Independent Project - more research/ video tutorials

24/02/23

I downloaded unreal version 5.0.3 since that was the closest download I could get to the 5.0.1 version that is on the computers in the base room, hopefully, it will be compatible if I choose to use the base room computers to render my final outcome.

I looked at some tutorials that could help with the project:

Growing plant animation - By Polygon Runway  Plant growing animation for blender. Not exactly what I wish to make but there were some helpful tips, like using curves and simple deforms.

Endless Bloom Nodevember 2021 - By Erindale  A video of an endlessly blooming flower, this is a bit more complicated than what I want to do, but it is interesting to see how they did it even though it is in timelapse format and using geometry nodes (which I am not super familiar with). 

Lotus blooming animation tutorial In this video they use shape keys to change between different versions of the flower.

I tried using the simple deform to create the animation but it deformed the shapes a bit too much so it didn't turn out how I wanted it to, therefore I looked for another video on morphing shapes using the shape keys since I tried to follow what I watched in the lotus video but it didn't really work, since I didn't understand the video that well. 

Creating a Morphing Shape Animation in Blender! - YouTube

(1) Blender Shapekeys - YouTube

I managed to use shapekeys to make a simple animation but it didn't look exactly how I wanted it to.

I then tried importing this animation to unreal but the animation didn't show up so I will have to look into how to export it for unreal. 

I also watched this video Custom shaped Clouds - Niagara Tutorial - YouTube That I mentioned in one of my last blog posts and this video shows how to make a cloudmaterial which can be emmitted using niagara systems.

My result looked a bit like a cloud but it was emmiting the shapes a bit too harshly so I will have to experiment with the settings If I choose to use this. Also since this emmits lots of things, I thought that maybe too many of these might affect the quality of the outcome and might slow things down.

After this I tried building the lighting in the scene, however it didn't like the flowers I made since there were parts that collided with eachother. 

I exported this experiment as a 360 video to get an idea of how these clouds would look in a VR space.