This week, I officially started building the scene in Unreal Engine 5, gradually putting together all the separate assets I had created in previous weeks into the same 3D space.
First, I set up the basic structure of the room, and then imported the textured models I had finished in Week 8 into the engine. To avoid slowing down the overall progress, I used white boxes as placeholders for some assets that hadn’t been refined yet. This was mainly to check the overall composition and proportions, making sure they matched the shots planned in the storyboard.
The task that took up most of my time this week was adjusting materials, especially the Roughness parameter. This setting has a huge impact on the look of Chinese furniture from the 2000s, like worn wooden lacquered surfaces or plastic-like finishes. If the value was too low, the furniture would look too new; if it was too high, it would appear dull. So I tweaked it several times, focusing on whether the light reflection on the surfaces looked natural.
As for lighting, I kept it simple at first. I added some basic light sources and used Lumen’s real-time effects to check the light and shadow balance in the scene. Even though the lighting was basic for now, it already gave a rough idea of the nostalgic atmosphere I was aiming for.
In-class Learning
WEEK9
In the ninth week, we learned and practiced Post-processing Volumes. Serra shared a simpler method to adjust them with us, which is using LUTs (Lookup Tables). We can change the overall scene effect by importing pre-adjusted LUT files, which function similarly to filters. The key advantage is that adjustments can be made in external software like Photoshop, making the process easier without having to tweak numerous parameters repeatedly in the engine.
Modified Pre-LUT
Modified Post-LUT
Comparison of effects in UE and Photoshop after applying LUTs
In addition, we learned about rendering, focusing on exploring various practical methods to optimize rendering effects and enhance visual quality. For example, regarding console variable presets, Serra provided us with many useful ones, and we also tried them out in practice.