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Tavern Scene - Final Showreel

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So the rendering process out of Unreal Engine was quite painstaking as I experienced a lot of crashes as well as the rendering times being extremely long even for just a 30 second clip. This meant having to restart the rendering process on a single clip multiple times which took up a lot of hours over the past two days. However I managed to get the clips I needed and brought them over into Premiere Pro in order to arrange them and cut off any unnecessary parts that were rendered out from Unreal. I also was able to add in some fades in and out for each scene to help smooth out the transitions between the clips. This is an overlooked feature of visual storytelling but blending clips together and pacing shots correctly is an important part of telling a story to a viewer. Once that was all complete I decided to add in some royalty free music to once again help set the tone of the video and just add another layer to the story without having dialogue. A lot can be inferred by a piece of musi...
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Tavern Scene - Cinematics & Sequencer

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  After spending a lot of time creating custom animation sequences since my last post and placing everything where it should be in my head in the tavern, as well as doing a lighting pass (which is a very important step into setting the mood of the scene and focusing a viewer's attention on details). It was time to move on to creating the cinematic shots for the final showreel. I have done a little sequencer work years ago during my BA first year/second year as part of the curriculum so I had an idea of the basics that were involved, however since the update of Unreal Engine to version 5 there were a lot of newer features and things were in different locations or under different names than I had remembered so it took a little time to get used to it again. However I managed to get the grasp of it down. I knew I didn't want to make the showreel too long so I prioritised managing each shot to around 30 seconds or under, I also wanted to keep the shot count down as going to a large ...
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Tavern Scene - Animation Test/Progress

  Above is a short video from Unreal engine showcasing a few of the custom animation sequences I have managed to create so far for the project and final cinematic. Since this is the first time I am attempting to do any kind of animation it is a slow process and the final results aren't perfect. However I am happy with what I have achieve so far and how it will help enforce the visual storytelling aspect of the project when it is all done. In the video I have the fighter from the original scene in a ready position with his weapon, I have the bartender also at the second scene who is cleaning a tankard lazily and I have also added in a patron of the tavern drinking a tankard of ale as a filler animation that I can alter easily later on in the process in order to fill out the tavern with extra's. This process has been eye opening on how complicated animation can be, but how much depth it can add to a scene versus just having static character meshes or none at all. Most of the visu...
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Tavern Scene - Filler Assets

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  After completing the modelling and texturing for the individual scenes I imported them all into Unreal Engine to begin setting up for the animation and cinematic sequence that would be the final result of the project and would be the showcase for the work I had put in. However upon seeing them in Unreal I felt I didn't really like my original idea of having the scenes separate from each other as in order to understand the story and how the scenes related to one another it felt best to build them together within Unreal and fill in the gaps. Which in hindsight I should have prepared for this from the beginning, however until changing my mind on how I wanted to present the scenes I was originally going to keep them separate. Since changing the idea of presentation and to add more layers to the different parts of the tavern I decided to spend some time modelling and texturing the filler assets I needed to bridge the gaps and add depth to the overall composition so it didn't feel ...
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Tavern Scene - Scene 6 Texturing

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  Since I had practised my texturing process throughout each previous scene I now had improved my skills to the point where I knew exactly what to do in order to get this looking as good as I could make it. I focused heavily on trying to make the objects stand out from one another so they wouldn't be lost to the viewer. Breaking up the scene with various materials such as the lift being made out of metal instead of wood and the stone for the surrounding well structure that will eventually house the portal. All these decisions are what provide the visual interest to the scene and give more information for the viewer to digest without overwhelming them. 
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Tavern Scene - Scene 6

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  Since the overall Tavern was originally based on the Dungeons and Dragons tavern named the Yawning Portal, it wouldn't have been complete without the portal itself. This scene is particularly special as it is the key feature and interest point of the tavern, it is why the adventuring parties visit the tavern in the first place as there is a portal that can send them to dangerous locations with the promise of great rewards should they survive and it's the reason I chose this location in the first place as it stands out as such an interesting fantasy concept. Because this is where parties gather to adventure I decided to decorate it with adventuring supplies such as torches, weapons, pickaxes and so on. Again I felt strongly that my first design was pretty spot on to what I wanted it to look and feel like. However I did add in the torches and bolts on the beams later on in the design process to add more elements to it.
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Tavern Scene - Scene 5 Texturing

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  Much like what I had mentioned in the last post, I definitely see an improvement to my overall techniques in modelling and texturing. For this scene in particular I wanted it to stand out a little from the rest of the Tavern interior scenes, I decided to go with a sense of worn elegance. Since the purpose for these rooms within the tavern are usually for men and women to share the night together I focused on it having some elements of nicer furniture but again a lot of wear and damage over time that kept in theme with the other scenes. I also focused on adding more little details within the scene that could provide more context to the action taking place, the exchange of money on the dresser, the stains of wine on the floor below the tankards and adding in grubby handprints on the drawers to show that they have been used and this isn't just a decrepit room forgotten to time. I spent more time and practised with different texturing techniques such as painting in the smaller detail...
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