---
# System prepended metadata

title: <19096503> Individual_Work_Document
tags: [Witch Apartment VFX Project, MA Games Art, Collaborative Practice, VFX Production]

---

###### tags: `MA Games Art` `VFX Production` `Collaborative Practice` `Witch Apartment VFX Project`

# <19096503> VFX_Individual_Work_Document
(https://hackmd.io/@JunoFBX/Byyx_DXxeg)

### VFX Group Production (6G7V0038_2425_1)
### Games Art Masters L7
### Junaid Sheikh

---

## Introduction

VFX Group Production is a module that provided an opportunity to work with a collective of artists whilst developing new skills that could assist in gaining an understanding of industry standard workflows for VFX production. In order to work collaboratively and produce an ambitious narrative-driven VFX cinematic piece, it will be essential to manage all aspects of the VFX pipeline production and delegate work to ensure work is completed on time and to a high standard.

## Project Aims

My studio group Moonveil Studios aims to create a stylised 3D cinematic with magical elements that would allow us to showcase our individual skillsets and develop our skills towards a VFX industry pipeline. This project would provide a challenging opportunity to work alongside peers to develop technical skills, enhance my 3D modelling skillset and improve upon my project management skills through professional organisation workflows.

My personal aims for this module is to develop my skills in Unreal Engine via exploring shader and texture creation and how they can be used within the VFX pipeline. I also aim to develop my skills in areas such as lighting and rendering, as well as expanding upon my experience with 3D modelling in Maya. This project would provide me with a new opportunity utilise my previous experience of 3D modelling within a collaborative workflow, taking advantage of shared resources and feedback to further develop my understanding of the VFX and Games Art pipelines. My prior experience in 3D modelling has been focused on realistic 3D modelling processes, so choosing a stylised theme would provide a refreshing challenge. In addition, I had no prior experience with scene composition or rendering in Unreal Engine so this would be a great opportunity to begin developing my knowledge in this area of expertise and demonstrate my capabilities as a 3D Environment Artist.

---
## Week 1 - Concept Development and Research

In week one we formed our group **Moonveil Studios** and began to conceptualise a fantasy-themed cinematic, influenced by contemporary environment aesthetics. We started by creating moodboards and searching for influences we could refer back to during production. Since we wanted to create a stylised piece, I suggested looking into the city-pop aesthetic, taking inspiration from anime.

From here we assigned roles, and I took on several roles such as Project Lead, 3D Environment Artist and Technical Artist, as my main goal was to improve upon my scene assembly, shader creation skills in Unreal Engine and my 3D modelling skills in Maya. In order to keep track of team progress in a professional manner and ensure deadlines are met, I developed a HackMD document for weekly breakdowns which I then shared in the Teams chat so everyone could access it and keep it regularly updated. Setting the document up early on would ensure that each group member would report on their progress and would make it easier to diagnose potential issues with workflows later on.

As the Project Lead, I was responsible for assigning roles, making sure everyone consistently updated me on their progress, resolve workflow issues and assign responsibilities. After consulting with my group about their personal aims for the project and discussing about their current skills, I decided to play to their strengths, by assigning the following roles to each group member:

- Junaid: Project Lead, 3D Environment Artist, Technical Artist
- Sarah: Lead VFX Artist and 3D Environment Artist
- Umar: Visual Director, Concept Artist and Prop Artist
- Adiel: 3D Environment Artist, Texture Artist

By assigning roles, it would become clearer to delegate the right tasks and consult them if they are having specific issues.

Below is the moodboard of reference material I gathered, showing a variety of furniture, scenery, art styles, props and other various material that related to themes of fantasy and contemporary aesthetics that created a narrative centered around a Witch's apartment.

![vfx board 1](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/rJL8oHUgxg.png)
*Moodboard of visual references centered around witch related items, paganistic culture, midsommar related imagery and city pop aesthetics.*

![vfx board 2](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HJkPjr8leg.png)
*Moodboard of visual references centered around furniture that related to the theme of fantasy/contemporary aesthetics.*

---
## Week 2 - Shader Research

In week two, I refined my research by gathering specific visual references and began to develop my understanding of producing stylised materials and shaders in Unreal Engine. After producing an extensive moodboard for the group to work from, I chose to focus on understanding the concept of stylisation, how it differs from realism and unique ways to make stylisted content through the development of stylised shaders. During this week, Umar had developed a drawn animatic of the witch's apartment cinematic, with consideration on camera angles, asset design and narrative production. This prompted me to begin developing a detailed asset list outlining all possible 3D models required for the cinematic and dividing them by area so that each area could be worked on by different members of the studio group. 

