After finishing the overall scene layout, I focused on making the main assets in the scene this week, including the birthday cake and coffee table.
As I had already planned all the shots during the storyboarding stage, I knew the coffee table and the things on it were the key part of the whole scene. The coffee table has an important close-up shot in the video. So when I was modeling it, I paid special attention to small geometric details and surface realism, to make sure the audience could fully feel the story’s atmosphere.
The birthday cake and candles were the most important parts for telling the story this week. I used the Curve Tools to carefully draw the cream patterns on the cake. I also looked at many old-style whipped cream cakes from the early 2000s, so that the cake could have a real retro look.
For the coffee table’s design, I chose a simple style with some retro features. I hoped it could fit naturally into the whole feeling of a Chinese apartment in the 2000s, and become a visual part that brings out nostalgic feelings.
In-class Learning
WEEK7
In the 7th week’s class, we focused on learning how to use the built-in rigging tools in Unreal Engine. After mastering the basic operations of the tools, we first used them to create specific effects like death animations. Later on, following Serra’s guidance, we selected a hunting dog model as the object for hands-on practice. By building and adjusting a series of related nodes, we successfully achieved procedural quadrupedal movement. Afterwards, we also made targeted attempts to tweak various relevant parameters, so as to make both the movement posture and trajectory of the hunting dog look more natural and smooth.