"Two-Sided Sun" BLOG
"Soleil à Deux Faces"
SCAD: VSFX 408 | Studio 1
“To romanticize the world is to make us aware of the magic, mystery and wonder of the world; it is to educate the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite."
-Novalis
PROJECT BRIEF
Create a 2-4 minute visual narrative combining both visual and auditory elements showcasing Unreal Engine game environment skills.
MOOD BOARD
AUDIO
VOICEOVER WORK BY ELOÏSE KIMBERLEY
(HEADPHONES RECOMMENDED)
Sunsets. In alluring beauty they are the amber of the sky waning goodnight. The rays between shadows so brilliant and calm, a pale golden as my sunset’s flaxen hair. Her smile so bright as sunflower fields in the hearth of July. And from that smile a laugh so sweet as honeysuckle blooms. Within the jewel of her azure eyes, she carries the vast sky enchanting admirers and passersby. My sunset.
With a spirit wilder than wildflowers, she went to see the world such as those golden rays peaking to corners of the earth. One of those rays shines on a scholar’s tower. A perennial visitor, she frequents the scholar locked in her lonely tower.
With a cordial trust, the scholar invites her in. They speak of the sun’s favorites, of warm spirits and cool wines.
But as each sun setting delivers a new sunrise, the scholar’s sunset finds herself lingering outside at the door longer than in. She watches as the flowers cease to wither and fade or how the fruit stays ripe like the grapes on vines never to grey.
The scholar senses a change in her sunset’s once humorous heart and after the passing of many moons began to master the art of those cool wines. With intense fervor she worked under the cover of night. Each careful drop produced the eau de vie as pure as her cerulean gaze. She gifted her sunset the prized liqueur; a pure reflection accompanied a sly smile in the red mirror.
With such delight from intoxicating aromas, her setting sun accepted the wine. And from the last touch of her lips...
She drew her last breath.
"Two-Sided Sun" | "Soleil à Deux Faces"
WRITER: EURI CHU
CO-WRITER: ALEXA PFEIFFER
This is not just a tragic love story between two women or solely about sexuality in modern thought. This poem is meant for an audience with an appetite for passion and logic for those seeking a deeper understanding of the Sunset’s death.
The early nineteenth century is what I consider the height of European history. I want this poem to embody the dualism between the Romantic and Neoclassical movements- a time where discovery was rich and alive: with the power of imagination and intuition, the intense feelings of the sublime, and the search for individual rights and liberties in contrast to Classicism’s idealized tradition, order, and reason. Two contrasting movements were coexisting at the same time which further developed human growth and understanding of the natural world.
SUMMER PROGRESS
3 Work Phases:
PHASE 1. Summer (3 months)- writing, modeling, sculpting, UV work, voiceover work
PHASE 2. Fall Quarter, 1st Half (5 Weeks)- photogrammetry, texturing, creating foliage assets
PHASE 3. Fall Quarter, 2nd Half (5 weeks)- Niagara, UE4 or UE5 Implementation, video post-processing
THE SUBLIME
The sublime in Edmund Burke's definition is a terror so great where "this heightened state of astonishment, where reason is driven out by “an irresistible force”, and 'the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain another', is more terrible to us when it is accompanied with a sense of the unknown (or what Burke calls obscurity). For Burke, obscurity is an absence of clarity..." (wordsworth.ork.uk). The sublime is emotional with a feeling of awe or grandeur such as viewing the powerful presence of nature.