Below are screenshots of role assignment, production plan and the asset list I developed for the group in order to assign each member with focused tasks that could also benefit their personal goals for this project. Each member wanted to focus their expertise on a specific field during this VFX Production project, so I picked roles and workloads that could best highlight these for each member.

![Screenshot 2025-05-05 at 11.22.09](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Hy5F-fUxee.png)

---
![Screenshot 2025-05-05 at 11.28.15](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/r1r0MGIegg.png)
*Full 3D asset list for the Witch's Apartment Cinematic, with each area being assigned to a different group member.*

### Developing art styles
I continued to collect visual references and look into methods to replicate the aesthetics of various games such as Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) and Ni no Kuni: Crossworlds (2022). At this point I solidified the aesthetic, taking heavy inspiration from the anime All Saints Street (2022) after consulting with peers in the class. I particularly liked the visual art style of All Saints Street (2022) due to its simplified line art style, soft tones and aesthetically pleasing designs.

![moodboard](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJPaOrIggx.png)
*Moodboard of stylistic references from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (videogame, 2017), Ni No Kuni: Crossworlds (videogame, 2022) and All Saints Street (web series, 2022).*

In order to capture this aesthetic and recreate 2D stylisation in 3D workflows, I decided to immerse myself in stylised art production for both 2D and 3D workflows. I found that the option that could provide the best output for stylised 3D models was Unreal Engine, due to the capabilities of the node based material function systems. This would prompt me to expand my knowledge on Technical Art and look at various other artists for inspiration. Having Umar, a 2D Concept Artist on the team, provided me with a great opportunity to receive feedback on producing stylised materials and consult them on future material aesthetics.

---
## Week 3 - Block Out and Shader Research

In the previous week, Umar had presented an animatic to the group, which provided an amazing visual reference for the group to work from. The animatic showed a strong, coherent environmental design which would aid in producing the environment as a 3D scene. I began to work on creating an initial 3D blockout in Maya to translate Umar's animatic into a 3D space and completed this first iteration of the blockout with consultation from my group peers. Creating this blockout would allow for us to begin finalising the apartment concept and developing assets to populate the scene. 

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/S1gt5GUgll.png)
*Screenshot of front viewport showing Witch Apartment blockout in Autodesk Maya.*

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SyUM6MLgex.png)
*Screenshot of back viewport showing Witch Apartment blockout in Autodesk Maya.*

While working on the blockout, I also began to experiment with shader creation in Unreal Engine, researching different uses of shaders and how they can be used in conjunction with lighting and visual FX elements. Looking at the asset list I developed in the second week, I started to consider developing shaders with specific assets in mind, specifically ones that required animations or liquid simulations as these would be prioritised assets within the scene.

### Stylisation
I found various interesting articles on 80 Level about the production of stylised materials, cel shaders and a few tutorials that set me on the path of creating a stylised cel shader for our project. I found two particularly useful forms of content that provided me with a strong understanding of creating stylised work and would aid me in creating my cel shader later on. One was an article on 80 Level produced by Senior 3D Artist Glen Fox and another was a YouTube video by Bran Sclupts titled *Getting that 2D look in 3D!*

![Screenshot 2025-05-05 152730-min](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/ryVmoSLlgg.png)
*Article produced by Glen Fox, a Senior 3D Artist who provides techniques and workflows for producing stylised content, available on 80 Level.*

I found Glen Fox's article on stylised workflows impactful as it gave some vital information about techniques for stylised asset production and I found some key information that would prove to be very useful later on. After researching various artists on 80 Level and reading their articles on stylised production, I was able to find four key elements for developing stylised content:

- Stylisation is centered around the simplification of realistic bodies of work, prompting artists to exaggerate forms and implement personality and emotion into objects that normally would remain rigid and dormant.
- Exaggerated proportions can bolster the visual impact of a character or environment asset, reinforcing the importance of it through context.
- Colour palettes can be used to emphasise emotions through the use of more saturated colours. More vivid colours can be used to convey positive narratives while desaturated colours can convey more a serious tone.
- Texturing with stylisation prompts more expressive artistic styles that you could not normally achieve with realistic details, so having hand painted textures that can be used as texture maps can provide more interesting aesthetics.

