CGI Lighting and Rendering for Computer Games was a lesser testing
unit that some others, but still tested my knowledge and abilities in Unreal
Engine 4, the only reason it was somewhat lesser testing is because my scene
was relatively small.
I began by constructing a scene
consisting of mostly meshes created in unit 76 and 70, I needed to create an
extra door mesh and an extra windowed wall mesh, as for speed I had used
alternate means in the blockout stage of level creation.
I didn't specifically need the
meshes earlier but I do now, as the scene is set inside a Lawkeeper's office
and I needed lights to penetrate the windows and cast light inside.
I started with some research
into what I would need, which was mainly God Rays (Crepusclar rays) and a
flickering light, I was able to source the flickering light directly from my
previous work in units 76 and 70 so began research on god rays.
Following the research, I
implemented a custom, manual god ray setup and used them alongside some
directional light based god rays, and implemented some spot lights just outside
the building to accentuate the light pouring into the room, therefore casting
shadows through the venetian and vertically hung blinds which I had used in my
scene.
The blinds were sourced royalty
free in blueprint form from www.polymodels.com.
I had created some set dressing
elements and set them up accordingly so to represent a low budget office
environment, and some sets of prison bars , casting even more shadows through
the level.
To add some more detail into
the scene I included Unreal Engine 4's default 'Dust' particle effect, allowing
me to plot dust in some light shafts and around the scene in general in line
with the area the Lawkeeper's Office would actually be situated in-game.
When happy with the lighting
and effects I had applied to my scene, I used the command line
"HighResShot 3840x2160" to render out a series of 4K screenshots of
my scene and also set up a sequencer, which needed some researching prior to
use.
I set up a short three camera
sequence, edited any values necessary and proceeded to render out the video
capture, there were some bumps in video capture production but I was able to
produce a respectable result using the sequencer tool.
I am happy with this unit, as I
was not very confident going into the unit to begin with and gained quite a bit
of valuable lighting knowledge throughout, from both research documentation,
tutorials and my peer feedback.
I feel my level design skills
have improved through completing this unit, and feel that I will be able to
implement some form of lighting in the future.
The full blog for CGI Lighting
and Rendering for Computer Games can be found at the following link;
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