#FutureworksXB2002

[simranwhithamfutureworks-blog]

XB2002 Assignment Three - Environment Art

The Environment Art Scene Fly Through and Trailer:

For my final development milestone of my low poly environment, I created a flythrough/reveal trailer for the whole environment scene itself.

For the trailer, my main focus was to capture the majority of the environment within the Unreal project and have a seamlessly smooth transition throughout the whole thing for the camera’s projectile path it takes.

For the camera and video itself, the video was captured on a matinee keyframe animated camera, and upon completion of the matinee’s route rendered out the Matinee’s movie projected path at a 1080p 60 frames per second video at the MP4 format.

From here it was the case of taking the Unreal matinee movie and importing it into Adobe Premiere Pro and adding visual effects such as the transition to white in the title and credits scene and adding the soundtrack Floating Home over the video.

Within Adobe Premiere Pro I also compressed and rendered the video from its initially slow speed Unreal video file, and from here was able to acquire the smooth flow of movement visible in the video above.

I am very satisfied with the final version of the reveal trailer for the whole low poly environment scene, as it has allowed me to develop my 3D modelling, environment art, and Unreal materials skillsets.

One of the design challenges I faced within the video creation process of the project was creating the right visual effects for the video to make it more professional, as my creative milestone aim for this video was to create a fly through that resembles that of an actual game reveal trailer.

Overall I believe the trailer video manages to good a good job of showcasing the environment itself and capturing the emotional feeling of the visually displayed environment and it’s narrative and matches that of the initial concept idea I had for the environment from the beginning of the project.

[simranwhithamfutureworks-blog]

XB2002 Assignment Three - Environment Art

Final Screenshots:

Above you can see final screenshots of the finished version of my low poly sky island environment scene for assignment three XB2002.

Overall I am pleased with how the project has developed and the final finished project.

This project has allowed me to develop my 3D modelling, Unreal post processing, Unreal materials, and environment art skillsets, as I have been able to develop my 3D modelling workflows when working with low polygon art models and how to achieve high aesthetic valued models through the use of what materials and colour palette’s help make the environment feel more visually attractive to a gaming audience and help make the environment feel more vibrant and organic.

This assignment has also allowed me to develop my understanding of the post processing and creation of materials inside Unreal Engine 4 which I can later take into future projects and idea’s when creating environments.

If I could have added anything to the project I would have developed it even further by having an additional low poly island within the environment scene, and have the final trailer go to all three islands, and would have perhaps based the third island on a different season of summer/winter, with a whole new colour palette.

[simranwhithamfutureworks-blog]

XB2002 Assignment Three - Environment Art

Exploring a new art style:

Before beginning the process of creating the final trailer video upon experimenting with the post processing and materials editor in Unreal Engine 4 I began looking at other art styles I could have ultimately used when creating my low poly art style sky island environment for assignment three XB2002.

Whilst experimenting with the post processing of Unreal Engine 4, I was able to change the entire art style of the environment scene into a stylised cel-shaded aesthetic appearance. 

Above you can see screenshots of the results of changing my environment art scene into a style such as this, overall I am happy with how this art style applies to the environment as I believe it does make it more aesthetically pleasing from a viewer perspective, and manages to capture the cel-shaded aesthetic well such as game like Zelda Breath of the Wild and Rime.

However, due to personal choice, I have decided to not use this art style as the final appearance for my environment scene, as I believe the lighting for the low poly art style suits the scene better than the black sky lighting created by the cel-shaded post processing.

This process, however, has encouraged me to experiment further with the post processing of Unreal Engine 4 and to consider this art style for future projects.

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XB2002 Assignment Three: Environment Scene: 

Upon completion of all the models needed for the low-poly island environment scene, I began the process of placing all the meshes in Unreal upon importing their FBX files into organised folders.

I began the process of creating the environment by first selecting the type of lighting, originally my initial concept idea for the lighting in the scene was to have the scene set at night with a snow particle system being present throughout the environment.