### Cel Shader Production

As I wanted to pursue Technical Art in this project, I decided to start working on the Cel Shader immediately and was able to confidently create a Cel shader with distinctive shaded 'bands' that would work based off the lighting. The Cel shader also had rim lighting, which allowed for interesting capabilities like specular highlights to be added to reflective materials. After developing the cel shader, I started seeing more possibilities for the cel shader usage as it already worked with roughness, metallics, opacity levels and normal maps. I was curious as the Cel shader worked well with light sources, but wondered how it would work with emissives that give out light, and so began to experiment with testing out emissive properties as well.

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BkaLpHIxex.png)
*Screenshot showing first instance of the Cel Shader in UE5, with 4 distinct bands of light.*

---
## Week 4 - Finalised Block Out 

In week four, we began to finalise the 3D environment which proved beneficial for producing correctly scaled assets ready for the next stage of production. Sarah and I both developed our own concepts of the Witch apartment scene whilst still staying true to the interior design provided from Umar's animatic piece. After discussing how to best achieve the overall themes for this project as a fantasy Witch apartment set in a contemporary era, we merged our blockouts, utilising Sarah's scaled interior and completing the aesthetic of an apartment complex with a balcony.
By doing so, we were able to finalise our 3D environment and begin developing furnishing assets that could populate the scene and be imported into Unreal Engine. 

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SkfvKz8eee.png)
*Front View Render of the finalised Witch apartment scene in Autodesk Arnold.*

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/B1zKKMIlex.png)
*Top view Render of the finalised Witch apartment scene in Autodesk Arnold.*


Also during this week, we discussed issues we have been encountering and how to troubleshoot them so we could complete work for specified deadlines. Sarah voiced her concerns about her experimentation in Houdini, as she was focused on developing potion physics simulations for one of the vital cinematic shots. She was finding it particularly difficult to produce outcomes using Houdini so I consulted others outside the group on solutions for developing a potion complete with liquid simulations. I decided to focus my attention on creating a potion shader material in Unreal Engine that could be used in place of the Houdini simulation, allowing Sarah to speed up her modelling process. Despite trying to focus on the groups individual aims within this project, we decided to proceed with alternative methods to ensure work could be completed on time.

To keep track of all of our progress in a more professional manner, Sarah produced a Excel Spreadsheet of all assets, all necessary stages of production for this project and prompted the group to fill the spreadsheet as often as possible so the group could see the visual progression of the project.

![plan 1](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SyLjYIwxel.png)
*Sarah's Excel spreadsheet outlining all the tasks requiring completion with all stages of production, filled in with current progress.*

---
## Week 5 - Populating the Desk Area and creating a liquid shader

After the finalisation of our 3D apartment scene, I was able to move on to the next stage of the production. This week comprised of the creation of various 3D assets for my assigned space such as the desk itself, the tome stand, book stand, books, desk lamp and ornate storage chest, as well as refining the exterior.

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/r1R-k4Kxxl.png)
*Screenshot of some of my assets within the Witch Apartment 3D scene in Autodesk Maya.*

### Potion simulation solution

In the prior week, Sarah mentioned she was struggling to get a liquid simulation working in Houdini so I conducted some research.

A previous technical artist I had the opportunity to work with provided some valuable insight for developing a potion shader as they had a lot of experience with liquid simulations in Unreal Engine and so I was able to take care of the potion VFX quite quickly. With help from the Epic Games Unreal Engine 5 development website and assistance from other peers, I was finally able to produce a liquid shader that could be affected by parameters such as movement speed, fill amount and kinetic strength which all would work towards recreating the potion animation sequence. This was an important task to complete and being able to troubleshoot the potion effects early on was beneficial.