Without diving into a long description creating a poem of itself, the following are bullet pointed components that create the visual part of this poem's dreamy utopia:
Exterior:
-Sunsets
-Warmth
-Golden
-Hills of France's countryside
-Blooming flowers
-Summer
-Buzzing insects
-Statue of Persephone
-Abandoned conservatory
-Aged brick
-Gothic Architecture
-Symmetry
-Overgrowth
-Double Staircase
Foyer:
-Dormant Fountain
-Vines
-Aged Neoclassical paintings
-Tall Ceiling
-Sunbeams
Atrium:
-Golden Hour
-Marble table
-Love letter
-Pressed flower
-Garden
-Tools
-Windows
-Aged metal frame
-Wine
-Pomegranate Tree
-Spiral Staircase
-Scholar's workshop
-Library
-Alchemy
RESEARCH
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Romanticism: “individual imagination and intuition in the enduring search for individual rights and liberty”
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Neoclassicism: “Age of Enlightenment who wanted their artwork and architecture to mirror, and carry the same set of standards, as the idealized works of the Greeks and Romans
The setting of "Two-Sided Sun" takes place in among the hills of France's countryside. To illustrate the dualism between both Neoclassicism and Romanticism movements, I wanted the first half of the building to represent the Neoclassicism which began in around the 1760s and the heart of the building, the atrium, to symbolize the latter movement, Romanticism which began late 18th century. The exterior of the building would be in the fashion of gothic architecture. While the Gothic era pre-dates both movements, it was appropriate to give this style to the entrance as this building would have been erected for hundreds of years to show decay and antiquity. The conservatory/atrium part of the building may be an extension that was built. To logically place the scholar in this building, we would have to assume that the conservatoire again has been abandoned for unknown reasons and the scholar decided to make this her dwelling and nurture life to the place and serve its purpose once more.
INTIAL MODELING
First Block-out
First Block-out
Quick nature/exterior visualization
Initial UV grouping
More details of doorway
Double staircase detail, refining block-out GEO
Initial Atrium/Interior development
Addition of ornamental pieces
Pomegranate tree size scale
UV work & grouping
This is the first project where I decided to learn ZBrush. My first impressions of the program were that there were a lot of buttons named with different terms compared the Maya. The controls were a bit difficult to get used to but came naturally afterwards. The sculpting process to make embellishments that I wouldn't be able to do with precision using Maya or Substance Painter was amazing. I plan to continue my exploration of ZBrush to create High poly models for baking normal maps.
MAYA ARNOLD WIREFRAMES
Exterior 1
Exterior 1 warm tint (Photoshop)
Exterior 2
Atrium Scale
Workshop 1- Atrium
Workshop 1-Atrium warm tint (Photoshop)
To preserve draw calls/rendering time in UE4 or UE5 the conservatory is not built entirely "in the round." The back side of the conservatory is incomplete due to reaching about 500,000 faces in total. I am considering using UE5 to use the nanite system for some of the assets that are duplicated such as the foliage assets which have not been created yet. Many of the smaller details will go to texturing.
Above are the smaller objects modeled (Left to Right): wax box, wax seal, ink bottle, books, envelope, quill, alembic, chalice.
The chalice is one of the hero assets to this piece and despite the heavy amount of polygons, I have decided to keep the high polygon version. I was considering to bake normals for the chalice, but the reliefs in the metal would look more realistic with GEO compared to the flat low poly version with normals baked into it.
CLASS 2 | SEPTEMBER 14, 2021
SUBSTANCE DESIGNER WORK
As a believer in creating and sourcing my own work to the most of my ability, I started to create my own textures procedurally in Substance Designer. Reference plays a big role in creating textures to mimic accuracy and realism. Application to the geometry would be the next step in the process after texture creation in Substance Painter.
NEXT GOAL: Finish Procedural textures in Designer, start gathering reference
images of Romantic/Neoclassical Paintings for look dev
REFERENCE
BRICK 1
WINDOW CIRCULAR
POMEGRANATE LEAF
DATURA LEAF
I don't have any pomegranate or Datura leaves on hand so I attempted to make them in Designer. The leaves are by far the trickiest texture to procedurally create since Substance Designer can't place/rotate textures on 2D points as you would think in a Houdini procedural model. I do have to credit Bullet CG's method to achieve the veining effect. I am considering to photograph similar leaves native in Savannah as a substitute for better realism and create textures though that method.
POMEGRANATE SKIN 1
POMEGRANATE SKIN 2
CLASS 3 | SEPTEMBER 19, 2021
SUBSTANCE DESIGNER WORK (CONTINUED)
OAK PLANKS 1
OAK PLANKS 2
FEATHER
WOOD 2
CORK
MARBLE (WITH CRACKS)
GOTHIC WINDOW (TOP)
FLOOR TILES
CREATING SEAMLESS TEXTURES FROM PHOTOGRAPHY
OAK BARK 1
OAK BARK 2
OAK BARK 3
LEAVES (ORIGINAL PHOTO)
EXTRACTED ALPHA + COLOR
BUSH TEXTURE
TEXTURES FROM PHOTOGRAPHY
Most of nature is not procedural like the textures coming out of Substance Designer. It is true that the veins of leaves, sea shells, snowflakes, or even Romanesco broccoli follow their own mathematical formula, but everything in nature especially plants have variation to them because not one is the same as the other. When it comes to plants, the human eye has an excellent way of deducing which was created artificially, so I decided to photograph bark for the trees in my scene as well as a bush and some leaves.
