Andrew Dowell

Hey internet, another quick post about a hugely talented artist called Dzung Phung Dinh. I was looking for a tutorial on how to make realistic subsurface scattering materials for human skin and found this amazing page.  I'm not going to repost it all, if you want to learn how to do it, check it out here:  https://80.lv/articles/secrets-of-human-shaders-in-ue4/ Dzung Phung Dinh got the 1st place winner in modeling demo reel contest of the very first year of Autodesk Contest for students ( CGSA ) back in 2010. Now they call it “The Rookies”. He has been working in 3D graphic industry for 10 years. Working as a Game Artist for Rare UK and on a series of marketplace assets for some Xbox games: Fable III and Halo Reach, Later moving on to VFX/film industry, working as Creature Effect & generalist artist for Double Negative London on feature films like John Carter Of Mars, Snow White & the Huntsman, 007 Skyfall. Now, he's the Founder and Team Lead o...

Recently I was researching into creating a cartoon style effect using post process that could be applied to any project. I found this amazing post on the Unreal Engine community thread, by Thura Oo. I really hate just copy pasting stuff but I'm worried in a few years it may have disappeared. I'm just simply passing the knowledge along and keeping it safe. I've tested it in my own projects and it works great, this more time and care I could get it looking really nice but honestly, I just don't have the time right now as it's not a project priority. I didn't do any of the hard work, this stuff is great and I really would recommend reading the full page: https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?141594?utm_source=launcher&utm_medium=chromium&utm_term=spotlight&utm_content=celshader&utm_campaign=communitytab Woodbound not only uses this effect, but they own it. They really have mastered this and I can't wait to check out their game once it...

Ok, this is a short post just about materials in the Unreal Engine. Materials are fantastic and one of my favorite things about the engine. Sometimes when working on a project and I want to use a previously created material it can be annoying to find the right one. There are some fantastic free material packs online and in the marketplace, I have made a point of copying them into my materials project so that I can quickly find and organize them. This is something that will be ongoing as long as I'm using Unreal. I can't take credit for most of these materials as they come from a wide range of sources (Starter content, Automotive material pack, Stylized Rendering, Content examples and more) but a few of them are mine too. Feel free to download and give them a try. The project is built in 4.15. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B8pWtb1JXjrYdGdUcUFWYW8zcGc?usp=sharing

One of my favorite classic movies is the original 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'. I love the design, the poster art, the story and the music. Man, that music is still as haunting and eerie as the first time I heard it. Since I as a kid I've always wanted a Theremin but couldn't justify it. This is what it sounds like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_3yDl1G3Vk The theremin is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the thereminist (performer). It is named after the Westernized name of its Russian inventor, Léon Theremin (Термéн), The instrument's controlling section usually consists of two metal antennas that sense the relative position of the thereminist's hands and control oscillators for frequency with one hand and amplitude (volume) with the other. The electric signals from the theremin are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker. The theremin was used in movie soundtracks such as Miklós Rózsa's Spellbo...

I'm back with lots to talk about. John Lennon once said that "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans" and I completely agree. Watch them now, and then read the rest of this blog. https://www.youtube.com/user/51Daedalus/videos No seriously, do it now. Just start watching one and you'll be hooked. I'm very keen to market our VR experiences not just with 2D posters and Facebook photos, but to capture the quintessential elements of what makes VR so exciting. Anyone who has seen a 360 video in VR, knows that it feels completely different to just watching one on a computer. Using Daedalus's tutorials I'm hoping to stage a 360 environmental shot using the Nvidia Plugin Ansel. Creating the perfect image and scene arrangement is fundamentally crucial. Ok, so I've been watching a lot of 51Daedalus' tutorials and rather than rewrite everything I'm just gonna put down some bullet points and my own thoughts. I would totally recommen...

Recently I've been doing more R&D into using UE4 for single high quality renders, including 360 Ansel and video output. Normal pipeline procedure for ride films is to produce the work in Maya using a stereo camera rig and render out left and right eye images, compile it in After Effects for a video file to be then played through projection at the event. I've been using UE4 to build the event hall, and place the viewer in the environment with the video content. This is a great way of testing the video renders and for showing clients and potential backers what the final result will look like. The left and right images can be inserted as Texture samples or as video media samples depending on what you want, the current setup below is for a flat plane, but using the LongLatoUV Red and Green input you can place it in a spherical mesh, such as a dome. Emissive wants to be just enough but not over expose, each project will probably need a different value. Over the year...

As I said in a previous post, I love board games, and that got me thinking. What is the intrinsic link that made me select, and keep playing these games? There must be a pattern, formula or at least some basic design principle to follow that will establish how a great game is created. I should probably do the same for computer games too. Anyway, this is a rather long blog post as I've been writing it for several days, and I'm still crunching away to discover the game secrets and process my findings. Ok, lets start with the classic and build from there. Hero Quest , released in1989, designed by Stephen Baker, Art by Les Edwards, Published by Milton Bradley. Hero Quest is Milton Bradley's approach to a Dungeons & Dragons-style adventure game. One player acts as the game master, revealing the maze-like dungeon piecemeal as the players wander. Up to four other players take on a character (wizard, elf, dwarf, or barbarian) and venture forth into dungeons on fantasy ques...