#this made me realize how much i get distracted rendering 😭

[blackskorpi0n]

process behind my last render 🌚

[roboromantic]

idk if it was just the bad timing of when we were working w/Unity vs Unreal or if it's bc we're making interior props now vs houses or WHAT, but I am finding Unreal soooooooooo much easier to work with. I do still have the problem of wanting 3D modeling features when this is y'know, a game engine, but I actually am excited to work more on this project.

All we had to do for the first part was make some props for our rooms but I kinda. didn't make that many bc I Had to figure out how to make an interaction prompt and make the character teleport when you interact with it

also I spent WAY too long try to make a hollow sphere out of geometry (which is the only thing we were supposed to use for models) and the normals just REFUSED to work. I'd try to flip the normals on one object and random faces on other objects that absolutely were not selected would flip.

For the hollow sphere I made one sphere with the normals facing inwards and a slightly larger one with the normals facing out bc there doesn't seem to be any way to all I should have to do is put the smaller one inside the other. no matter WHAT I did, the normals would flip or just fucking. disappear entirely or something.

. I am realizing now that using a subtractive probably woulda worked just fine but also I feel like I tried that and had issues? I think I tried to change the render order and it changed for EVERY subtractive, which didn't work for the others

I eventually managed to get it to work by using shapes instead of geometry but geez. I wish I could just make models in Blender and import them 😭

We originally had to make 3 rooms with 3-4 props per room and between me not having much time or any real ideas and getting distracted by trying to figure out how to do stuff that is absolutely not relevant to the project my rooms uh. ended up rather sparse compared to other people's levels

I think honestly now that I have more time, experience, and ~inspiration~ I might just remake most of the level lmao. also we were taught how to make emissive textures today so you better BELIEVE I'm gonna use those everywhere. gonna make an evil scientist lair with Ominous Glowing Tubes and a Giant Evil Mech

My first room was vaguely nature themed bc well. we could use the default props and it wasn't hard to make a cylinder, slap a wood texture and two bushes on it and call it a tree. or take a couple cylinders and give them brick and water textures for a pond

so one thing I wanted to do was make a sun lamp as the source of lighting but what if. Evil park where the sun lamp has an evil grin. maybe try to make a basic mutant animal thing. keep the nature theme going while tying it into the idea of an evil lair

Room 2 didn't get much love but I wanted it to at least hint at a puzzle, so what if I made something basic where you have to solve the (very easy bc I ain't got THAT much time) puzzle to open the door to the next room

The next room was meant to be an art gallery but I only had one abstract statue I made and the default prop statue with different materials applied and scaled up, lmao. tbf I used that as the object you interact with to teleport back to room one so. anyway it can be an EVIL art gallery showcasing EVIL trophies of the scientist's's's's heists

we have to add 2 more rooms (and they have to be physically connected, so I can't just use the teleport to move to room 4 😔) so I maybe interacting w/one of the art things opens a ~secret entrance~ to the big EVIL lab.

and then from there I kinda wanna make an elevator that takes you to room 5, aka the Giant Evil Mech bay.

is this overly ambitious? almost certainly! am I gonna have fun doing my damnedest to get it to work? absolutely!