Jodi Shadforth - In Conclusion

It's done. It's finished. I can enjoy the summer.

This project has had more ups and downs than I think I've ever had to handle in my life. The passion of my group was amazing, the ideas we shared were exciting and [Most of the time] spirits were high! 

• Ben was an absolute lifesaver as our Technical Director, and a total asset to the team. His attitude to everything was not only outgoing, but determined and he was willing to adapt as our ideas as a group changed and warped. His excitement and passion for engine work was clear, and was something he spent time perfecting while the rest of us were sleeping.

• Morgan was a voice of reason that stepped in whenever tensions got... Particularly high. He also really went all out with the lighting and picked up a lot of the slack whenever others fell behind. His assets were thoughtfully and carefully created, with no holds barred when it came to quality, and he embraced engine work with a smile (Most of the time).

• Kara has an eye for beauty and a love of all things hand-painted... Needless to say she cranked out most of the things that fitted that description! Her Skybox was stunning, and her environment work made everything that the other team members made come together. She has put a lot of time into her texture work, and while sometimes we didn't see eye to eye, she always delivered what we asked of her. She also improved amazingly in engine, conquering her fear of the unknown.

• Ashley is never afraid to share her opinion, but balances it out well (Most of the time) with thought-out and invaluable critique and endless support. While at the very end she ran out of time for some of her things, resulting in her tent not having collision and her character going unfinished, the assets that she did finish were beautifully made and textured with care and consideration, and when she supports someone, she does so without reservations.

• Noemi made a beautiful fountain. While it's unfortunate that she didn't get to make more (due to personal issues), she still really pushed to get it finished for the thursday morning as we were hectically throwing the last few changes together. She herself has a wonderful character, which could go even further with an improvement in communication.

That leaves me! I have a long way to go... I did however try my best to manage my team and keep stress levels low (Which is much harder than I ever expected). I found it difficult to tolerate poor communication and negative responses to valid critique, and in this respect I need to work on being more laid-back and take things less personally, as I have quite a strong sense of "Justice", and would get quite frustrated when people didn't deliver important assets on time or were unwilling to tweak their assets to better fit the level. This has all worked out in the end though, as we have a beautiful level, and none of us hate eachother!

In terms of skill I really don't think I stepped up to the mark on this project. I rushed my assets far too much, and found that I really didn't have all that much enthusiasm or passion for what I was making, resulting in sub-par work. If nothing else, this has really helped me to realise that I have no real love of making props or environment pieces, and I wish more than anything I had spent more time on my character, which I enjoyed making but for some reason left until the very end, when I felt like my environmental contribution had been finished, but which left me with only a couple of weeks to sculpt, retop and texture two characters... Needless to say, this did not work in my favour.

List of Assets that I Completed:

Ventriloquist tent

• Dolls
• Wardrobe
• Bed
• Bucket
• Desk
• Workbench
• Puppet show
• Mural
• Tent Exterior
• Bag of Grain
• Chest
• Oil Lamps
• Crates of Art Supplies
• Toolbox
• Paint Bottles
• Ink Bottles
• Rubber Stamps/Seals
• Armchair
• Wooden Chair
• Bird Cage
• Desk Drawers
• Top Hat
• Hat Rack
• Mirror
• Wash Basin
• Wash Cloth
• Carpet
• Rugs

Misc

• Xoltar Character
• Ringmaster Character
• Small Tent Exterior
• Tin Can Alley Game
• Ball in a Milk Churn Game 
• UI/HUD (Quest Log, Menu, Buttons)

Other Work: 

• Organising Task Sheets
• Updating Asset List
• Writing a Weekly Group Post
• Whiteboxing
• Landscaping
• Writing Weekly Minutes

Morgan - Lighting Post

My main engine job during this project was to light the scene. This process has been extremely iterative and experimental as I am a complete beginner when it comes to the lighting workflow in UE4. That being said I am extremely pleased with how the level was lit in the end even after scrapping and starting from scratch many times, I feel that this process has allowed me to get the lighting to a state that I could be proud of. I started by creating a directional light from a dark scene and tweaking that until it was 100 percent where I needed it to be before introducing secondary lights like sky lights and point lights to further enhance areas of the scene. I found that I was able to better control my shadow density and fall off by altering indirect lighting intensities as well as including a post processing volume. I had hit a stage where I needed to add some cooler tones to the level to help contrast the warmth and bring back the original diffuse maps on the textures. This is where post processing really shows its strengths because I was able to utilise global illumination to cool the shadow areas whilst adding some UE4 built AO to add that extra piece of realism as well as other colour and exposure related settings to get that healthy balance of light/dark/warm and cool. The inclusion of lanterns and torches really helped break up the more extravagant dark areas with some light interest without becoming too over saturated and difficult to look at whilst being able to add some nice bloom and light shaft effects. Overall, there is still a lot for me to learn when it comes to lighting but at this stage, I feel that I have done the best of my current ability and will definitely pursue this area more in the future projects as well as over the summer.

Ashley Wilkinson's Final Concluding Blog Post

And now, wrapping up this entire...well, experience, is a last cheesy blog post.

First things first, here's a brief rundown on what I actually did:

-Research 

-Concept assets

-Model assets

-Texture assets

-Import, place and light assets in engine

-Concept a character

-Sculpt a character (sadly, due to inexperience with 3rd person engine animation and how it would interact with our minigames, I did not end up completing her nor optimising her for engine)

-And also, for some reason, composed and created music for the level (again something we did not use, as majority vote on the group found it too repetitive, but I will nonetheless place a link to it here.)

Screenshots in-engine:

Unlit assets on the inside (the lighting is quite moody) so you can see their shape/texture better:

FINAL THOUGHTS AND CONCLUSION

On the whole, this project was very beneficial to me, perhaps not in the most creative sense, but it made me learn things about myself and others and how I react to working in group dynamics and pressured situations. I am satisfied with the final outcomes I produced, however I am aware it is not my best work: I did not manage my time as well as I could have, as I did not factor in certain things that happen in life (trip to Berlin, possibilities of getting ill, personal issues, et cetera.) in my work pace. 

I am however fortunate enough to have had a very supporting, well-balanced group, bar a few contribution problems. I enjoyed working with them as a whole. and we produced a beautiful level in the end.

Concluding Post

Morgan _ Fire, Flickering Light and Wind Effects!

Within UE4 I have created some visual effects to help give the level a bit more animated movement. The first effect I created was the flame and ember effect for my Torch Asset. Most of the effect was created using panning textures and blending masks within UE4's material editor as well as embellishing the effect with the particle cascade editor. The embers were created with a simple set up using a radial exponential node in the material editor and setting it to orbit within the cascade editor both with a particle colour input. To give the light flicker effect from the point light as seen below on the tent, I used a simple light function set up with a time input that effectively fades the light on and off dependant on the input you multiply it with. The final effect I created  was to add simple wind to the trees and foliage. This effect was quite subtle but overall really helped the dynamic aspect of the level as well as emphasising the tranquillity of an autumn sunset setting which complimented the original aesthetic of the level. To create this effect, I added a 'simple grass wind' node with number parameter inputs that let me control the wind weight, intensity and the world offset position allowing me to get a wind that matched the water effect and still looked visually appealing. 

Ben Fishwick PARTICLE EFFECTS

Particle Effect Dump

Ben Fishwick BLUEPRINT DUMP

Blueprint Dump

Tin can and Milk game play

Tincan Gameplay

(gif was too big for the blog post so please use this link to view it )

character blueprint

Water

Balloon

Menu, Quest Log and HUD set up

Collectable.