Engine Implementation

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I decided to use the Unreal Engine for the purpose of this project. I found it very easy to use, and the post-processing effects applied by default helps to make the textures and colours looks more define and pleasing to the eye. In terms of the style I was going for realism mixed with stylization, so I went for a PBR based material to make the model look a bit cartoony. I think that Unreal does a better job than Unity in terms of PBR based textures and realistic look of them, so for me, it was an obvious choice.
I exported Baba Yaga and the House as separate models since Baba Yaga's animation is a bit longer than the House. There was nothing complicated while exporting the models to the Unreal, I had no errors, but there were still things to be done in the engine to make it all look spot on.


The first part was to create all materials and assembly them correctly. Because of the different properties of some parts of the model, I had to make separate materials for each part. This way, I ended up having 8 materials for the House, each one with specific parameters.

 For root material was looking better when the blend mode was set to translucent, herbs were better with the two-sided foliage option applied. Also, for the roof and roots animation, I wanted to use a clothing system inside Unreal, so I had to attach a separate material for each one in order to apply the clothing system later. I also did the same for the hair and clothing of Baba Yaga.

For the presentation purposes, I decided to keep the scene neat, with no distracting objects. At first, my plan was to create the whole environment surrounding the House, or at least having the moving ground underneath, however after reading some industry articles I decided to stick just to presenting the character that I have made professionally. I did not want to mix environment art with character art they much, because from the research that I have done arise that for the portfolio purposes is better to stick to one. So, in this case, I only played around with the default skybox and post-processing, making the scene look more attractive, while not distracting. In this case, I changed the lightning to resemble the late evening conditions, when the light is soft, and the overall atmosphere is more magical.
skybox and light comparsion
trello board - 2 new tasks to do: clothing system and particle effect

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