Author: Jess Howard

This project has developed a lot as I have progressed with it, in terms of added narrative, style and execution. The choice of making this into a game tutorial simulation was arguably what brought this project to life, but first I would like to discuss the style of this project and how it was making this.

Surprisingly, the hardest part of this project was making everything look stylised. While stylistic modelling and texturing look simpler, the process of creating it was harder for me to successfully do than making photorealistic models and textures. This wasn’t expected, however, I feel it was this way because, during my master’s degree, I have been learning how to create realistic VFX, almost photorealistic, so changing my mindset while creating this project was hard to adjust to. I had to go back on some textures or models and simplify them, and make it look more ‘cartoon-like’. It also required a lot of hand-drawn textures, something which I had not explored yet.

This offered a huge learning journey for me, which is something I wanted to achieve with my FMP anyway. I wanted to try out something I hadn’t explored before so I could learn during the process, but also have variation for my portfolio after my degree ends.

Overall, the development of this project has also been a stand-out for me. Originally, it was meant to be just a showcase room, but turning it into a game tutorial offered an insight into my game design skills, and also gave this project a lot more depth, adding a story and narrative gave my project a reason and substance rather than just showcasing my models and texturing. I took this layer even further and managed to write a story that can be presented nect to my project in the exhibition, giving even more character to this project.

Animation was also a huge part of this project and something that I also developed. This added another layer that I can show in my portfolio for the future.

If I could improve on this project in any way, I would develop fire and particle simulation a bit more, I showcased this in my personal project, however, it would have been a great addition to this project also. Some obstacles preventing me from doing this however were time, and not wanting my project to look too modern or less stylised. I managed to add volumetric lighting however in place for this, which transformed my project completely, and would have been missing something without.

I am extremely happy with this project, and most of all it was so enjoyable to create. I have always been a huge fan of fantasy, and it was like watching my imagination be brought to life as I developed this project. I would love to develop this game and story in the future, so it has also brought exciting opportunites for me.

Having finished my main project, I showed it to some peers, and my course leader. There were no major improvements identified for me to change, so I decided to work on my story of the basis of ‘Realmscape’ to set next to my project at the exhibition this week. I felt as though this gave more of a backstory to my project, and would be a great addition, an idea my course leader had given me too.

I already had been coming up with the lore for Realmscape as I was doing my project, so the story came quite easy for me to put together. I found relevant illustrations to accompany this story, and it is now ready to print. Please click on and scroll through to read:

This week I finished my project, leaving only my help with the exhibition set up and Realmscape story to go in the exhibition left to do.

I started by identifying the missing frames by running a script, assisted with AI, made with help from someone I know:

I then re-rendered these images, and added them to my Nuke file. This was then sucessfully rendered out.

I moved this across to DaVinci Resolve, where I found I could comply the exr images together on there, and colour correct on this software instead. Ultimately, using the exr image sequence directly from davici resulted in better quality, and the colour correction was more beneficial on here also, so I used this instead. I colour corrected my sequence as the raw images were very dark, so it was as I rendered it in Arnold render view in Maya, ensuring the lighting was as I wanted, and saturation/contrast levels were the best they could be/

I decided to then find an image to use as the speech decal where the text would be shown as the narration for the game tutorial. I found a simple curved rectangle and imported this to DaVinci.

I changed the opacity and size of this box, and this was my base for the narration. I then returned to the script I had made and synched all the narration up with my sequence. I picked a font which would look like it’s typing out, and that had a retro stylized look to it.

I then decided to find a royalty free fantasy soundtrack to go in the back of my video. I went through a lot of songs, trying to find one that had peaks of excitement and troughs of delicacy at appropriate times for my project. This was important as the sound can add to the viewers experience and add emotion at appropriate times. I found a perfect soundtrack that synced up and lasted the exact amount my video was and imported this into my project.

I then thought something was missing, and this was the feeling of selecting items when the narration prompts the ‘player’ to in this game tutorial simulation. I wanted it to feel as though the viewer was actually witnessing what the gameplay would be. I decided to add the animation of arrows selecting what item you were interacting with.

I then decided to add the sound of selection when this appeared each time. I found a sound that perfectly fit in with the game, a mellow clicking select sound whenever the arrows would appear.

I then added the introduction I had made in Unreal Engine, and got this to fade out and into the beginning of my image sequence, which completed my video, and rendered this out. This concluded my main project, and I was really happy that I now have a few weeks to think about any improvements I could add and make my background story for the exhibition.

This week was my final week to complete the two week task of rendering out my base render without any graphic narration overlay added. This required a lot of waiting for the render, planning ahead and troubleshooting, meaning there wasn’t too much practical work to document this week.

I decided to render my scene out by using the render farm at university, as it was taking way too much time and power on my laptop. I am really glad I allowed myself a week for this task as there were multiple troubleshooting issues I had to overcome. These included:

1. Making my file paths all linked for my textures when using the remote desktop ready for the render. – (Overcome by editing file paths).
2. Time. My render was estimated to take five days. – (Luckily it only took two days).
3. Realising I didn’t have the correct animation rendering on one part – (Overcome by re-rendering these 100 or so frames to the same file path and writing over them).
4. EXR images wouldn’t render into an mov file in Nuke. – (Overcome by uploading the images onto my own laptop and doing it directly from Nuke on there).
5. Size of all images was huge, meaning transferring them was difficult and time consuming. – (No resolution to this but forward thinking of allowing more time than planned).

Eventually, I was able to submit these images to nuke, and add colour correction, and render this out swiftly.

However, I realised that there were frames missing, that must have been lost in the many layers of transfers that happened. My task for next week is to re render on Nuke the mov with the missing frames which will be easy to add to the file directory when I run a script on what the missing frames are and repeat the process of writing the sequence out as an mov, using the same Nuke script I have made previously.

After this has been completed, I am going to start working on the overlay of graphics and speech narration.

While I was waiting for the render this week, I researched the best software to do this on. I came to the conclusion I would be using DaVinci Resolve, as this will have professional looking results, has the elements I need for this project, and I am familiar with this software.

This week I worked on finishing touches to my project before conducting my test render. This included slight changes to animation and lighting.

After my meeting with my course leader, I decided to add volumetric lighting in Maya to my room. I thought this would add detail to the room and showcase some more skill without taking away from the stylized look.

I looked up some tutorials and gathered that using spotlights to create a ray-of-light look was the best option.

I created a spotlight, turned up the intensity and exposure and changed the colour.

I then adjusted the direction of light to appear through the window, and adjusted the intensity and exposure levels to look more blended.

Then, I added the same to the white window, creating a white ray of light.

I did the same to the other final blue window.

This is the view of all my lights from an upwards perspective.

I then decided that being that my windows are somewhat transparent, they needed a background of trees outside. I made this by using a jpeg as a texture on a plane of a stylised environment and placing them at angles behind the windows and doors in which the camera would be able to see them.

I then decided to key frame a golden beam that would show when the chest was opened. I key framed the size of the beam and placed it above the staff.

Lastly, I noticed my render included quite a bit of noise. I added the denoise (noice) element to arnold render, which improved this massively.

Next week my aim is to render out my scene fully. I will allow some time for troubleshooting also.