The Orb
A mysterious and alluring object that exists across multiple realms simultaneously. In each realm the Orb seems to resonate with the environment, adapting and taking on a different form.
This project was my first personal project on Unreal Engine 5, done with the focus and objective of re-familiarising myself with the game engine, learning fundamental techniques, project settings, and best practices. The straightforward nature of the project of having a simple subject was intended such that I could project my focus onto composition, framing, and the aforementioned objectives.
Read on to see my process.
Inspiration and Reference
I started the project by looking for reference images online to guide the process of composing a scene. I selected 6 different settings, tropical jungle, snowy tundra, desert, temperate forest, urban alleyway and sky for a series of six sub projects, so I could expose myself to composing different types of scenes under different lighting conditions, mood, and environments.
I also looked for certain geometrical associations with the various settings to find inspiration for how the Orb would differ in each environment.
into unreal engine 5 and post processing
A scene was created for each of the settings in Unreal Engine 5 by utilizing assets on the Unreal Marketplace, Quixel Bridge, and online 3D asset libraries.
The process of familiarizing myself with Unreal Engine (UE5) proved to be a challenging task as it required a thorough understanding of how the various components of the engine worked, in order to achieve the desired results. The greatest obstacle that I faced was lighting the scenes, understanding how lighting works in UE5 and in the real world was what made a scene look good.
Nonetheless, I was able to learn various techniques and best practices by utilizing online tutorials on YouTube. This was not only helpful in completing my project but also provided me with a solid foundation to continue building upon in the future.
The final step in bringing my digital art series to life was post-processing the scenes rendered in Unreal Engine (UE5) using Davinci Resolve. This involved colour coding to enhance the atmosphere of each scene, adding subtle effects such as camera shake and film grain to give a sense of movement and realism, and incorporating sound design to further immerse the viewer in the experience.
Editing in UE5 and Davinci Resolve
infinite side-scrolling runner
infinite side-scrolling runner
