CGI foundation – Game Tec Creation

CGI foundation uwl level 4

INRODUCTON TO UNREAL ENGINES & epic games

Unreal Engine is a series of 3D computer graphics game engines developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter video game Unreal. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of genres of games and has been adopted by other industries, most notably the film and television industry. Unreal Engine is written in C++ and features a high degree of portability, supporting a wide range of desktop, mobile, console, and virtual reality platforms.

unreal engine – Tim Sweeney

Who owns Unreal Engine?

Epic Games has been the owner of Unreal Engine since its first official version was released in 1998.

It is likely to remain under the company’s ownership for the foreseeable future, as it is undeniably one of its most profitable assets.

Unreal has grown to become one of the most popular development engines, with many developers using it to create games of various sizes and genres. This includes VALORANT by Riot Games, Final Fantasy VII: Remake by Square Enix, and Epic’s own Fortnite.

Who created Unreal Engine?

Epic Games CEO and founder Tim Sweeney was the primary developer of the first version of Unreal Engine, which began development in 1995.

Sweeney stated that over the course of two years, he was responsible for “90 percent” of the engine’s code, including its graphics, tools, and networking system.

Unreal Engine was primarily created to be used in Epic’s first-person shooter Unreal, which received widespread acclaim for its impressive 3D graphics at the time and spawned a slew of sequels and spin-offs, including the Unreal Tournament series.

reference

unreal engine set up

Investigation:

- Interface Navigation
- Understanding Actors
- Project Management
- Navigate the Unreal Engine interface
- Organise and manage project

refences and inspiration

unreal engines set up

unreal engines the maze

Investigation:

Create a new Third Person Project called “ObstacleCourse”
several objects that uses physics and can be moved by the player.
walls to create a simple maze.
ramps and platforms for the player navigate.

refences and inspiration

nycammvfx unreal engines THE MAZE RUNNER project

unreal engines materials & texture

Materials in Unreal Engine define the surface properties of the objects in your scene. In the broadest sense, you can think of a Material as the “paint” that is applied to a mesh to control its visual appearance.

In more technical terms, Materials tell the render engine exactly how a surface should interact with the light in your scene. Materials define every aspect of the surface including color, reflectivity, bumpiness, transparency, and so on. These calculations are done using data that is input to the Material from a variety of images (textures) and node-based Material expressions, as well as from various property settings inherent to the Material itself.

reference

https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/unreal-engine-materials

unreal engines materials & texture

Investigation:

Introduction to the material editor
Creating basic materials using textures and nodes.
Understanding material parameters and attributes.
creating materials in Unreal Engine.
Master various material settings and attributes

refences and inspiration

nycammvfx unreal engines MATERIAL and textures CREATION project

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: MICHAEL GERARD BUILDS REALISTIC ENVIRONMENTS IN UNREAL ENGINE – Michael Gerard

Michael Gerard. An expert in environmental design and foliage, game development and complex level art, Michael like many artists, started 3D art from the comfort of his bedroom tinkering with the 3D tools and apps at his disposal. He quickly took the plunge into designing full-fledged 3D environments taking major inspiration from some of his personal favorite game titles.

Before diving into a brand new project, where do you take your inspiration from? How does your creative process start?

My inspiration comes more often from the games I play. The creative process always starts with taking references through photo modes. I take plants, ground textures, light and effects that I find interesting (fog, puddles, particles) but I also give importance to ambient sounds.

At what point in a project do you feel the need for using pre-made 3D assets?

When I start, I never know if the scene will have a video or not, but just in case, I have everything I need. Once the references are strong enough, I go through the Megascans library to list what I need.

And more often, I find exactly the 3D asset I’m looking for. Atlases, surfaces, rock models and details (sticks, debris…) – pretty much everything is already available for me to work with.

What does the initial scene creation process look like for you? Do you stick to a select list of tools?

I always start with the main terrain texture because it allows me to pre-set the lights. If I need to create a specific terrain or mountains to dress up the background, I will use different terrain software depending on the result I want. World Machine, World Creator or Gaea. I have a preference for Gaea because it allows the creation of incredible terrains quickly.

Then comes the vegetation like trees and various foliage to dress the scenes. Then the vegetation on the ground fills the space. At first, I put everything in a rough way to have a global view and readjust my models if needed.

Do you have any favorite artists / YouTubers you could share with us?

The list won’t be complete and I’m not going to talk about the vegetation artists, because there would be a lot of them, starting with those who worked on top AAA titles of the last few years.

