Delivery 3 - VR Video UE4 Notes

 Delivery 3 - VR Video UE4 Notes

Jacob Stone - Common VR notes from Robo Recall

 

One of the most impressive things I learned from the Unreal video is that you can use a shader in your environments to create the impression of 3D reality. As you move side to side or rotate your vision in the Oculus, the illusion of a dimensional space with depth like a 3D cube can be placed on a single plane, thus freeing up processing power. The shader creates the visual effect instead of having actual 3D vert modelling which would make the project run slower.

I also learned a ton about shape language and detail in terms of what as a 3D artist I need to be thinking about when making models. The robot examples showed that you need to be aware of how the person playing the VR game will see in terms of perspective. Each of the robots are different sizes so that they are easily distinguishable. There was a robot designed for speed but shorter than a human, so most of the detail area is what is closest to the VR player eyes. The top of the robot has more interesting detail and design whereas the bottom half of the robot will be less interesting because the player will not be seeing that part of the robot as much as the top side. The inverse is true of the giant big bot, the top of it was very boxy and solid planes but the mid-section of the robot has more detail because that is at the eye level of the player.

Another important distinction made within the VR game that I found insightful is the idea that players who are shooting or killing some enemy within the game prefer that it does not look or feel too human. It turns out even if the enemy is a robot but it has human-like qualities people will not want to play the game or kill as many enemies because they feel bad about doing the action. The VR team was able to get around this issue by making sure the robots felt like robots and added more sinister qualities to enhance the face for instance and keep it feeling as maybe more of an unconscious systematic type killer that way you will not feel bad for slaying these aggressive animatronic atrocities.

It was interesting to learn how they create highly accurate prototype meshes before they get to the high mesh creation. It is sort of like creating the game res model before doing the high res, which is the process I experimented with on my Nerf Gun and have found this type of workflow works best for me because as I’m constructing the proxy my mind is already seeing how I am going to create the kind of topology I will need and how the UVs will layout. This method also allows the animators and designers to have the prototype model in the VR experience sooner so they can immediately see what is and is not working in engine. By getting the game res or prototype model in engine right away the higher res detail that takes time to create can take place after the model is already functioning for the rest of the team.

                My favorite takeaway from the video is easily the concept that the 3D artists used real reference for how they constructed the world. It is in my goal as a 3D artists to approach realism and to be able to work in film in the industry. The way the VR experience was constructed utilized existing architecture to enable the artists to work closely with scale and create accurate representations within the VR world is something I am passionate about. I enjoyed watching this video because it shows how up and coming VR experiences are not only similar to real world gaming experiences but as an artist this is an exciting field to be entering at this time.