However, upon looking back at the snowy countryside photography photographs I had taken for environment set piece placement reference, I saw how the different lighting of both sun and cloud can affect a heavy snow environment, one example is the photography photo’s of the snowy forest in this post, in the first image we can see the general white skies often associated with snowy weather patterns and the transition from this to a clear sunny sky and how both alter and affect the lighting patterns within the environment the light casts onto.

Thus upon examining actual lighting caused by snowy weather, I chose to create a sky that combined the snowy clear pink skies often seen after the snow has finished falling within an area and the clear blue sky of the sun creeping through the clouds type of lighting effect that comes once the colour palette of a snow sky begins to fade.

As you can see in the screenshots above I have managed to create a sky sphere and lighting that combines both the clear blue weather sky lighting and pink snowy lighting together into a nice contrast with no clear horizon line showing, allowing me to have an environment with a seamless skydome lighting texture that manages to suit the environmental narrative of the whole scene taking place high up in the sky.

In the screenshots above you can also see that at this stage I have begun the process of asset placement within the scene using my photography reference photo’s you can see I placed assets such as tree’s and snow clumps within similar spots to that of my photo’s, I have placed the assets in such a manner as this has allowed me to create a forest environment that resembles that of an actual organic forest, as the spacing of both the tree’s and the snow is based on that of actual fallen snow and the spacing of it and actual forest trees.

One of the key development milestones that I aimed to tackle with this environment scene was to whilst maintaining the low-poly art style create organic and realistic geography for the organic mesh asset placement and through the use of the photography photo references I believe I have been able to hit this milestone of the development cycle of the environment scene.

In terms of additional lighting to add to the low poly atmosphere and art style I deleted the original sun within Unreal Engine and created my own low poly sphere mesh and created a luminate sun yellow material for the mesh, this as a resulted managed to create the nice light yellow lighting present within the screenshots, and manage to create an atmosphere of winter now coming to an end and summer beginning to set in.

You can also see I have created and placed a large number of different low poly cloud meshes within the scene, I chose to do this as a milestone I hit whilst creating the lighting for the environment was that although I managed to get the colour palette for the sky I wanted the Unreal default clouds within the environment were no longer visible, thus to tackle this milestone I created a module pack containing several variations of low poly cloud that could be placed within the environment that suit the art-style of the project, upon examination of the environment I believe I was able to achieve this milestone whilst also managing to stay on track with my project timetable.

[simranwhithamfutureworks-blog]

XB2002 Assignment Three - Environment Art

Planning of the final environment trailer camera shots:

Link to Narrated planning of the environment trailer shots video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9sR-z3KK3Y&feature=youtu.be

With the low poly sky island environment complete I have begun to examine the type of camera shots I wish to produce and have present within the final trailer video for the project.

My aim for this video is to create a video of quality that could ultimately be used for an actual game release trailer; this is why I shall be using the Unreal 4 Engine software Sequencer to manually produce the in engine camera shots, movements and quality of the video, which I then later plan to take into Adobe Illustrator to edit the quality of the video and add the soundtrack “The Floating Home” produced by Futureworks Training Limited Music Production student Martyn Stonehouse for this project.

In this post I have attached a small voice over clip describing the pathway I plan to have the camera and shots, and screenshots of the planned camera route for visual image reference.

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XB2002 Assignment Three: Environment Scene:

Environment Art Trailer Soundtrack:

Throughout the course of the entire project for XB2002 Environment Art, I have been collaborating with Futureworks Training Limited Music Production student Martyn Stonehouse on the development and production of a music soundtrack that will be played and edited over the environment art project trailer.

Above is an MP3 music file of the soundtrack Floating Home produced by Martyn Stonehouse that shall be playing throughout the environment trailer, the entire track is 01:52 in time length that will allow me to create an environment trailer that corresponds with the two-minute time limit for the final trailer.

