FMP 12 - Skydome, Dynamic Sun and Wind Turbines

After following a tutorial on the internet, through the material editor, i found a way to connect the dominent directional light to the skydome so that wherever you move the the light, you get a sun disc in that exact area. Its perfect as, after making a material instance constant from it, you can adjust the settings which will change the brightness of the sun and the size of the disc. You can also change the colour of the sun to make it fit according to the theme of the level. My light also has light shafts that allowed which is what i wanted to achieve to get the sun shining through the leaves. It was a major part of getting my level right so i had to nail it early as it all fits in with my desired colour scheme and pallet.

The wind turbines were placed far from an inaccessible opening in section 2 to show they are in the distance. I converted the heads to mover interp actors and varied the spin speed of them all so they don't look unnaturally the same. The texture is a simple white which is how they always look anyway, clean.

FMP 11 - Tree Foliage Added

I finally added some foliage to the trees which changes the whole scene more to what i want it to look like. I painted the leaves myself. They are probably a bit unnatural as the leaves are all painted separately and neatly spaced but i could fix that maybe by just adding more leaves to the tree eventually and not being afraid to blend the geometry in with each other.

I used the same material settings on the leaves used the make my grass move with the wind actor. So if the wind was to change in speed or direction or power, they will move with the grass at the same time.

The material setting for my leaves and trees are BLEND_masked meaning, any alpha channel painted areas i made in photoshop will not be seen at all in UDK. If i was to use BLEND transluscent, even the leaves turn out see through which is silly.

FMP 10 - Fireplace and Fire Particles

The materials are dead simple in this method. The main effects are through the particle system editor in which i followed a tutorial to get my fire flowing. I just needed to make 4 variation textures in photoshop for the fire, and the smoke to get a better more random fire effect. The other effect in the material editors below are simple heatwavey effect you get from real fire. So if you go close to the fire, you can see ripples in the air and smoke release from above the main fire. I painted the fire myself and worked around the cloud filter in photoshop to get the four different smoke textures. I placed all 4 materials in the partcle system editor and tampered with the setting to get my desired firey effect then added it on top of some logs. They glow with the fast flickering light i made the match the fire speed.

FMP 9 - Fireflies Particles

I painted a simple alpha dot in photoshop and followed a tutorial to get the dot to the right colour and get a pulsing misty effect going to give it some light. It is only slightly noticable but because it is an emissive, the bloom settings i set in world properties should give it a light glimmer under certain lights and if you get close to them. I messed about with the particle settings to get the fireflies floating about in one limited area. When i was sattisfied, i placed a few here and there and within the forest but i placed swarms of them in the main lake of section 1 above the water because that is mostky where they would be likely to swarm during mating season. I think i am pleased with the effect i achieved in the end as it isn't too over the top. If you fall into the water around main lake, you also need to brush through them to get to the slope near the shelter to get back onto the plank path.