Monday 27 May 2013

Flythrough

My first run at my flythrough. Just seeing the timing and speed of it all really so that once I'm happy enough with it I'll build the lighting at production and then render it out at a higher quality.

Sunday 26 May 2013

Just some really quick updates whilst I work away on the flythrough and getting my final renders in order. This is just a quick render of how it all looks finished properly with all the correct post processing and stuff. I know it's not dramatically different from the previous render but it's as it stands now I guess.


And now for something completely different. Been going back to my other scenes for a bit. Recently been trying to get the plume of fire and smoke after the second explosion to look better. The one on the left is the original and the one on the right is the reworked one. It's a little on the expensive side so I'll definitely have to strip it back. It's a shame because I really like how it turned out using both faked lit particles and macro UVs. Unfortunately what pushes it completely over the top is the use of UV distortion so that'll have to be the first thing to come out. But it's fun to experiment with these things.


And then here's how it looks with the reworked plume. This still needs so much work. When I'm done with this I think I'm going to have to really practice my fire and explosion effects a lot. They're just so dull and lack the visual impact that they really should, especially my explosions. But the next couple of days I'm going to be working on some new flipbooks for the fire to hopefully break up the repetition. And other than really working and reworking the explosions, I'll be adding in a glass shattering effect from the store after the initial explosion. Just to try and tie it into the environment a bit more.




Wednesday 22 May 2013

Final Render Ideas

So as promised, just took a quick look around my scene to see if I could find any interesting angles. Unfortunately, whilst a simple street scene is great for it's ease to produce it becomes very difficult to find interesting angles for renders. Below are just some of the angles I was looking at. But first, just to show the difference between post processing and the use of colour look up tables. Such a useful feature.



The latter is with the colour look up table applied. I really tried to sap some of the blue out of the scene as I was gradually going more and more overboard with it to the point where it had completely washed the whole scene out. Below is a selection of angles I was looking at.








Some are obviously stronger than others. But as I've mentioned prior, being such a simple scene I'm almost restricted to simple single point perspective shots. I really like the portrait shot, but if I'm to commit to it I'll have to play around with the field of view angle and drastically reign in the bloom as it completely overpowers the whole shot. Other than that I really like the last one and the couple in the middle. Once I've decided on which I like most and which I think are strongest it'll then just be a case of finesseing it before taking my final renders.

More Rain

Just a quick update. I've fixed a few things that I'd forgotten about but most importantly I finally found a good method for making better rain. So it looks much more coherent now. Unfortunately my PC is lagging the level a fair old bit at the moment so it wasn't until I uploaded this video that I realised that the misty elements I have in the new emitter are moving way too fast, but that's such an easy fix it doesn't bare talking about.


Now I'm onto the last little bits. Most of my day will be tweaking the post processing and trying to find a nice angle or two for the final screenshots. So you should probably expect an update either later today or tomorrow of several different angles whilst I deliberate over which looks best.

Monday 20 May 2013

Nearly There

So I'm almost at the end of this project. Finally, it's been such a long project. But I've added in the cloth and lantern animations, and whilst they're not perfect by any means, but they do add a lot to the scene by making it feel that bit more viable. So I thought I'd give you a look at how everything is in level now.


Like I said, I'm almost there. The only things left to do though are more tweaking things and doing some post processing. But it's so close to being done :)

Saturday 11 May 2013

Updates on my other projects

So in between working on my FMP I've also been working on some side projects as you probably know, so I thought I'd just give a quick update on where they're at. 

This is the progress so far on my explosion scene. I've just block out the second explosion kind of just roughing out it's timing about and the scale. Like I said it is just roughing it out so there are some timing issues and the biggest problem right now is trying to figure out how to blend the fire with the explosion without it looking like it's just sitting there unaffected.



And then this is that magic spell thingy that I was working on a while back that I finished a week or two ago but just forgot to upload here I guess.

 

Friday 10 May 2013

Lantern Animation Test

I think I've now entered the stage where I'm doing final tweaks and adding in the little details now. Yesterday I made a couple of decals for like grunge and splatter for the base of the walls and roll up doors to emulate the build up from people walking around in a damp wet alleyway. I also created some leaking damp decals to put around things like air vent and air conditioner units to replicate the build up underneath such assets. 

But a couple of days ago I made a quick animation for the lanterns. It's only a quick test more than anything to see how they would look in UDK. However I'm having some trouble getting it to work. I don't know what I'm doing wrong as I've never imported an animation before so I'm sure my next couple of days will be looking up tutorials just to get it in, to which I'll probably find I'll need to redo it anyway.





Monday 6 May 2013

The Actual Level

So I realised that I've put up a lot of progress shots but I've not actually put up anything of it actually in real time yet. So you've not been able to see it all working properly. This is still a WIP so obviously there's stuff that needs tweaking and changing. But here it is anyway.


Watching it back I see that I need to work on the splashes, they pop too much and come up to high and are much too opaque so they're kind of drawing the attention way. I know I've been harping on about it for a long time but there's still not enough rain. The shader and the water running for the awning give off a nice atmosphere but they imply a far heavier rain fall than the particle emitters are showing currently. So after so much tweaking I'm going to have to go back to it because it's just not enough.

Friday 3 May 2013

Updates and Paintovers

So not updated in a while so I thought I'd post up what I'm working on. Unfortunately there's not a massive change since the last post as it's mostly just tweaks at the moment. But I guess what I've been working on the most is just tweaking the amount of moisture and fog in the air. I also tweaked the steam vents finally.



I just did a quick paintover to of some more things that need to put in to just sell it a bit more. Basically just adding in some water cascading off of edges and make some grungey splashy decals for the walls and stuff. I also need to really get round to making some procedural animations for the hanging cloth and lanterns to make them look like they're blowing in the wind.

And now for something completely different. This is just a progress shot of how I'm getting on with my explosion stuff. The major things I need to fix is basically to make some more flipbooks, even if it's just like two then I can get a better sense of variety to make it look more natural. Other than that are the things that I need to add, like some large embers falling from the roof, and I'll make some glass shattering particle systems that follow the shockwave. And then I need to make the second explosion, which will be a lot of my focus at the moment.


So what's next? I need to get this explosion at least to a stage where all the elements are in so that I can ask for crit. Then I need to balance my time between the scene and other various fx to get the practice.