PROCESS
Since I can't photograph oak trees or shrubs native to France, I decided to photograph 3 American Oak tree bark outside in Savannah, GA, as well as some bushes and an interesting purple-veined leaf from Atlanta, GA.
I brought the bark and the bush photos into Photoshop to make them into seamless textures in order for them to repeat and tile without visible breaks. To do so, I saved it in a 2048 x 2048 texture size then "removed" the break of the image by offsetting half the size amount (1048 pixels) and using the clone stamp tool to grab information elsewhere in the photo to seal or cover the end of the image in order to mimic that it is repeating.
I will then use these seamless images to create my roughness, normal, and ambient occlusion maps.
As for the purple-veined leaves, I extracted the leaves using the wand selection tool and adjusted it using the Puppet Warp in Photoshop. I will be using this to construct a low-poly shrub to fill of the ground of my scene.
LOOK DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH
Look development is always important when it comes to visualizing something completed in CGI. I want this project to invoke a sense of "digital sublime" when looking at this conservatory glowing in a setting sun. Most of these paintings were created during the Romanticism period of both European and North American artists, they are perfect visual examples.
The clouds in Bierstadt, Cole, and Church's works are common elements of the Romanticism sublime. I want something similar in my scene of those clouds closer to Bierstadt's "Among the Sierra Nevada, California." I don't necessarily want such looming cloud formations that of a coming storm, but rather the shape and the vast volume that they overtake.
I included Chardin's still life pieces to start thinking about camera movements and shots in the conservatory. I am considering having game cinematic movements be the transitions and the focal points have compositions similar to Chardin's still lives within the building. It is still just research so far, since I know camera movements and planning out this 3 1/2 minute video is subject to change when I do pre-vis vs. editing and the final cut.
CLASS 4 | SEPTEMBER 21, 2021
Not everything will go as planned during a project. I ran into a lot of technical difficulties the past 2 days with transferring of files from classroom to personal computer, as well as Adobe Creative Cloud sign-in issues. I intended to make progress modeling extra pieces surrounding the conservatorium like gazebos and a walking bridge, but instead decided to refine the main building.
Aside from UV optimization and small refinements, the biggest change was applying windows to the foyer walls for more detail. I replaced the previous wall that was made of 1 wall geo and 4 brackets. The new version has windows separate for it's own texturing and the outer wall and inner walls are now 1 mesh.
Next steps for Class 5 presentation:
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Export meshes and start applying textures in Substance Painter
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Bring most of the textured models into UE4
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Lighting, I may not achieve in time for project's sunset lighting situation
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Purpose to render turntables
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OLD VERSION
NEW VERSION
Out of curiosity, I tried to make a tree in Houdini with my primitive knowledge of the program since they have a SideFX Labs toolkit for it as an alternative to SpeedTree. As I was constructing it, I realize that I don't exactly have enough time to figure out texturing, adding effects like wind, and how to export it. Every adjust I made required about 5 seconds to compute.
For the sake of time, I will default to SpeedTree for its name: creating tree assets fast. It is already packaged as a program to export the entire asset as a .ST file into Unreal with the model and animation information in it. The only downsides to SpeedTree is that the program looks like it hasn't been updated in a while with old guides online and there isn't really room to modify or add small details to the trees (as you would in a painting application) because it is procedural.
CLASS 5 | SEPTEMBER 26, 2021
CLASS 5 CHECKPOINT
EXTERIOR, TREES, & WIND
By class 5, I managed to texture the entrance of the conservatory as best as I could in a short amount of time. It looks rather bare as I intend to do some set dressing and cover the exterior with foliage. I exported the objects from Maya to reconstruct in Unreal Engine. Then in the engine, I connected all the exported maps from Substance Painter to the appropriate material of each set.
I also created an oak tree in SpeedTree based off of this tree reference located in Brocéliande Forest in Brittany, France. Due to time constraints, I wasn't able to emulate it exactly especially the first tier of branches which are incredibly long and angled more towards the sky. I plan to go back and fix the branches.