Below are some artists whose work I really appreciate:

William Faucher’s knowledge is often very useful to me and I like the way he explains things. – https://www.youtube.com/c/WilliamFaucher

B.O.W’s art is always impressive to me. no matter if it is outdoor or indoor, it excels every time. – https://www.artstation.com/bowcn

The last artist is someone to watch. I have had the chance to work with him at Ubisoft and his talent impresses me every day. It’s been a while since he posted anything, but I still invite you to follow him for his next works. – https://www.artstation.com/jonathanperche

references

https://quixel.com/blog/2022/11/30/artist-spotlight-michael-gerard-builds-realistic-environments-in-unreal-engine

unreal engines geometry & landscape

Investigation:

Landscape toolset.
Creating, sculpting and apply materials to terrain.
the Foilage toolset.
Placing and customising foliage assets.
the Geometry brushes toolset.
Constructing and applying materials to basic geometry.

refences and inspiration

nycammvfx unreal engines landscape project

unreal engines lighting and reflections

Unreal Engine 4 has four light types: Directional , Point , Spot , and Sky . Directional lights are primarily used as your primary outdoor light or any light that needs to appear as if it is casting light from extreme or near infinite distances. Point lights are your classic “light bulb” like light, emitting light in all directions from a single point. Spot lights emit light from a single point, but have their light limited by a set of cones. Sky lights capture the background of your scene and apply it as lighting to your level’s meshes.

Below you will find links to quick references for each of the light types.

reference

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/BuildingWorlds/LightingAndShadows/LightTypes/

unreal engines lighting and reflections

Investigation:

introduction to lighting actors
static and dynamic reflection systems.
Reflection Capture Actors.

refences and inspiration

nycammvfx unreal engines lighting project

CAMERA OBSCURA: UNREAL ENGINE ARTIST MAUD CHAPUIS

WHAT IS YOUR NICHE CRAFT OBSESSION?

Creating backdrop environments in Unreal Engine, creating the scenes from scratch that integrate and house the story’s characters. For example, for award-winning short film Black Wing, I created all the underwater scenes and what I really enjoyed best was building out the texture to make the environment feel more realistic. Focusing in on bespoke details, such as the texture of the algae to suit an underwater world, really helps to achieve this.

WHERE/ WHEN/ HOW DID YOU FIRST COME ACROSS THIS THING?

It was about two or three years ago that I heard about Unreal Engine and now it’s been a year-and-a-half since I’ve been working with this program. I watched a film trailer and was curious about who did it and how. The film was called Inside the Virtual Production of the Lion King.

WAS IT AN OBSESSION STRAIGHT AWAY OR SOMETHING THAT HAS EVOLVED OVER THE YEARS?

Straight away I really liked working in Unreal Engine. I learnt fast on the job and now my main goal is to enhance all the program results to make my work feel as realistic as possible.

WHAT ARE THE MOST INTERESTING DEBATES OR CONVERSATIONS YOU ARE HAVING AROUND THIS OBSESSION?

Interesting conversations have been centered around 3D development and how we can integrate Unreal Engine into the post pipeline, particularly in VFX. Now lots of people in post-production want to train up to use the program.

HOW WIDESPREAD DO YOU THINK THIS OBSESSION IS WITH YOUR PEERS?

A few years ago, Unreal Engine was not necessarily well known however studios are now starting to work with the program. I think it was important for Heckler to start using Unreal early on when we did.

CAN YOU SHARE ANY EXAMPLES OF WORK WHERE THAT OBSESSION REALLY CAME TO THE FORE AND ELEVATED THE FINAL PRODUCTION? CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT IT AND SHARE LINKS IF POSSIBLE?

Unreal Engine really helps to elevate the final production of a film or TVC due to its ability to render and to review in real-time. For example, it’s easy to collaborate with a director and to straight away show them where to place the camera.

It’s also a different approach creating a full CG environment with a director, like on Black Wing, compared to creating an environment that includes the filming of live action, like in our recent commercial for Movember.

In the future, I’d love to start working on some more cinematic projects.

reference

CAMERA OBSCURA: UNREAL ENGINE ARTIST MAUD CHAPUIS

unreal engines seqenecer and camera angels

An introduction to the sequencer tool in unreal engine.
Timeline-based animation and working with camera actors.
Exporting image sequences from unreal engine using movie render queue.
Configuring cameras and post processing volumes.

refences and inspiration

nycammvfx unreal engines seqenecer and camera angels project

unreal engines blueprints

blueprints as a visual scripting tool.
types of blueprint classes.
Creating blueprint classes for actors and objects.
The basic blueprint nodes and understanding the fundamentals of events & variables.

refences and inspiration

nycammvfx unreal engines blueprints project

more nycammvfx advanced blueprints throughout the module

unreal engines advanced materials and shaders

investigation

EXPLORING specialised shader types for specific materials.
Advanced Material nodes and behaviours.
Creating material instances for efficient material management and customisation.