dagm_tsegaye’s submission — ENCOUNTER IN THE WILDS: 3D ENVIRONMENT ART CHALLENGE

Final Submission!
Video version:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q3Auxd4OLFTN6MXZvLULakUDMsTg5CN3/view?usp=sharing
Beauty shots:

1 / 4

Detailed Lighting:

1 / 2

Assets Used:

1 / 3

There are a lot of things I wish I could improve or fix but this challenge was exciting and frustrating at the same time. It's super awesome testing the skills I got from the online courses I took and finding a challenge to implement them on. I've learned a lot and the tools made here will help me with future projects.
Thank you for the opportunity!
P.S : Sorry for the presentation for the assets used, I ran out of time and got really exhausted with everything I got on my hand at the moment.

Well PCG is easy but I don't have a lot of time to experiment.
But I can extend the graph to populate the the end section of the enclosed area with some chopped wood so the scientists can populate the space. Instead I quickly used the usual foliage brush to place those.

1 / 2

Did a quick second pass for lighting, not final but I do like the color look up I have at the moment. Did also a quick grass pass, played around with their material instance.

1 / 2

1 / 3

Learning all these was fun. I don't think I'll have time to polish the tools and pcg to add a bit more feature and bug fix. I'll just move to preping renders.

Changes to the dressing

1 / 4

Added a bit more height to the ruin to anchor the power and presence of it across the scene.
I also did a very rough lighting adjustment to the map.
Light function
Created a light function to bridge the dynamic light with the artificial lights on placed on the floor and container walls. When it's daytime, the artificial lights are off and the night time they're back on. I had to make sure the presets each light had don't get affected when the time changes. Turns out it's easier than both of us thought.

Watch the magic
BTW, all I have to do is slap the light function onto any light, and it'll follow the logic.

Spline tool
Learned how to make this, still a bit finiky on the rotation but I'll figure that out later, for now I got it to how it should look. This can take variation of props.

Stacking tool
This broke my brain. It's still finiky with the gap setup, you'll still have to tweak controls to not get random gaps and spaws higher that z-0 for some reason.
See it in action:
Candle Spawner

Created a candle BP just like the Artificial lights
...but with more finiky results.

I found it to be a good reason to practice casting in BPs.
But it's so buggy and not working properly, I'll have to visit it after I'm done with other things....the list is stacking up!
I'm sure you can do it better than me, here is a course I followed and got inspired by Hopefully I'll get a time to have a cinematic render, I've made a VFx for the runic symbols to light up once the character enters a room it's in or gets close to the tomb it's written on:

This broke my brain 🙃
Positives:
Got the dynamic lighting to work with the art direction I want. I made this to learn using both Blueprints and Data assets to bridge material and prop usage quicker, easier with a dynamic look. And a good time to create tools for my future projects.

It's really cool, needless to say unreal engine is a beast. I can't wait to explore its possibilities on the remaining parts of this project/challenge.

Problem:
Final result needs tweaking and I don't know what's going wrong with

• Final render is not matching what I'm seeing in viewport, I'm assuming the timing set in the BP is not matching sequencer setup. It's not dynamic enough to adjust its self to changes in sequences, I'll have to expose the speed parameter to the sequencer to avoid some issues.

• There is a moment between around dawn where it all gets dark, I'm not sure how to resolve that, I've tried a lot of things, including angle of the sun not going all the way to 180 degree or controlling the lowest brightness the lights can have. Should be fixed after exposing speed parameter.

• I'm not very familiar with the new lighting setup requirements in unreal engine, I'm familiar with skydome + skylight + directional light BUT nothing involving sky atmosphere and dynamic light and lumen. The look on sky atmosphere is affecting skylight intensity too. It got tricky.
  Below is the dynamic atmosphere tool and the data assets it uses.
  

Volumetric Cloud setup and Sky dome, respectively.

1 / 2

If you want to learn how I made this check out this Udemy course Check it out! It's very easy to follow and very detailed.
Here

This took me a little while, and kinda drained me. I'll move on to other tools and dressing adjusments first, and if I get the time I'll get back to fixing these issues.

Before getting to the tool and lighting first pass, I've assembled the main parts and decided on the ground dressing prop.

Updated view of the large ruin. There are some pieces that look redundant, but it'll will be adjusted as I continue.
Up next, moving these assembled parts to sub-level streaming, testing out PCG for surrounding foliage, some tool testing to speed up dressing repetitive props around these pieces.

Continued dressing and modular combinations tests:

• Container office arrangements:

1 / 4

• Ground to larger ruin blend arrangement, this has the path to the large ruin into consideration via the rock stairs.

At the moment there are visible repeatign patterns but more dressing will improve the look:

I've split the ruin into 3 sections:

• Open ruin and Medium closing:

• Medium large building:

• Large building (WIP)

This is what I have in mind. This is just to help me visualize what props I'll need.
BUT, since I already had a vision, I already had a level where I dumped probable props I need to dress the map. This step helped confirm whether I already have the necessary props ready or if there will be more required.

1 / 2

Here is the prop dump map I have so far...I'll be working on updating this as if it's a list.

1 / 4

Next, more tour into the asset packs and maps with more blockout updates. Hopefully be done with this by the coming mid week.
PS: Its quite tricky migrating and fixing props,

After days without food or water in the forest, you'll find a research site of a ruin as the forest thins out. Just when you thought you're saved you'll notice eeriness across the site. The ruin seems ancient yet sinister, the patterns on the walls are clearly spells. No matter the hunger and thirst, it mezmerizes and calls out to you. It's almost certain why the camp is quiet, the ruin is not done with the world yet.
This research site is populated with the shipping containers the researchers built for their "short" stay. The place is abandoned, but no hint of a single researcher. There are hints here and there that something horrible happened.

1 / 2

Some reference for the ruin asset library composition.
Up next, I'll work on the a blockout in Blender to come up with a composition that can fit in the ruin, the research containers and some medieval props.
The amount of assets is very overwhelming and memory consuming, this blockout will dectate how much of the assets I need.

Why I joined the challenge:

• It's a good challenge to have a "limited" amount of Assets and make something out of them. This should be interesting as someone aspiring to be an environment artist. I want to test my story telling skill.
• I've been studying blueprints, this can be a good opportunity to put what I've learned to test.
  1. Day and night cycle, and more lighting tools
  2. PCG
  3. Dressing assisting tools
  4. Kit bashing and Composition

Not saying they'll all be applied, but this could push me a bit to atleast understand how they work.

• Cinematic video rendering and post processing
• More environments in my portfolio XD

I have read the terms and conditions and I'm in it for fun!