Captain's Table Project - Effects

Unreal Engine - Effects

    I mentioned in my previous blog post that what I would like to start with is modelling one of the main assets in my scene - the table. So I did just that, because I wanted to have something in my scene in Unreal Engine in order to make sure that I will size things correctly before moving onto anything else.

    I modeled the table in 3Ds Max, and then I set up a new level in Unreal Engine in order to import it and start building my environment from scratch. 

    Once I was done modelling the asset, I decided that this time, I'm going to start by building the mood in my scene first, before I did anything else - that meant things such as light, visual effects and sounds. 

    I started out with the lights. Basically, the idea that I have in mind in terms of the settings for my scene is that the Captain's Table (one of her many, though the one that I would like to build) is located onto one of the balconies in her base. Hence why I want to spend some time building the weather. In addition to that, I would like my scene to be portrayed during a very stormy night - so what I made first was a blinking light in order to suggest that there are lightnings. 

Blinking Light/ Lightning

    I did that by setting up a new material in Unreal Engine. First, I created a Time slot for it. Then, I made sure that it's multiplied and has a constant (which I set up with a value of 0.5). Then, I added a Sine slot in order to be able to manipulate the intervals (also called Period in the Material Expression Sine) in which the blinking light would flicker. Then, I just added a Frac in order to choose a colour for the light. Then, once I was done, I just plugged the node of last slot (Frac) into the emissive colour so that the blinking light would glow ever so slightly and suggest lightning. 

Result

    The reason I also added some warm yellow lights in my scene is because I would also like to model some glass candle lights and place them on the table as a part of my scene - and these candle lights I wanted to emit warm yellow light to contrast the cold midnight blue of the night.

    Next, I wanted to make a rain particle effect and add some sound effects to it. I had never made rain before, so I watched this tutorial on YouTube that I found extremely helpful.. Thunder And Lightning - Unreal Engine 4 Tutorial - YouTube. I explained to me step by step what I have to do in order to get it to work right. Basically, I made a material first in order to set up the particle colour, then added a RadialGradientExponential and plugged both into a multiply slot, which then I plugged into both emissive colour and opacity in order to create that faint, fading colour that raindrops have. Then, I created the particle system. 

    First, I added my material into the material slot in emitter so that the particle would use the exact fading colour that I had created. Then, in spawn, I changed the distribution to float constant so that the raindrops would fall at random. I also added a Size by Speed, which allows you to adjust the speed at which you want your raindrops to fall.

Rain