Final Sprint Delivery #6

 Final Sprint Delivery #6

For this sprint I mainly focused on implementation and polish for everything in the Unreal sequencer. 

1. I noted quality and gave constant feedback before our final render for animation and assets. I also figured out our rendering pipeline which involved taking into account various challenges, such as our real-time hair physics simulation.

Random clipping or animators forgetting to animate the pupils:

2. I implemented our vfx into the sequencer as well the god ray cards that I created.

3. Created 3 simulated rigid body assets for the barista, Sol, and Luna. These were used for the hair to be simulated in engine, and thus not requiring hand keyed animation.

4. Created a title in Blender that is a 3D object that I placed to be rendered in the Unreal scene.

5. Rigged and skinned two additional background characters and hand keyed their animations.

6. Rendered all the images and edited them together with sound in Premiere Pro.

Sprint #5 Delivery

 For this sprint I worked on:

1. Camera layout, lighting, and shader interaction

I worked with Melanie and Jocelyn a lot to combine shots and troubleshoot lighting / shader issues. Troubleshooting material issues with assets such as the cup, chairs, and tables in terms of specular intensity. I also gave some direction when it came to adding a few extra crafty assets around the cafe.

3. Updated barista rig to include a new model that included hair.

4. Temporarily attached sol's hair to the character in the sequencer. Hopeful to add physics simulation to it next!

5. Did a quick render of the entire sequence and added the sound to it for the presentation.

Sprint #4 Delivery

 Sprint #4 Delivery

1. Melanie and I spent a lot of time organizing our sound inspiration and direction with some new people working on our foley &background music and the main cafe music. 

2. I also worked with Melanie to characterize the barista and make sure she will work with some of the selected mocap.

3. With a new low poly Sol model, I was able to push a better version of the rig to the animators. I created set driven keys for the fingers as well for easier animation.

4. I spent a majority of my time trying to implement a facial rig that utilizes nurbs planes to create a better translation and rotation space for the animators. I got stuck on skinning because I accidentally had elements that were extremely high poly in the scene that prevented Maya from working at all. Planning to finish skinning soon and push this to the animators as well!

Sprint Delivery #3

 For this sprint I did a lot of pipeline and personnel management. 

1. Tried to revert the project to 5.6 so that we could use a link plugin between Maya and Unreal, however, all of my attempts to do so failed.

2. I gave feedback about the character and environment development. I helped Jocelyn to create feedback in the form of a draw over for the Sol character.

3. I completed finger controls for Sol and a full rig for the barista character. The rigs are mapped in HumanIK, so they are compatible for use with mocap retargetting. All of the skeletons are also pushed into the engine.

4. I worked on lighting inside of a new lighting sequence that will be added to the main sequence. I tested out some various colors and moods, referencing our original color script. Additionally, I created a 3 - point lighting setup on each character blueprint so customizable lighting is accessible for any of the characters. 

Perforce:

Sprint #2 Delivery

 First, I completely fixed our folder structures in Perforce and Unreal to be more asset effective. 

Next, I worked on the character rig for Sol. The rig is still missing finger controls and an advanced facial rig. However, the rig does have Fk, Ik, stretchiness, space switching, and scalability. 

For this sprint, I also looked at pipeline techniques and attempted to integrate a Maya to Unreal live link for our character rigs and cameras. This workflow would speed up our process when exporting and importing to and from Maya and Unreal Engine. However, I have not yet had luck with installing the plugin and getting it to work for us.

Sprint #1 Delivery

1. Worked on assigning tasks and ran meetings for In Plain Sight team.

 2. Debugged camera issues in Unreal and rendered out the sequences in Unreal that contained the proxy cameras.

3. Perforce Project Setup:

Third person Unreal project setup with correct Perforce ignore file and matching source folder structure.

2. Dispatch Style Reference Collection:

 

3. Proxy Set Dressing

4. Detailed Sprint Plan

Artist Interview Presentation

 Artist Interview Presentation

Perforce Proof

Industry Review Final

 Industry Review Final

Medusa 'A' Stage

Medusa 'A' Stage

• Two in game cut scenes to move object that are obstructing the escape route. They are triggered by user keyboard input
• Beginning cut scene using sequencer to establish the story
• Updated all character blueprints with newest models, rigs, and animations
• Helped integrate gameplay flow from menu to playing the beginning cutscene to playing the level.

- This last video shows the blueprint pathway that illuminates and helps the player navigate in the correct direction.

- Additionally, the video shows the use of mirrors in our scene.

-Lastly, you see the end lose condition where Medusa catches you before you can escape the garden.


The screenshots below are for the cut scene sequences, the mouse character blueprint, the illuminated path blueprint, and the blueprints for moving the soil bags.

'B' Stage

'B' Stage

For this stage I mainly iterated on the existing scene. 

1. Updated torch vfx blueprint: added a torch holder, material, and smaller / slower fire particle vfx

2. Offset the torch light flickering function

3. Iterated on the trees to include more leaves and created blueprints with objects (new modeled rock and fern asset) covering the area where the tree meets the ground to rid of the CG tree feel. I only did this for the trees inside the walls because the ones outside will not be seen. 

4. Added more glowing stone blueprints around the map, indicating possible paths for the player

5. Updated rat rig: deleted cape controls and cape, created tail rig, created the ability to animate the spine in ik or fk with space switching options for the shoulders/ arms to follow either, and added eyebrow controls. I accidentally changed the hierarchy of the controllers, which resulted in lots of troubleshooting to fix referencing issues within the animation files. I did however fix it!

6. Created a start screen menu and connected the start button to the main, playable level. The "Quit" button is connected to the quit game functionality.

7. Added in our sound fx wav files and connected them in various ways. The start menu and level play the background music upon start. The torches produce a fire sound fx when the player enters the triggerbox that surrounds them. The run animation is connected to footstep sfx.

8. I also created an Overwatch style leaf in Photoshop to use for the little bush planes.

'C' Stage

 'C' Stage

• Lighting: new Overwach reference, torch flickering light
• Rigging: working ik for arms & legs, new skinned model, and set driven key ear & hand shapes
• Niagara vfx: torch fire and smoke
• Houdini: Procedural tree geometry creation 
• Materials: torch flickering light, subtle wind effects on trees
• Collecting sounds: torches, footsteps, snakes, ambient

Reference from Overwatch

Test VFX