An issue that I ran into was implementing wind from SpeedTree to Unreal Engine. I inserted a Wind Directional Source and changed each material's SpeedTree Node wind type to "BEST." I believe I may need to increase the wind settings in SpeedTree drastically, and then adjust then Wind Directional for a more subtle breeze. As you can see in the comparison, the leaves are not rustling as I adjusted in SpeedTree.
I was not able to do any terrain sculpting for a preview of what the opening shot of this short film would look like. My current challenge after today for midterm is trying to get most of this entire conservatory textured in order to allocate time to create a pre-vis of what the camera movements are with most of the assets present.
CLASS 7 | OCTOBER 3, 2021
FIRST CAMERA MOVES
TO-DO LIST
-Animatic
-Terrain modeling (heightmap)
-Modeling Details in Conservatory Atrium
-Texture Atrium
-Fix Entrance textures
-Modeling In-door decorative assets
-Texture Decorative assets
-Model Plants (trees, bush, plants)
-Photogrammetry: statue and column, photograph/setup, re-mesh
-UE4 lighting
-Custom Clouds
-Niagara FX
-Post
ANIMATIC AND TIME MANAGEMENT
Here are the first camera move ideas for how the animation will be. The landscape, lighting, or foliage placement is not how I want the final version to look. Due to time, I quickly created fillers for the environment to showcase the camera moves. However, the camera movements and compositions are highly dependent on the environment and 3D models that I do not have yet, so this is not final.
I was very dissatisfied with how the atrium looked when I started to rush and texture this while working on the animatic as well as work beyond this class. I restarted the Atrium architecture for cleaner geometry and adding more detail. After much consideration writing down what I had to do to complete this project, it is a definite that it will not be 100% completed by week 10. I find myself struggling to balance artistry/quality and rushing to complete work for a checkpoint.
CLASS 8 | OCTOBER 5, 2021
Not as much progress for two days due to balancing other work. I UV unwrapped most of the new atrium. I left the most challenging part for last which is the roof beams and windows. The screenshots have some clipping due to the viewport camera. I am much happier with the result of this newer version.
Next plans before CLASS 10 presentation is to create stand-in objects/actors for the animatic and finish most of the intended camera moves.
CLASS 9 | OCTOBER 11, 2021
ANIMATIC VERS. 2
The animatic is finished with most of the intended camera moves. The lighting has not been worked on, but specific shots have notes on the top left hand of the screen. There is a scene that I would like to have which is the slow-motion of the chalice tipping over and the wine slowly spilling as a dynamic scene. This is more visual effects heavy so it would have to be constructed in Houdini. I am not familiar with any fluid simulations nor the pipeline to bring sims or animation from Houdini into Unreal, but I am willing to attempt and learn it before making the decision to outsource and ask another artist.
As notes for the audio from a previous review, a comment was made that the audio was flat or needed better mixing, so I double checked to make sure the audio was not set to "mono" and it is in a stereo setting so that the sound goes to both Left and Right outputs. It may need work by a sound designer, but that would be towards the last of my tasks as I try and get the main portion of this project completed.
CLASS 11 | OCTOBER 18, 2021
Texturing of the Atrium/Laboratory is coming along. It took some time to add variation of the wood and the walls as well as stamping details to the balusters and wall panels. Progress is rather slow, but I do want the texturing process to be close to perfect since the visuals are a big portion of selling the story of this piece. I decided that this project would be completed either the end of this year in December or carried on to Studio 2.
I am unsure how to texture the wood portion of the top atrium windows.
CHOICE 1: I originally want it to be that the window panels are replaced with wood panels to block out light shining directly on the lab area. I was thinking wood paneling along with a sort of curtain or drape hanging from the ceiling in addition to adding this effect. I would maybe have to create another wood texture to better show it is paneling
CHOICE 2: Instead of taking the time to create another wood texture, I would instead have the ceiling and the surrounding walls be overgrown by vines and hanging plants for that side of the building. (Below, Image without wood and instead overgrown vines and plants)
CLASS 12 | OCTOBER 20, 2021
INTERIOR TEXTURES CONTINUED
The wood grain scaling for the second floor and the wood paneling to block out the windows now has variation and visible planks. Most of the Atrium part has texture except for the exterior walls and the spiral staircase. Dirt and normal information has been added to the interior walls. The textures still need Ambient Occlusion to simulate the look of depth and shadows since currently, the overall look still appears flat.
