Digital Matte Painting Final Project

 29.8.2023 - 12.9.2023 (Week 1 - Week 4) 

Teo Javin 0349352

Illustration and Visual Narrative/ Bachelor of Design in Creative Media / Taylor's University

Thematic Matte Painting (VFX)

Instructions

Figure2.1

Task

We were tasked to make our virtual plein painting in Unreal Engine and produce a 15-30secs long cinematic.

I was very new to Unreal, but excited to see what I can do with it. I started watching dozens of tutorials and managed to export assets that I wanted and started with the recreation.

Figure2.1 Creating mountains with the sculpting tool 

(recent image cuz I'm working backwards :p)

After trying out volumetric fogs, lighting, foliage painting and many more, this is my second attempt for the composition.

Sadly, the afternoon lighting wasnt doing justice as it felt too too bright no matter how I played with the position of the light. Therefore, I went for an evening lighting.

Added small ancient structures as aesthetics and tells a small story that there were once traces of civilization here.

Tried creating water with the help of tutorials, the water turn out murky and black instead of being clear as cave waters are usually clear due to its natural filtering system. 

I struggled to add foliage on the exported structure (Big Ben), so I found a tutorial that told me to cover the Big Ben with rectangular meshes and paint foliage on it, then set the meshes to "Invisible" ( remove tick on "Visible")

Felt a little ambitious so I wanted to create ambience dust (idk what do you call it), so I searched up a tutorial that told me to create the particles and a mobe on photoshop (2D), then do a whole blueprint process to achieve it.

 

After following this one guy that does the tutorial too fast, I finally made it! But there was one problem... this is the desired outcome.

These are the particles I had after importing them into the world. It is somehow black and it wasn't affected by any light or colour. So I had to sadly scrap it off.

Added NewSequence and started with the cinematic.

Exported as an EXR. file and honestly I did not expect they saved them as 1 picture per frame.

Exported as a JPGSequence and finished the cinematic with added sound effects.

Final Outcome

 Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1e7KgY0FLw

Reflection

Really regretted playing with time as I thought I could finish it on time. But overall, I enjoyed the course and learnt many technical skills throughout this journey.