One of the key inspirations behind the initial concept idea for the type of soundtrack I wished to produce alongside Martyn was the soundtrack of the game Firewatch, with one of the key inspirations and direct references for my environment visually being snowy countryside and forest landscapes I looked at games that have a heavy nature and emotional narrative-driven gaming experience designed soundtrack within the game, and Firewatch manages to combine both these elements into its heavy guitar and ambient soundtrack design that helps immerse the player within the forest environments they explore.

Wishing to also create an emotional atmosphere of deep calmness, preserved nature, and isolation myself and Martyn decided that an ambient guitar solo would be the best  type of musical soundtrack to suit the environment of a lone cabin and windmill residing atop two islands within the sky far from earth within a heavy nature environment barely disturbed by man.

Upon collaborating myself and Martyn researched what type of audio instruments and ambience could help also immerse the player into the trailer further beyond visually, and we believe that the guitar solo add’s emphasis onto the isolation aspect of the narrative displayed within the environment through the use of the singular cabin, chopped up logs, and two cups of tea in front of the cabin, helping communicate the narrative of the trailer to the viewer both visually and audio-wise.

Overall I am pleased with how the final version of the trailer soundtrack Floating Home has turned out, as it captures all the emotional themes I wished to communicate the viewer and suits the aesthetic low poly art style of the entire environment itself.

References:

All credit for the composing, creation, development and production of the soundtrack Floating Home goes to Futureworks Training Limited Music Production student and music composer Martyn Stonehouse.

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XB2002 Assignment Three: Environment Scene:

Floating Rocks & Hot Air Balloon animations:

Above is a small video clip of the floating low poly rock and hot air balloon animations that are present within my low poly environment for XB2002 and are what I shall be having present within my final trailer for the project.

One of the key characteristics and visual attractions present within my low poly environment for XB2002 is the floating low poly rocks present within the atmosphere surrounding the island, I chose to include these meshes within the environment as they are a visual aid in communicating to the player the narrative of the high altitude they are in within this environment, and having the rocks float through the air within the viewer's perception with the low poly earth planet in the distance will add emphasis on the environment being within a location far from planet earth.

For the animations present within the environment, I have used Unreal matinee’s as primary way for crafting the specific animations and movements I desired, I used matinee’s for the balloon and rocks as matinee would allow me to create different movements the further down the matinee’s timeline for the meshes, thus through this I could have all the rock meshes move within unique ways around the atmosphere to simulate that of realistic zero gravity environments.

As you can see in the video the rocks that are floating within the environment are all moving within unique pathways of each other and no rock repeats the same pattern and the hot air balloon moves away from the environment into the sky in a natural pattern as if it is being blown away by the course of the wind within the environment high altitude, the results seen within, the video were achieved by manually crafting the pathways of each movable object within the scene as you can see within the screenshots above.

Overall I am pleased with the outcome of the of the animations of the moveable objects within the environment as it has allowed me to create some additional visual narrative that will help strengthen the engagement of the final project video trailer.

References:

Music used within this video was produced by Futureworks Training Limited, Music Production student Martyn Stonehouse for this project and its end of project trailer.

Soundtrack: XB2002 Environment Art Soundtrack - Floating Home, Artist - Martyn Stonehouse.

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XB2002 Assignment Three: Environment Scene:

Environment Characteristics:

When beginning the design process of placing all the asset meshes within the scene one of the main design goals I gave myself to dedicate some serious production time to was internal narrative and characteristics within the environment, to visual communicate a story to the viewer during the final environment video produced for the module.

With the final environment being what the viewer is going to see within the environment I decided to focus on adding characteristics within the sections that will be visible from the viewers first person perspective throughout my planned camera route through the environment.

One of the biggest characteristics I aimed to add was organicness to the low poly island itself, although I am happy with how the island itself has managed to portray the low poly art style of the environment itself well, making the world feel believable is a key design challenge I aim to tackle with the models within the scene.