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SJx3nrIxee.png)
*Potion shader graph in UE5, showing a variety of parameters and nodes that affect the materials fill colour, fill amount, speed of movement, strength of movement, 'wobble' effect etc. to create a reaslistic liquid simulation.*

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/ByYsnHLgll.png)
*Potion shader material instance in UE5, with all the parameters enabled and ready for application on the potion asset.*

---
## Week 6 - Mid Project Review

### Meeting
During this week, I decided to conduct a meeting to review our progress and see how our project was developing at the halfway point. This meeting provided valuable insight about our current workflows, issues we were encountering and addressing the best solutions to workloads that needed to be prioritised. By week six we were still waiting on some 3D assets to be finished which put us slightly behind schedule. By this point I would have expected to have static models prepared for importing to engine, so I decided to reassign roles in order to quickly fix the pipeline workflow and get us back on track.

![team meeting](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/BJU-v48xxe.jpg)
*Screenshot of team meeting conducted in week six of our VFX project.*

Seeing as Sarah and I excelled at 3D asset production, we took control over the environment assets for the bedside space. Umar continued to work on their 2D animation assets while expanding their focus on creating stylised textures that could be used as normal maps. Seeing as Sarah was in charge of VFX and had taken up the task of animating the potion bottle, I felt comfortable assigning Sarah to work on 3D animations for hero assets in the scene. I prioritised working on the Bed asset with Sarah and developing the Cel shader with more advanced properties such as emissives and being able to create stylised cast shadow effects on characters and environment assets.

I was unable to converse with Adiel about his current progress as he did not attend the meeting so I went ahead and delegated some of his workload to other members so we could move quicker through this production stage. Having the mid project review meeting was essential for understanding our dynamic as a studio group and allowed us to talk about our concerns regarding workflow and consider our options for the issues we were encountering. Restructuring the project was a necessary decision as if this was left unaccounted for and I did not reassign tasks, it would make future weeks a lot more difficult to manage.

Below are some notes of this online meeting session which Sarah notarised.

![Screenshot 2025-05-02 at 14.10.20](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HkUjU48lxx.png)
*Post meeting notes, notarised by Sarah and shared in Teams chat.*

---
## Week 7 - Emission and Reactivity Problems

During week seven, I was able to finally develop a stylised cel shader aesthetic I liked based off the moodboard and visual references I collected in the second and third weeks. At this point I had started to develop my node system for the material function to manage colours, saturation in light, desaturation in shadows and work with texture maps but I was having issues with emission values. I wanted some specific VFX elements to have emissives activated when the cell shader was applied to models such as the potions or plant spores so that they could give off light in side the space and produce a more immersive scene. I struggled to get the emissives to work properly as they were meant to only activate at night through the use of the *Sky Atmosphere Light Illuminance on Ground* node but remained active all day and was far too luminous during night time. The major fix for this was changing some parameter nodes around, adding an emissive intensity controller and adding a night tinting effect that could soften the emissive glow.

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HyoM18Leeg.png)
*Screenshot showing cel shader interacting with the 3D Environment and UE5 default test mannequins.*

After seeing how the shader interacted with the model and test mannequins in the Unreal Engine Toolkit, I realised I had some technical issues to resolve. I did not like the way the material decimated any sculpted details on the models and simplified the models heavily. The material was far too emissive as well, creating a massive white glow when the time of day cycled to night time. This was an issue that required immediate attention as we would need to render scenes at both day and night time for the cinematic. The most likely issues affecting the material would have been an issue with the node system and potentially assets without UVs as the material would not be able to generate shading correctly if the lighting interacts with the object abnormally.

The easiest solution was to revisit the node system for the material function of the Cel Shader and troubleshoot issues from there, so I began looking at the node graph to diagnose problems and found that certain overlaying sections of node graphs were plugged incorrectly which is why the models appeared decimated and poorly shaded. After correcting my node graphs and fixing the night tint, adding emissive parameters and correcting values that interact with world lighting as the material depended heavily on the point lights and skylight. This was solved quickly with the use of the Sundial feature in UE5 which allowed me to see how the shader works in peak daylight versus nighttime.

I revisited Sarah's Excel spreadsheet to log my progress and see how the group was working after our previous online meeting and was starting to see more progress.

