Unreal Engine 4

Just using the "Export Selection" and importing those FBX files into a new UE4 file made me lose my pivot points and the grid snapping wasn't quite working.

But after using ther "Game Exporter" to export the selection it kept all the settings - but I had to re-assemble my scene. This wasn't difficult at all and took much less time due to the automatic snapping and the very few assets that I had.

Settings to be aware of when Exporting using the Game Exporter, and when importing to UE4

Pictures taken from GAMA2002 Module site.

After setting everything up it looks like this, all the pivot points are intact and grid snapping is proper this time as well.

Just added some colour (no textures) to the different assets to get a better idea of how it looks instead of the default black that UE4 gave.

I applied some downloaded textures to most of my platforms, but it was through Maya instead of UE4. This made it so it was very low res and didn't look right at all. I also had to fix some UVs after seeing some stretching in certain areas of the objects.

Applying the textures via materials

Before applying the textures with a material..

And after the material with the right settings has been applied - sand isn't as rough and in your face anymore, but it still is looking low poly /detail compared to the rest.

To apply the textures we link the Texture samples (maps) with the correct one to the right. For the Base Colour it's very simple as it is just called Base Colour, but also sometimes might be called "Albedo" in the maps.

Normal goes to Normal, very simple.

For the RMA package we have - Roughness, Metallic and Ambient Occlusion so we take each (R, G, B) and put them into the respective slots. R - Roughess, G - Metallic and B - Ambient Occlusion.

Even with the correct way to apply textures within the material instance - the gold "shinyness" / metalness wasn't quite coming through. So I deleted the RMA packaged textures and created my own settings for the Roughness and Metallic.

This is how it looks after I altered the lighting in my scene.

This could be an error on my part since it was a pre-made gold texture (Smart Material) that was already in Substance Painter, and I might have done the settings wrong. But it worked after I applied the new nodes so I am satisfied with that.

After adding the textures for the bridge in the material instance - and applying it correctly to my object, it now displays more properly. It has more roughness, and some more detail than before. The only thing that I would change is the direction of some of the wood - the sides of the planks are not going the right way (the ends facing the camera, hard to see) and should not be going down - but rather straight.

The spring is not meant to be this "shiny" or metallic - so I had to add a separate roughness node to adjust it.

"OceanWater_Seamless_WT" by Wolfgar7474 on SubstanceShare.

At first I was unsure about adding water to the ground but I felt it was vital as my scene is a beach-like one after all. I managed to find a good water texture on SubstanceShare and it looks incredible. Only thing I would try in the future or for next time is actually not having a plane for a floor, but having some proper thickness to it for a proper water area (for a lack of a better wording at the moment)

Before - Wonky looking Maya texture

After - Texture added with material instance

This time it seems the metalness and roughness comes through properly in this texture. The only thing I did different was trying to put my own touch on it. Using a couple Smart Materials as a base, I would paint colours on top of it to get the desired colours I wanted and it seemed to have worked out really well.

Although this is not a proper checkpoint from a Sonic game, I eventually ended up having to use it as I spent time on other assets instead.

All materials added/created

Lighting

I deleted the default fog that the scene created, and added Atmospheric Fog - turned on "Volumetric Fog" and decreased the Fog desity.

In the Directional Light - I turned on Light Shaft Occlusion and Bloom.

Changed the direction of the sun - and added a tiny bit of fog to my scene and it already looks really different, but getting very blue in colour

Going into the Light Source again - playing around with the Intensity and the temperature to create a warmer atmosphere. I also softened the shadows in the "Cascade Shadow Maps" with "Distribution Exponent" so that the shadows aren't so harsh.

Since the "Goal" is a metal - it needs to be reflective. The settings are not quite making it reflective in general, so we need to add a reflective lights so it can capture some of the surrounding areas on itself.

I didn't make the area too big, as my scene is a bit small in general scale, so I only made it surround a bit further out of the "Goal" and not too extensive outwards. This also made it capture the orange light a bit more.

Grabbed this for free at "HDRIHaven", searched for "beach" in their HDRIs section of the website. It's basically a Source file (cubemap) where it will light the scene similar to what is seen on the picture. I downloaded it, created an HDRI folder within my Contents, dropped it in, imported to Unreal -> Selected my Sky Light -> dragged and dropped the cube map (picture) into the Cubemap section. Not really a drastic change but it is also a way to light your scene.

I think maybe the sun is a bit too intense so might look into playing around with the lights a bit more before I say it's finalized.

To do:

As of presentations

Fly through
Bake Light
Add Foliage
Brush up on some things if enough time

Further Lighting

Here I've gone to "Build -> Build Lighting" as well as set the "Lighting Quality" to production to get a better look of what my lighting will look like properly.

I wasn't quite happy with how it looked since it was a bit too dark.So will work on that.

Went along and changed a couple things like made the "hover platforms" a bit more than just blocks, added some more palm trees in case I cannot add foliage in time, textured the ramp and changed its looks a little bit. Updated the look of the ramp beneath the Goal to look more pleasing.

Since the water tiles looked a bit off in earlier photos I decided to re-size the beach platforms so that they are inside of the water area. Moved the other platforms around a little bit as well so everything (But the goal and ramp I think) is inside of the water area.

Changes / Updates

Ramps updated for a better look and texture. The long ramp itself has a low res texture, but not sure how that happened. The texture map was set to 5.12, and the textures themselves were set to 2k res as well.

Thin loop, but adding thickness to it was a bit iffy since it messed up the twist and somehow messed up the UVs later on.

Made the hover platforms a little less blocky, I tried softening them but it was way too much so they ended up like this instead.

I finally got the loop into the scene - I was a bit worried I wouldn't make it as I had issues in Maya when creating one. Even though I got help and feedback for my tutor about how to go on about creating one very easily, it just wouldn't work for me in Maya even if I was following the exact same steps that he did.

So I ended up being given one that he had made for me, and I just tried to add some extra edge loops and smooth it out a bit for it to not be so block-y. I had to scale it down in size a bit since it seemed fairly big in comparison to everything else around it.

Added a "Rect Light" to create a "sun beam" look/effect on the water. I feel like it added a lot to the scene and in reality there would be a sun beam there anyway. Found it quite charming.

I also added a Spot Light (with a soft orange light colour) as this area seemed quite dark to me but I didn't want to add too much lighting since the sun is from the other side.

Finalized

I tried using Unreal Engine's own documents to get a better idea how lights work

https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/BuildingWorlds/LightingAndShadows/QuickStart/index.html

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