Simple House (2017)
During this past week, I have been experimenting with Unreal engine 4.15.3 (a slight detour from unity) discovering new tools and playing around with the features available.
To get started, I invested into an online program called "UE4 Fundamentals" by Alex Galuzin which is a fantastic guide in acquainting users to the engine and the potential capabilities it can reach. The course is split into two modules with great explanations and step by step walkthroughs.
The aim I set out to achieve with this prototype was to: develop a simple structure and incorporate all that I had learned from the course. To be more specific this included: BSP brushes, static meshes, props, materials & texturing, lights and fog.
I began by constructing the floor plan of the two rooms, once I was satisfied with their dimensions I began building them up using the BSP brushes; I replaced as many BSP brushes as I could with static meshes to make the environment more optimized. At this stage I had two empty rooms, the next task was to fill them up with props and potential lighting locations. I began decorating the outside porch followed by: the living room and finally the small room. Having natural light seeping through the rooms would give rise to satisfying bloom effects so I took the liberty in creating multiple windows and added light shafts to bolster this effect. At this stage my environment was just a stack of grey shapes (BSP brushes) and walls (except for the props), therefore I began adding materials and textures to decorate the house accordingly. Additionally to the light shafts, I also wanted to include artificial light sources such as bulbs to add some realism to the interior, I had to bake a few times to test the intensity and light map resolution to make sure everything was alright. Once I was satisfied, it was time to add some post processing effects such as atmospheric and exponential height fog to add some fluff into the scene. The final touch was to render and build the scene using the production quality option to obtain a nice looking scene!
Platform: PC
Genre: First Person, showcase
Engine: Unreal 4.15.3
Time: 24 hours
Gallery
Outside
I opted to go with a clear sky sphere, not only was it one of the few options available; I did not want to go with a bombastic atmospheric background which would reduce the players focus on the building. The light source (sun) is roughly facing the house head on, making it idea for some light shafts from the windows inside. The atmospheric and exponential height fog was added later on to give a cool misty effect, they both emit a bright yellow colour to complement the sky sphere.
Room 1
The first room that you will enter is the living room; a main room that contains some primitive furniture and some light shafts from the windows. The furniture was constructed using standard assets; including the light holders which contain stationary light sources that were baked onto the meshes.
Room 2
The next room is a smaller one, with two big windows and some furniture inside, similar to the previous room (the living room) I was mainly experimenting with light shafts to display cool bloom effects inside the room.