![plan 2](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/B1Vs9LDggl.png)
*Screenshot of asset list Excel spreadsheet, with progression between week three to week six.*

---
## Week 8 - Cel Shader Fixes and Iterations

After facing technical difficulties last week with the Cel Shader, I reworked the node system for the material function and managed to keep the same level of shading detail on the materials 'bands' of light and fix the way the material interacted with lighting. By fixing the material nodes, I was able to fix the reflective properties on the material as well so I could produce a variety of material instances for metallic cel shading for items such as the metal lamp, cupboard handles and door knobs, but also for producing reflective surfaces such as glass for bottles or windows.

After fixing the material I began iterating on the material and seeing the potential of the fixed shader. The Cel shader I produced was based on a Linear Interpolate cycle which allows for multiple shading bands, but these bands could be hidden by reducing the band start values. This allowed me to create pretty interesting iterations of the material, having one material with two bands, one with four bands of lighting and one with a highlighted outliner. The outliner material mixed with two bands of lighting felt like the best material as it exaggerated the colours and forms of the test model without decimating any details and worked well in all lighting modes.

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SJKDpSLggg.png)
*Screenshot showing iteration of Cel shader in UE5 with specular highlights in the light, a rim light around the material and reflective properties enabled.*

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/S1AhTBUlge.png)
*Screenshot showing a material instance of the Cel shader with two distinct bands of light, with an accented rimlight as an outliner.*

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HJqjGsUggx.png)
*Screenshot of Cel shader instances on default UE5 mannequins. From left to right: Four light band cel shader, cel shader with specular (reflective) and two tone cel shader with outliner.*


---
## Week 9 - Cel Shader Iterations

After creating some iterations with lighting bands and testing how shadows work with character and environment models, I began to experiment with colours and trying parameters with high values to see the effects of having high values on emissives. Sarah had plans for creating spores in the scene using Houdini, so I decided to test parameters on emissive values and found a unique way to get temperature based emissives which would glow with warm and cool colours depending on the intensity value.

I also managed to iterate on the metallic material by adding anisotropy parameters that can influence the way light bounces off the material, which provides a unique reflective property. At this point, I am able to modify the original cel shader to utilise metallics, roughness, specular highlighting, anisotropy, light banding, emissive intensity, opacity values and normal map intensity which provides a great opportunity to produce a vast amount of varied materials for the entire scene. Below are some screenshots of the iterations of the materials and my testing process for a variety of material instances.

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/H1w0TBUelg.png)
*Screenshot of testing specular parameters paired with anisotropy to get a unique shine on the metallic material instance.*

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/r1mWAr8gge.png)
*Screenshots of material instances demonstrating various properties such as reflectiveness, specular highlights, rim outlining, colour and emissives.*

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/rJP-0rUgee.png)
From left to right: four band cel shader with colour, Two tone rim highlighted shader, four band cel shader with emissive and two tone rim highlighted cel shader with emissives.*

---
## Week 10 - Engine Development

After doing a lot of testing with the Cel shader and making a variety of material instances, I was ready to begin texturing all assets and filling the scene. At this point, I realised we had to do some clean up for a lot of models as exporting required each model to have assigned materials so that they can remain as one asset but have different textures applied. This would be essential for grouped assets like potion vials, plant pots and books. Cleaning up models and assigning multiple materials took a while, but was easily sorted for importing. 

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HkNxGUDxxg.png)
*Screenshot of Witch Apartment 3D scene with multiple assigned materials per asset, ready for texturing in UE5.*


However at this point in the project, I started to encounter project crashes in Unreal Engine 5. Having constant crashes from hardware restrictions seemed to be the main issue, but luckily I had kept consistent project backups so progress was often restored quickly and with ease. This reminded me of the importance of keeping work backed up regularly as a loss of project work can lead to a lot of lost progress.

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Hyc-Lh8gee.png)
*Screenshot of Unreal Engine 5 error messages for our VFX Cinematic project.*

---
## Week 11 - Importing Finalised assets and resolving UE5 crashes

After encountering some issues regarding Unreal crashing and losing some project files, I was able to work from a backup and recover some lost progress quickly and begin cleaning up the scene in engine. I was finally able to import all environment assets to the scene, ready to apply my cel shader material instances for texturing. I began working on texturing the exterior using Umar's brick texture, then worked my way in on all the hero assets, making sure to apply a variety of instances for each metallic, specular and rough material.

