VR: Summer Sprint Five

 Individual Contributions V

This sprint I was working on getting the MetaHuman to a static mesh state and getting the watch and moneycase textured.

I was at least able to use the retargeted animation to get the static mesh posed already rather than worrying about posing it myself by hand. What I need to still figure out is how to compromise on the grooming, or else we're just gonna have a totally hairless man show up on the other side of the door.

The moneycase textures were pretty simple.

The watch gave me a little trouble because it had some transparent elements, and I had issues with dithering (I think? I'm not sure what the term for it is) on the rest of the mesh.

I watched a tutorial that said using custom depth can fix this. The highlighted nodes are what's supposed to be specifying what's rendering.

I'm not sure if it's working too well because it's so small-scale, but I don't think you can see the issue to much in the game, so I might can get away with it.

VR: Summer Sprint Four

 Individual Contributions IV

I worked on getting our bed in-game and adjusted the scale after some feedback that it felt small. I also got the pillow mesh updated and rigged. It has four joints to try to allow it to slump and bend and look a little more pliable.

I also got our dresser blueprint updated with new textured meshes. I added a cactus and desk fan into the scene along with a curtain for the window. These are taken from different UE4 projects that I've found on JR's account that I thought might make sense in a hotel room.

The dresser drawers have custom collision so that we can place objects in them.

I still need to address the MetaHuman issue, but since the lighting assignment was this sprint I'll get our alternative sorted out next sprint.

Common Art: Lighting Assignment

 The Corpse Bride Lighting Exercise

Our VR Team and the Corpse Bride VR team swapped scenes to light, and I chose the bar scene to light. I was trying to match the scene as much as I could, but I struggled with recreating the way certain lights lit the walls. I used a few light IES textures that I got from the Light Profile Pack on JR's account. There were also some green glow-y parts in the background in the movie scene that I tried to represent with green hued lights.

References:

UE4 images:

VR: Summer Sprint Three

 Individual Contributions III

The hand ended up looking pretty polygonal in game, so I made a higher-res version and reskinned it to the mannequin hand skeleton. I also skinned the game-res watch after using the non-linear Bend deformer tool in Maya to wrap it around the wrist.

I later had to split the hand and watch, since I'd skinned them as a single mesh. I exported each as a separate skeletal mesh that both use the mannequin hand skeleton.

I also worked on getting the MetaHuman stuff into our project. I managed to finally get the retargeting to work properly. 

I ran into an issue where I was trying to mix and match parts of the different available MetaHumans from Quixel, adding them into a single BP, bringing that into our project, and then trying to retarget. The issue was that each piece was referencing a different (but identical) skeleton, and when I would retarget, the skeletal meshes that weren't from the original SampleMetaHumans project that came with the retargeting pose wouldn't acknowledge the retargeted animation.

There was another little thing that wasn't in Epic's documentation: in the skeleton tree of both the MetaHuman skeleton and the mannequin skeleton, I needed to go to options and check Show Retargeting Options, and then everything except the first to bones -- the root and pelvis -- needed to be set to Skeleton for their Translation Retargeting. The root and pelvis get set to Animation. Also, in the Set Up Rig options in the Retargeting Manager, the IK options on the mannequin (turn on Show Advanced) all get set to None for which bone they get mapped to. Retargeting was possible without this being set but it looked bad.

After getting all that figured out, we had several crashes when it was brought into the scene. Manny's also having issues with getting it to work with the line trace. Chris suggested just using a static pose of the MetaHuman instead, and we may end up having to do that.

VR: Summer Sprint Two

 Individual Contributions II

This sprint, my goal was to get the game-res versions of the wristwatch and briefcase. I accomplished that, but one thing I still need to do is get the wristwatch adjusted to wrap around the player's wrist and then paint skin weights.

I also made two different versions of the briefcase for baking, since the closed version was going to create some issues with AO maps. I've also got first bakes of the wristwatch.

Immersive Experience: Summer Sprint One

 Individual Contributions I

Here is a link to our team's semester schedule: Summer Schedule

The assets that I'll be getting done over this semester are:

Sprint One

Player Hand:

The hand was taken from scan data, adjusted to fit the mannequin hand, and skinned. After seeing it in the scene and being used by the player, I'm going to up the resolution when I re-skin it to include the wristwatch.

Wristwatch:

In the process of high-poly. I aim to have it skinned to the player's hand by the end of Sprint Two. It's based on the Casio DW-240, which came out in the mid-80s, to fit the movie setting better.

Money Case and Money:

Currently has a simple rig and proxy. I've fallen behind on this asset, but should be able to catch up over the weekend.

Briefcase update: better-defined box model of briefcase now made.

Sprint Two

For Sprint Two, I'm continuing with the moneycase and wristwatch, making them game-res and laying out their UVs. I'm also making the hand higher-res and reskinning it to include the watch.

Sprint Three

Anton/MetaHuman:

I went through the MetaHumans on Quixel and found one that I think could look like Javier Bardem in the dark. If I have time, I'd like to change his hair since it's kind of a signature look, but we'll have to see how easy it is to import custom hair cards. I'd also like to find some different clothes for him.

Sprint Four

Ceiling Fan and Window:

The environment assets I'm responsible for. The window pane has the panning textures for the rain, and the ceiling fan has a simple rotation BP.

Sprint Five

Pillow:

This asset is mostly finished, it just needs to be reskinned to the current pillow rig.

Alarm Clock:

More or less 'done' with stand-in textures and a functioning BP, but it's not optimized or detailed. I plan to touch it up during Sprint Five.

Sprint Six

Time left over to make any final adjustments or edits to my assets.