Desert Panther
Rocker Science
Unreal Engine 5
Release Date: 2020
Los Angeles
Environmental design animation sequence was developed for a school technology presentation introduction. Modeling and procedural texturing developed within Cinema 4D and special effects added post-processing within Hitfilm FX Engine.
Cinema 4D Modeling
The textures were applied to the meshes, and the metallic materials gave the letters a nice silver.
Multiple textures of "black leather" and metallic colors were used for various parts of the school logo panther paw. Nodal editing was also utilized in creating multiple channels in Diffusion, Displacement, Roughness, and Normals.
Wireframes of the panther paw were visualized to understand the subdivision of the geometries from the original image. The titles were physically manipulated within the Lerp Function of C4D.
Additional point lights were added around the panther paw for greater diffusion effect around the leather pad area. A high level of reflection and sheen were added to the claws and the titling, which was formatted in 3D Substance Painter. The paw was added to the Unreal Engine scene (detailed below) and composited with electricity FX within the Hitfilm Pro Compositing Program.
Unreal Engine Animation
The Reflection Visualization helped to determine how much light was being reflected off the various assets within the desert vista. We can see that there is a high level of light reflection off the tops of the cliffs in the distance.
The desert scene was Wireframed within Unreal Engine to get a general sense of the polygonal count of the Megascan cliffs that were imported through the Bridge plug-in.
Lightmap Density visualization was also utilized to understand how the light was reflecting off of the dynamically moving shrubs throughout the desert scene.
The Unlit Visualization gives a good sense of the true color diffusion of the various assets within the scene. We can see the lighting drops off dramatically with the outer HDMI semi-sphere shell image. However, when adding the exponential fog and sky light actors, the background and sky give a nice "blue-silver" depth that would be realistic for a desert scene.