![Screenshot 2025-05-05 154822-min](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/H1WygLLlle.png)
*Screenshot of Unreal Engine scene being prepared for cinematic.*

There were a lot of unique material instances to create for all the assets, but this was arguably the more enjoyable part of the texture creation aspect. Despite the difficulties of getting the material function to work with models and constant crashes, I was able to restore progress through troubleshooting forums.

To continue keeping the group on track, I kept updating Sarah's Excel spreadsheet and conversing with all group members to find our their current progress, making sure to emphasise the importance of completing tasks assigned and filling in the spreadsheet.

![plan 3](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Sy0QjIvgee.png)
*Screenshot of the Excel spreadsheet with current progression.*

---
## Final Weeks

Despite experiencing frequent technical issues and the initial importing issues, the final stages of production went smoothly. I continued to collaborate with Sarah in person to gain her critique and feedback on the composition of the Unreal Engine scene and to import her alembic animations into the engine scene. 

The final weeks consisted of a lot of odd jobs like clean up and texturing being my tasks whilst Sarah worked on perfecting her 3D animations for the Magic tome asset, the Monstera plant, the chair animation and the finalisation of the spore particle effects. Umar in this time had also produced extra textures and was able to finalise our witch animation that would tie the sequence together. A lot of the final weeks were spent focused on the clean up of models, fixing emissive issues, troubleshooting, making sure the camera cuts were very precise and finally, for rendering the cinematic scene. #

During this time, we made a spur of the moment decision to create posters that could fill the room as some of the spaces felt bare. Umar was able to use their concept art skills to create posters that tied the thematic of fantasy contemporary witch apartment together. Below are some images of the final developments that aided in creating the final output.

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/H1Ht_pLxle.png)
*Photograph of collaboration with Sarah, working on the Unreal Engine project files.*

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Skxo0H8egl.png)
*Screenshot of Umar's sigil added as an opacity mask on a material instance.*

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Hk8CCS8lxe.png)
*Screenshot of Umar's sigil added as an opacity mask on a material instance, complete with emissive properties.*

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Hk8e1UUgxe.png)
*Screenshot of Sarah's Tome animated model with final textures in the scene.*

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Hyw2jvUlge.png)
*Screenshot of emissive values being tested on a material instance, showing warm coloured emissive tones.*

![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HySjoPIxle.png)
*Screenshot of emissive values being tested on a material instance, showing cooler colours through emissive properties.*


After getting the assets all in the scene and fully textured, I worked alongside Sarah to put together the cinematic using the Sequencer. The sequencer functions exactly like a timeline editor, allowing for even looped animations to be offset until a certain point, which is particularly useful for the animated assets in our scene as they were to only trigger when the scene turned to night time. Both Sarah and I encountered a lot of issues trying to assign animated assets without experiencing crashes, so every so often we would have to keep making backups and removing some content if it caused a frequent crash. Initially making the shader was quite difficult but after a lot of refinement, I managed to successfully develop a cel shader with universal uses.

---
## Final scene composition shots

After finalising the scene we were ready to begin rendering the entire cinematic. Sarah was a massive help in organising the sequencer and keyframing the animations for the render which made the final export a lot easier towards the end of the project. Both Sarah and I worked on the final sequence, polishing all animations and making sure the rendered scenes matched with the audio track that Umar had produced between week seven-eight.

The rendering process was quite intense and frustrating at times as we had to cue a lot keyframes for various parameters and often struggled with a lot of elements not working as intended. We worked hard on the sequenced shots, making sure each animated asset triggered at the right interval but also cued them to unanimously stop when the Witch was to reappear in her apartment.

Below are some screenshots of the viewport environment, the rendering sequencer and some final rendered frames.

#### Viewport
![Screenshot 2025-05-06 at 00.53.00-min](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HyWsk08exe.png)
*Screenshot of the Desk space and bookshelf area, completed with Cel shader textures and custom potion shaders.*

![Screenshot 2025-05-06 at 00.57.09-min](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/ryAul0Lxxe.png)
*Screenshot of the room from the first camera view showing the bedside and angled view of the entrance.*

#### Sequencer Screenshots

![rendering](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/rJDUPT_gxl.png)
*Screenshot of Unreal Engine sequencer being prepped for producing final renders.*

![render 2](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/S15Iw6_xxl.png)
*Screenshot of keyframed animations and parameters on one of various assets in Unreal Engine 5's sequencer.*

