Go team!

It’s been a busy week for the group, 10 – 9 stretches in the labs, problems with perspective and asset sizing and an unholy list of bad puns in an attempt to settle on a team name but by Friday night we had something to show for it, a scene in engine with the main bulk of its assets in place.

We still have a few things to do, some more assets need completing, some changes need to be made to existing ones including the bar I made which needs a remodel on the curve to fit the scene. I’ve also noticed a few problems with it I want to address while I’m there and finally of course, the lighting needs building.

Having gotten a fair bit of our stuff in engine on the Friday we’re working a little bit ahead of schedule which has given use a small window of time to go back and improve the accuracy of the models.

I started working in engine a little earlier than everyone else to get the neon signs working but in having achieved that I seem to have been dubbed ‘the closest to a lighting expert we have’, this isn't even close to true considering the signs use emissive textures and not lights but eager to remain helpful this weekend has been a crash course in lighting and using Blueprints in Unreal 4.

Searching the internet didn't turn up a lot of information or tutorials for what I was looking for so through trial and error and a rehashed UDK set up I managed to create a material that flickers for the sign in the window. The original set up had a second branch connected to it which causes more variation in the flicker but the result seems a bit too fast and excessive so it was simplified again.

I also sent this week working on my third task for the scene which was the outside view from the window. Originally we'd intended to have this part be just two painted planes but with room in the budget we decided that creating some simple geometry would be preferable so be able to capture shadows and a sense of depth that wouldn't be achievable with a flat image.   

It was interesting to see what could be achieved with just smoothing groups and normal maps but there where still issues with this approach such as our view from the original image window was blocked by characters so there was a lot of estimating. The box geometry was useful for this too, with the ability to move the position of the buildings we were able to make adjustments to try and force the perspective to match the image.

So far our group work has been going well, everyone has been working well together and we're pleased with the results so far and we're hoping to be finished very soon.