With the island being made of naturally formed stone one of the key visual elements and meshes to add to a structure such as the island would be plant life, with their being separate rock meshes being placed on the island, I created some additional plant vine meshes, and placed them and some of the grass mesh I had previously made within the cracks and sides of the rocks to create the visual imagery to the viewer that life is growing out of the nature constructed low poly island, thus making the overall model and environment feel more realistic and organic despite its stylized art style.

One of the biggest characteristics that will present within the environment and final environment video is the floating rocks and boulders within the sky surrounding the whole environment, I chose to add this element as I have already begun the process of using matinee’s to animate the rocks floating around the sky and the environment as a whole, I chose to do this as with these animations playing in front of the viewer it will visually communicate the environments high altitude and display how the rocks are slowly breaking off the island and floating freely through the air.

Two more characteristics I chose to include were the low poly earth and hot air balloon, I chose to include these as the earth will act as visual reference point for the viewer that the location of this environment is a place far from our human home and that they are in a place of the unknown. The hot air balloon will act as a visual drawing point within the video as I plan to have it fly off into the distance when the camera enters the forest section of the environment, thus making the video more engaging from a visual perspective and add the narrative of their being a way for the person clearly living on this island to leave the island itself and that they are not trapped on a stationary island within the sky.

Another important characteristic to visually communicate to the viewer and add to the narrative of the environment was to make it look lived in but also preserve the natural landscape of the environment, for this I added meshes such as cut down tree’s, fences, cups of tea, and a well all within distance of the cabin, as you can see in the screenshots above these all help to visually display that there is indeed a human being living in this environment and carving a living out of the natural landscape, making the entire scene feel more real and organic.

The final characteristic I added to make the environment feel more lived in was a large low poly tree behind the cabin with rocks and grass emerging out of the heavy layers of snow surrounding it, this is to indicate that this one tree is of special importance due to their only being one on each island and this section of the island is maintained.

Overall I am pleased with how the characteristics of the environment have developed throughout the course of the project, and overall have managed to complete these characteristics ahead of my time schedule thus giving me additional time to develop the environment more and the final environment video.

[simranwhithamfutureworks-blog]

XB2002 Assignment Three: Environment Scene: 

Continuing to develop my low poly environment for XB2002 Environment Scene I have created several meshes that I aim to have present within the environment and that match the low poly art style I am basing my environment around aesthetically.

As you can see I have modelled three new type of tree, the top tree screenshot was a branching type of low poly tree I aimed to create for this scene, for the actual tree’s themselves I created a platonic primitive and used the smooth function to round the shape to a spherical shape, followed by hardening the edges and then reducing the poly count of platonic shape to get the rounded shape of the tree, from here it was a simple matter of using the scale, vertex and reduce tools to create different types of low poly tree sphere shapes for the tops of the tree meshes.

The Windmill mesh was an asset I had previously made that I decided to use for the project, the only change from the original windmill mesh is that I placed a stand in the middle by creating a cylinder primitive and removing the line segments from it and hardening the edges to acquire the low poly shape, style and geometry.

From here I placed the shape in the centre of the windmill tower mesh and created some cubes to act as the leg supports for the windmill and placed them around the windmill stand to create structural authenticity and realism for the structure.

For the wood log’s I created a cylinder primitive mesh and reduced it’s line segments to eight with an applied hardened edge to the mesh to obtain the low poly art style, from here I simply applied a Blinn wood brown material to the mesh and overall I am pleased with how the colours collide well with each to create a true low poly appearance for the not only just the wood log’s but also all the meshes present within the screenshots above.

[simranwhithamfutureworks-blog]

XB2002 Assignment Three: Environment Scene: 

For my low poly environment art scene the key central model throughout the whole environment is the low poly island itself.

Above you can see some early renders and screenshots of the overall shape I am creating for the island, for the shape of the island I constructed it using a cube primitive mesh, then added multiple line segments to it, then used the triangulate and reduce mesh function on the island mesh to reduce the polygon count to achieve the triangular low poly art style look that I aim to have the environment possess in terms of aesthetics.

Although this an early development version of the model you can see that I have begun the process of including characteristics that I designed within my initial concept art sketch of the island mesh such as rocks being layered on top of the base rock and rocks surrounding the island itself.