#### Final Renders of frames

![WitchAnimation.0315-min](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/r1ewr8wxgg.png)
*Render of Witch Apartment scene, in Unreal Engine 5.*

![WitchAnimation.0008](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SyE98LPlee.png)
*Render of Witch Apartment scene, in Unreal Engine 5.*

#### Final Movie: A Witch's Apartment

A Witch's Apartment - Moonveil Studios animation
https://youtu.be/6JNusadqpQs

---
## Future Developments 

As a group we managed to deliver a high quality animation with VFX elements. I was able to develop my understanding of VFX production workflows by taking on a plethora of new tasks such as sequencing and rendering in Unreal Engine 5 and experimenting with materials to develop my Technical Art skills.

Unfortunately, some assets did not make the final render, such as the animated cat, Adiels animated flowers and a few miscellaneous props, but a majority of assets were completely finished. The important assets such as the chair, tome, potion bottle and hanging plants were a priority so I was glad to have them finished on time for the render. With more time to develop the project, it would have been great to add the finished animated cat model, more variety with assets to populate the scene and spend some more time developing the scene. The scene overall was composed of mostly 3D assets, but we managed to blend 2D into the scene with the use of Umar's animated 2D Witch asset which blended into the scene quite nicely.

---
### Conclusion

This project has provided a unique challenge for me as it has prompted me to take on new workflows, adapt the project aims and restructure the project in order to complete the project. Initially the project workload was split between four people, each set on their own particular goals and desire to explore a new expertise. There were a few issues at the start regarding solidifying the thematic, but once we settled on creating low-poly assets with stylisation in mind, we found the workload quite easy to accomplish. I found it initially difficult to develop shader materials as I had no prior experience using node systems in Unreal Engine, but after a lot of testing and reconfiguring I was able to generate a cel shader that fit the stylised theme we aimed for. The Cel shader texturing did a lot of the heavy lifting as it provided a quick and easy solution to texturing a mass of assets that could be textured with material instances and modified parameters.

There were a lot of technical challenges, with both visual art and engine based issues that prompted me to take on the role of troubleshooting major problems. Consulting Sarah provided a lot of great input, especially when fixing lighting issues and creating a cel shader that could react well with the environment. Despite some workflow problems around week six, I was able to reassign workloads based on the capabilities of each member in the group. 

Taking a laid back but structured approach allowed for others to develop their own conceptual styles and provided enough structure to keep us on track with project milestones and goals. I wanted to allow this project to give people the space to develop the project naturally rather than having a strict thematic and overall I believe we achieved a coherent style that we all are happy with. Despite the success of the project, we struggled to meet initial deadlines for certain stages of production. 

I produced a detailed asset list for each member to follow, assigned tasks to each member and kept detailed notes of each week's progress and Sarah produced a Excel spreadsheet we could utilise as a group to check off each assets completion. Even though our efforts for organisation were extensive, our group struggled to keep each other updated each week and by week six, we had a backlog of tasks that needed immediate attention. By reassigning tasks we were able to complete them a lot faster, but it left some group members unable to contribute as much since their tasks were taken over or reassigned to someone else. Adiel's goals of texturing had to be done by Umar as Umar had a stronger connection to the stylised theme and was more consistent with the art style for the project overall. Sarah took over animation from Umar and Adiel despite wanting to focus on VFX elements and 3D asset production. 

I think our group struggled with communication at certain stages as some group members were often unavailable for periods of time and would be difficult to contact about their progress during weekly meetings so having more frequent meetings both in person and online would benefit the studio work ethic.

Moving forward, I think a more clearly structured progression and transformation of member's roles would be better as some group members despite wanting to experiment with new software, also were required to produce some work. Sarah's experimentation with Houdini proved to be difficult, but she was more than willing to assist others in the animation and texturing department and Umar was hugely beneficial for creating stylised content for decor and for texture maps. In order to tackle communicative issues, a more clearer line of communication should be prioritised as it was often difficult to know how to contact other members and receive updates in a timely response.

Overall, I am proud of the accomplishments I have made as a technical artist and developing my skills in Unreal Engine has given me a good understanding of the VFX production pipeline. I would like to do more cinematic pieces in the future, so the skills I have developed this project will definitely be utilised in the future.