Sci-Fi Modular Assets (Week 3) - Integrating, Lighting, Final Renders

Schedule:

Week 1 - Material 1 (Floor + Grate) & Displacement Test in Engine
Week 2 - Material 2 (Wall)
Week 3 - Integrating materials into Unreal Engine 5, Lighting, & Renders

Displacement is cool, but not that useful for a game asset pipeline. Time probably took about the same as if I were to model it, with the upside being that all of this is being driven through materials done in Substance Designer, so I can go back and iterate on it non-destructively.

Learned that nanite objects don't like masked or translucent materials, which limits the amount of optimization I can do with displacement. Which is why my wall materials are missing the glass part of the window. Also that, the gradient on the height map causes lines to render when displacing too far.

Upon review, the floor frames aren't as reflective as much as I would like them to be. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with everything else.

Common Art III - Final Delivery

Final touches to lighting! Changed all light intensities to response to a timeline curve in each step blueprint. For Step 4, had to make the main lights flicker off and then turn back on to highlight the scan animation. Made lights along pipes to turn on according to material progression in Steps 2 and 5. Adjusted lights in the End Screen level and for new matte-paintings. And most importantly, set the record of fastest speed-run for the experience at 15 seconds.

Below are the nodes I had to set up for Step 4 lighting. Basically, I replaced all the Set Visible nodes with Set Intensity ones and controlled the target light's intensity using a timeline curve. Most of the timelines have a linear curve to ramp up each light, but I also included a flicker effect in Step 4 with an example screenshot below.

Step 4 Blueprint

Timeline for Flicker Effect

Step 5 was one of the more complex blueprints because it had more lights being animated. Again, same process: attached a Sequence > Timeline > Set Intensity. Inside the timeline, I created a float track for each light I'm targeting and animating independently from each other. Then, I hook it up all accordingly.

Step 5 Blueprint

Lights for Matte Paintings