These characteristics are being implemented into the final environment model itself to add the sub-narrative of the island breaking apart.

My future design plans for this are too develop this island mesh to a point where a snow terrain can be placed over the islands base and then potentially another island will be crafted with a low poly bridge mesh being used to keep the two islands linked from a gameplay standpoint.

[simranwhithamfutureworks-blog]

XB2002 Assignment Three: Environment Scene:

Continuing to develop the assets for my low poly environment scene for XB2002 I have begun the process of creating the low poly snowy tree’s that will be present throughout the environment scene.

For the mesh I have used a previous low poly tree I had already created but duplicated the top half of the tree and applied a white snowy lambert material to the duplicated and then scaled the mesh to have the white material placed on top of the green tree texture.

From here I used the vertex tool to pull the vertexes of the snowy material back and forth to place the snow over the tree mesh in different places to make the appearance of the tree look like the snow has fallen on different sections of the tree and proportions like natural snow would be maintain the low poly art style of the tree.

As you can see in the final screenshot I have created multiple variations of the tree and imported it into Unreal and placed the tree meshes into a quickly created snow terrain to display the type of placement and appearance these trees will have.

[simranwhithamfutureworks-blog]

XB2002 Assignment Three: Environment Scene: 

Continuing to develop asset meshes for my low poly snowy island environment scene I began the process of creating one of the center meshes of the whole environment the wooden island cabin.

I began the process of creating the mesh of the cabin by creating a cube primitive and scaling in the top edges to form the pyramid top structure of the cabin.

From here I simply began the process of creating individual wood panels through the use of polygon cubes and using the vertex tool to move the cubes vertexes into places to form individual wooden panels.

To add characteristics and narrative to the mesh I created unique panels for both the walls and roof structures of the cabin and applied different lambert materials to the wooden panels to create the sub narrative that the cabin has suffered wear and tear over time and has undergone multiple repairs with different wood materials, whilst maintaining the low poly art style of the environment scene.

So far I am pleased with the overall cabin mesh as I believe I have been able to both technically and artistically create the low poly style my environment scene is aiming to look like and have been able to create a cabin mesh that will catch the player’s perspective through its colourful nature within what will be a snowy scene.

[simranwhithamfutureworks-blog]

XB2002 Assignment Three: Environment Scene: 

This concept art sketch is an initial concept idea I currently have for my low poly sky island snowy environment scene for XB2002.

Initially when sketching the shape of the island I wanted to create something that would allow be able to possess the low poly art elements of low poly art but also allow me to create an island that’s shape will create the established narrative that it is had been breaking apart.

I will cement this narrative within the actual environment itself by using already built low poly rocks by having them floating around the environment in Unreal through most likely the use of a Matinee animation and by potentially having the low poly rocks be moulded into the base shape of the island itself.

For the low poly tree’s due to already creating them XB2001 Level Design I shall be re-using these assets but will be adding an additional snow layer texture to the mesh through either face selection and applying lambert materials or through manually painting the snow texture on them in Unreal or Substance Painter.

For the windmill model this is also another pre-built asset I have created, I have decided to add this into the scene for aesthetic purposes and will re-create the UV map for the mesh to a much better quality standard, I may also potentially have the turbines on the windmill performing a rotation animation by having the turbines as separate meshes and by using a matinee in Unreal Engine to animate them.

For the cabin itself I plan to create a simple low poly red wood cabin mesh that will be applied with low poly wood textures to match the rest of the low poly environments theme, I may also have light rays emitting from the windows to add the narrative and characteristics that someone is living on the island in the sky.

For the lake flowing off the island at the moment this is pure initial concept idea, if later in the project I have the development time to develop this aspect of the environment I shall pursue it as getting a working low poly water material to work and flow off an island may take serious development time out of the project timetable.

