Month: July 2022

This week I have completed two scenes: a desert scene and an iceberg scene.
The iceberg scene is a bit more complicated, but the good thing is that I found a seawater asset that is very realistic, I just need to import the seawater into my scene and add some large ice blocks, and some small ice blocks next to it, I used a plant brush to paint it, and the lighting is an HDR map for the base lighting. I also added a directional light source.
Since I couldn’t find a suitable asset for the iceberg, I used 4 ice blocks to put it together and it still looks good.

The desert scene is relatively simple, I used Worldcreater to create the terrain, and then imported it into Unreal Engine to create the texture maps.

Next week I will be setting up the lighting for the desert scene and importing the previously made whale animation into the scene to start testing the renders.

I’ve completed two scenes so far, so this week I started looking at how to import my animations made in Maya into Unreal Engine 4. The two software systems have different skeletal systems, so it was a little difficult to get into Unreal Engine 4.
The first thing I tried was to export the animation in abc format in Maya and found that although I had no problem importing the animation in this format, the abc format uses material spheres by default and I couldn’t reassign the material to my imported character. So I tried using the exported fbx format. But I still encountered two problems
1: The animation imported by the Unreal 4 engine is walking in place, with no displacement.
2: The material needs to be completely redistributed.
My solution: Problem 2 was easier to solve, I just needed to spend some more time rebuilding and specifying the mapping. Problem 1 I recreated the displacement animation in Unreal Engine 4. The animations in Unreal Engine 4 are more complex and cumbersome than in Maya and I had to position myself very carefully to avoid displacement errors.

I also found some iceberg and sea assets this week and plan to finish two scenes next week: one for the desert and one for the iceberg at sea, keep up the good work!

With the experience of the previous forest scenes, this scene is relatively well built.
The scene is still in the forest, but from a different angle, I chose a flat view and to differentiate it from the previous scene I planned to add some fog effects. The method I used was to create a flat surface, then create a dynamic material and apply the exr smoke sequence to create a dynamic smoke effect. I also adjusted the lighting colours to increase the concentration of air fog in the scene to make it look like it was in a misty forest.

This works pretty well, and next week I’ll be working on how to import the animations I made in Maya into Unreal Engine 4.

This week I finished the forest scene. I built the scene using the terrain I tested last week, this time I added some trees and stones that I had downloaded from Bridge and added some lighting and air fog effects to make the scene more realistic.

Based on the reference I found earlier, I planned this to be an overhead shot, so I just needed to get the trees in the right place.

So far it’s working fine, except that the LOD is losing its surface so badly that some of the leaves are turning into a surface piece, which I’ll try to fix next week.

This week I started to prepare my first scene – the forest scene. I planned to start with about 4 scenes for my short film and I chose the forest scene to test it out, I chose a ratio of 2.4:1 to give it a good cinematic feel. I started with a collection of tree assets and the terrain materials were created using HD maps downloaded from Bridge.

The test results were good and it didn’t take too long to build and render. However, I still think the lighting could be improved and the forest is still not dynamic enough. One of the biggest issues is file size and scene optimisation, which are some of the main issues I need to address next week.

This week I’ve continued to look for references, mainly focusing on learning Unreal Engine 4. I’ve found Unreal Engine 4 to be an excellent piece of software for asset integration. It can render very high-quality graphics very quickly.
This week I found some basic tutorials on Unreal Engine 4 on YouTube and started learning the basics of Unreal Engine 4. For example, how to import materials, how to set up lighting, etc. Once I’m familiar with the basics, I’ll look at the techniques needed for each shot.

My shots may cover forest layouts, terrain layouts, textures, lighting and some simple effects such as dust or smoke. I learned how to make fake smoke in Unreal Engine using exr sequences and custom textures. With a combination of fake smoke and UE’s built-in height fog, I can easily create the atmosphere I want.

Storyline

This week I have been revising and finalising an outline for the story. Combining the theories from last week’s research, I came up with the story of “Happy Excursion”: Many, many years ago, when Zhuang Zhou was drunk, he dreamed that he was a butterfly flying in a sea of sand. He saw a Peng, a giant bird in ancient Chinese legends flying in the sky, and then he kept flying ahead. He saw a hut in the distance that looked like his own house. He went up to it and saw that it was his own drunken Self. Suddenly he turned into a Kun and swam in the sea of sand. When he dived, he found that he had come to a big forest. Then he slowly swam through the forest. He discovered his hut in the woods again, and he was still drunk. So he swam upstream and burst out of the sea, only to find an iceberg several times his size. At that moment, Zhuang Zhou woke up from his dream. In short of saying Zhuang Zhou was drunk and dreamt that he was swimming in the world of the id, the Ego and the Superego as different creatures.

Story outline

Reference

Technique Challenge

For this film I planned to use a completely new process: Maya combined with Unreal Engine 4. Nowadays Unreal Engine 4 is very powerful and can produce very good graphics and very fast rendering. So I decided to use Maya to create various assets and then import them into Unreal Engine 4 for integration. This is a great way to increase productivity. But Unreal Engine 4 is new to me, so it will take me some time to learn it. Also, the import of Maya assets into Unreal Engine 4 is a key issue.
The film will also involve some special effects, such as sand effects, so I may also use Houdini to create some particle effects. This will be a bit of a challenge for me too.