns’ texture, Which had quite a bit of Metallic textures. For this one, I only needed to research how to create damaged glass to make it to where it would be translucent. and I had one of the biggest struggles picking out the right color for the lantern which in the end I stuck with a darker color since the references had that as well.