Implementing VFX & SFX

Cyberstein Sprint #3

This week, we spent a lot of time trying to get all of the proxies in for our VFX effects. Jaz also spent quite a bit of time polishing our SFX and working with Robert, the composer for our VR experience. Brian and I spent some time getting a lot of our proxy VFX into engine. Ryan continued to polish our mocap animations and tweak our already existing BPs. I worked on setting up a BP and spline system for the VFX for the saw traveling along the border of the garage door. I also did a lot of research into how we would do our material switch, and we decided that we would attach it to our button BP and time the material switch appropriately. Kaylie and Piper also continued to polish the assets we have and add new ones to the project! Everything is coming a lot quite smoothly!

Beginning/Middle/End, Part 2

Cyberstein Sprint #2

During last week's critique, it was noted that it was difficult to understand what buttons/objects you can and cannot interact with. The story was also hard to follow because the user was required to read from a tablet, but also play the experience at the same time. For this sprint, we focused on making it more clear as to what objects could and should be interacted with by adding a post processing material to interactables. I created this material to be used with a post processing volume to highlight interactable objects/buttons in our experience. When Kellie play-tested our experience last week, she was able to spawn underneath and on top of the level map. So, one of my priorities was to fix the Nav Mesh so that this was no longer possible. I also continued to work on our trigger event VFX: specifically, the fog and sparks. We were also able to implement dialogue so that the player would no longer have to look at the tablet to follow along with the scene. This week, Ryan and I worked together on the level BP and the police siren BP to get some of the VFX to play during certain trigger events: like the police lights. Jazz was able to get a bunch of people in the VO booth to work on voice overs too! Everything is coming along really smoothly! :-)

Beginning/Middle/End, Part 1

Cyberstein Sprint #1

This week was my first sprint with the Cyberstein team! Unfortunately, the Mad Tea Party team was cut at the end of last semester, so we were not able to continue with that concept. However, I feel really confident with the direction this new team is going and I'm really glad to be apart of it! This week I worked on updating the lighting within the scene and did some troubleshooting on some of the build errors we were encountering. I was able to figure out what was causing it and to fix it! We're still experiencing some weird edges/shadows on some of the meshes, but we decided to move forward from this and focus our efforts elsewhere. I enjoyed setting up the lighting and playing around with the post processing for this scene. I also started on some of the electricity VFX we're going to have in our scene (they haven't been implemented yet and still need some minor tweaking). 

   Before Lighting Pass

After Lighting Pass & Post Processing

    Niagra Spark Effect

Week 14 - Mad Tea Party VR

Final Presentation and Proxy Experience

This week we all worked really collaboratively to fix any pre-existing technical issues within our scene. Isabelle finished off the rest of our proxies and updated our material and FBX files. Akshay worked really hard to troubleshoot any problems with the VR headset and building out the lighting and object placement in our scene. For this week, I worked on implementing the ground fog into our environment, cleaning up and condensing our presentation, and working inside of UE4 to do some final polishing and added our animations to the scene. 

Week 13 - VR Project

White Boxing and Concept

This week, Isabelle went ham on our proxy models for our Mad Tea Party environment! Everything is coming along really smoothly. At the beginning of every week, we come together and discuss what needs to be done and then divide up the tasks. This week I was in charge of revamping our PowerPoint presentation, adding music to our scene, and creating the asset list for our project. Blue was able to nail down our story timeline and create more concept art, and Akshay has been working diligently in our VR project to make sure everything is functioning correctly! He also added some environment trees and shot our video for this week. I'm really eager to continue the project and can't wait to do more! I feel really lucky with my team :-)

Week 12 - Starting Proxy Environment

ASG (Custom Style Guide/Starting Prototype)

VR Environment YouTube Link: 

This week, we worked on getting our project set up and organized inside of Unreal. This week, I went ahead and created the folder structures to keep track of our assets within the VR UE4 project and our Art Asset folders. I also took video of our VR Environment, edited a voice over, and uploaded to YouTube. At the beginning of the week, we all divided up the tasks between each other and were able to work really cohesively throughout the week in order to get everything finished. I created a OneNote for myself and my team to reference whenever we take notes in our team meetings and professor meetings. 

So far, everything is going smoothly! :-) 

Presentation Link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1lKs4EC7hDoaELhDmhkoOWuJRrIN-vY5v1FrZZICp6gc/edit#slide=id.p

Week 11 - Art Style Guide

Discovering Your Own Art Style

This week we narrowed down our art style for our VR game. We did a lot of research on technical considerations and other VR dependencies that could potential affect the quality of our gameplay or cause the player motion sickness. We will continue to do more research on what kind of visuals we should avoid in order to keep the player from getting motion sick, while also keeping consistent to our chosen art style. We all evenly divided the slides up again this week and added extra images and gifs here and there throughout the presentation. We also created a Photoshop Pass for our images so that they held a consistent visual look. 

Google Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zmX6fKU_DdRzQujQru3ZgCZwKZdTsy0NDvXUVvL30W0/edit#slide=id.gfcca0e5cea_2_125