Next Steps:
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Finish Atrium textures
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Begin Hero asset textures for Lab area
CLASS 13 | OCTOBER 25, 2021
BUILDING TEXTURES COMPLETED
Conservatory Entrance and Atrium textures are now completed. The Staircase and side entrances are now finished. The exterior of the building has brick and a stone foundation at the bottom with moss (Top Left and Right).
I revisited my textures for the Entrance and added Opacity to the window elements. I ran into an issue where all my textures were deleted so I had to re-export. This means that all file connections in Unreal Engine are broken (the engine cannot find the image file path/name).
The biggest parts that was time consuming was adding opacity and going through each interior map to add ambient occlusion (Bottom Left). It is the subtle details that adds realism.
I plan to start with a clean slate apart from my animatic engine files and import the new edited geometry and textures and build upon a new scene for the final. Next update will show engine implementation and beginning of texturing the hero assets.
19TH CENTURY FRENCH CHALICES
https://www.barnebys.com/auctions/lot/french-silver-gilt-and-silver-plated-chalice-late-19th-century
Chardin, Still Life with Bottle, Glass, and Loaf (1888)
THE POISONED CHALICE
A question had come up with what the chalice or cup would look like and the choice to keep it a metal chalice was deliberate.
Above are images of French Chalices made in the 19th century. The glass in Chardin's piece is similar to a whiskey glass or the fashion of a tumbler (modern whiskey glasses have curvature). I want to avoid a hero asset made of glass because calculating caustics in any 3D platform is extremely expensive. Therefore, I am opting to keep the chalice as metal such as the examples above. I also wanted to keep the chalice compared to the commoner's whiskey glass because the chalice appears more feminine, special, and gifted like a prize.
CLASS 14 | OCTOBER 27, 2021
NEW TEXUTRES IMPLEMENTED IN UNREAL ENGINE
New textures and assets for the entrance and Atrium are now in a fresh level of the engine. There seems to be a problem with the opacity maps of the round part of the Atrium and the roof panels. The roof panels have opacity and can be seen from the outside-in but not inside-out as it should be. The round wall part does not seem to be casting any shadows like the columns. I exported the textures from Substance Painter as Unreal 4 (Packed) to preserve space meaning layers like metallic, roughness, ambient occlusion, are stored into the RGB channels of the texture.
I managed to crash Substance Painter. One of my texture sets had 18 layers of 4K map information and the program couldn't handle any more layer information like Photoshop and crashed every time I tried to add another layer.
CLASS 15:
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Turn-table of Atrium
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1 Night shot of the lab with most hero assets textured
CLASS 15 | OCTOBER 31, 2021
CLASS 15 CHECKPOINT: NIGHT SHOTS
CLASS 17 | NOVEMBER 3, 2021
CONTINUED MODELING
After self-evaluation of the night shots created for the class 15, the lab needs more variation and detail to it in order to give it more life so I modeled and UV un-wrapped some scrolls, a scroll box, vase with scrolls, and a barrel.
Notes from class 15:
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Main lab table too clean (texture edits)
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Moonlight color adjustment
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Add new items for shelf close-up shot
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Add Fresnel to the glass materials in the scene
I am considering to switch to ray-tracing enabled (slows down the computer) in order to achieve further realism after final adjustments to environment.
CLASS 17 | NOVEMBER 8, 2021
ADDED SHOT
SUBSTANCE PAINTER
Created a sunset shot for the first two lab scenes. All of these shots are purely from the game engine renders (no post-editing in terms of color grading). Still have yet to adjust the night shots of the moonlight, the candle textures, Fresnel on all the glass materials, and the table textures. Added a "replica painting" of Woman Picking Flowers, a fresco from Pompeii.
Cannot render the scene leading up the spiral staircase due to lack of items on the first floor. Will need to continue modeling assets to fill the scene for the lower floor below the lab.
CLASS 18 | NOVEMBER 10, 2021
ADDITIONAL DETAILS
Added the main furniture for the downstairs area and some lights in the foyer section up front. I wanted an ornate planter that was also in the fashion of functional benches as well as two table variations.
The last items on my list to create for final delivery:
-A few gardening tools
-Chardin picnic scene (for center table)
-Terracotta pots
-1 more painting variation
CLASS 18 | NOVEMBER 10, 2021
FINAL TOUCHES