493 Final Blog Post

    Here is the results of my portfolio project. I believe I have run into more issues which are out of my control this week than the rest of my college career. I did not expect the process of learning Unreal Engine to be as taxing as it was, and it certainly did not help that I was learning Unreal Engine 5, meaning the tutorials for Unreal Engine 4 were mostly outdated and a a waste of time, since whatever method the person used was now removed or moved within the UI. My goal for the semester was to create an apocalyptic scene in Unity (until I switched to Unreal early on). I partially accomplished this goal.

My first large issue was with creating the street for my scene. In spite of the fact I was provided a wonderful tutorial for this exact purpose, either my models or textures did not want to cooperate. I followed the tutorial exactly, and even with relatively simple planes, the textures would never display properly, often only appearing in random blotches across the models. I must admit, this was easily the most infuriating part of this project, as I spent a considerably larger amount of time on this singular detail than any other part of the project across all the software. As for my other models, they were mostly easy to integrate into the scene. I was hoping to have the centerpiece of the scene be a campfire and tents, but unfortunately I was unable to create those aspects, so I decided on the hazardous waste barrel being the center light of my scene.

    Thanks to the skybox system in Unreal Engine, achieving the night sky was incredibly easy. I am used to Unity, where the system for skyboxes is very time-consuming, and every detail must be added in manually. I considered adding more effects of fog and pollution, but decided leaving them out would be a good call, since I did not want to ruin the atmosphere I already had. I am relatively happy with how the scene turned out, but there are certainly details I wish I had added. For example, I was quite excited to work with Quixel software more on the project, but I realized I was using Unreal 5 when I created my project scene, and neded to be in Unreal 4. I was already fairly invested in the scene, so I decided to simply continue on. However, I realized at the end that if I had simply taken the time to adapt to use Quixel and Megascans more easily, I would likely have much more detail in my scene and on my models.

    Overall, I am happy I was able to create a scene in Unreal Engine at all, and happy the results at least somewhat indicate a nighttime, apocalyptic scene. If I were to do this project again, I would choose to create my scene somewhere that does not involve an asphalt street, I would spend much more time learning unreal engine 5, and I would spend much more time integrating Quixel products.