For the bulk of the low poly models I will most likely use standard Lambert or Blinn materials existing in Autodesk Maya already as they from previous low poly work capture the art style of low poly quite well and any other texturing software may add too much detail to what is essentially simple textured stylised models.

[simranwhithamfutureworks-blog]

XB2002 Assignment Three: Environment Scene:

Above are screenshots of previous low poly assets, modelling and environment scenes I have created within my spare time.

As you can see when learning and developing my low poly modelling creative skillsets I have created a wide variety of different locations and assets to suit the theme, and I will be using similar workflows to help construct my low poly environment low poly sky island scene for XB2002.

Assets such as the low poly tree’s and rocks from these projects will be being used within the Environment scene and for XB2001 Level Design I am also creating a low poly level and any assets I create for low poly purposes for XB2001 I shall also use within my environment scene should the assets suit the scene itself.

[simranwhithamfutureworks-blog]

XB2002 Assignment Three: Environment Scene:

For my environment scene for XB2002 I decided to do some photography for reference sources when planning on creating my low poly snowy sky island environment for the project.

I will be using the folder of snowy countryside photography images as a reference source for three main aspects of the environment scene for when it is imported into Unreal Engine, lighting, terrain, and snow materials.

As you can see from the images I have taken I have captured the different types of countryside terrain types and different sky lighting and how it affects the snow it blankets.

These types of photography shots will be reference point for how I use lighting such as the skyphere in Unreal Engine to affect the painted on snow material that will blanket the surface of the low poly island itself.

These images will also be assisting me in what type of snow texture I aim to create as a paintable texture through the use of Unreal paint tool, as you can see the snow itself adapts and changes to suit the tye of countryside terrain it landed on, in some areas pockets of grass break through and in others it completely blankets the terrain it lands on where only the sheet of snow is visible.

It’s this type of terrain and snow placement I aim to have present on my low poly island surface although the art style of the model will be stylised low poly I wish for the snow texture itself to appear organic and natural in appearance to add a bit more “realism” and authentic to the environment scene itself and to make the video presentation of the scene more visually pleasing for the viewer.

[simranwhithamfutureworks-blog]

XB2002 Assignment Three: Environment Scene

For assignment three of XB2002 Environment Scene my initial concept idea is that I am going to create a low poly floating sky island with a snowy terrain blanketing the island with a low poly cabin on the island.

I have chosen to go with this theme as over the last few months I have been developing my 3D modelling skillset to different types of surface modelling, and one the different modelling art styles I have grown to enjoy and wish to develop further is low poly stylised modelling.

I have also chosen to go for this scene as due to the current time frame to finish the project I believe trying to create a scene that is high detailed would require large amounts of develop time that would be very difficult to do within the project time scale.

I have also chosen to model this specific piece of environment art as it would allow me to not only create a scene that would be visually appealing but also allow me to create a decorative environment pan video and potentially open up opportunities for sound implementation and music production.

Above are three different mood boards I have produced with the inspiration and influences that will be behind my low poly environment art scene and 3D models.

The first mood board contains reference images of low poly islands themselves, due to low poly and artistic nature of low poly art itself low poly islands can come in many vary shapes and sizes but these images will be serving as the reference source of point for the overall mesh shape and material types I wish for my low poly island mesh to possess.

The second mood board contains reference images for the type of terrain and the type of cabin mesh I aim to create that will be present on the floating island, my creative aim is to have snow blanketing the whole island with the terrain hopefully possessing a few mountains and low poly snowy tree’s also present throughout the whole island mesh.

The third mood board contains self-took photography images of snowy terrain, to capture these images I went into the snowy countryside and hillside near my home and took photography images of the different types of forest terrain and how snow lands on this terrain and positions itself.

I also chose to capture these reference images as it will allow me to look at what type of snow texture to create when painting snow around the trees and terrain, these images are also serving as inspiration for how I plan to tackle the technical element of lighting was the environment scene has made the process of being imported into Unreal as to make the lighting match the atmosphere of the snowy scene and to ensure to create lighting that brings out the colourful aspects of low poly environment itself.