Works Profile:In the earliest days of humanity, an alien species made contact with Earth and appointed a number of elites as “communicators” to liaise between worlds. In exchange for alien technology and longevity, these “communicators” followed instructions to prepare for an eventual invasion of Earth. And so in the present day, as part of the invasion plan, a ship that has been sleeping for centuries now awakens. Inside this hidden cave, a mysterious figure, an agent of the aliens, oversees the long-planned mission that heralds the imminent arrival of the alien monsters.

For the process of making trailing smoke, I refer to this YouTube tutorial

Firstly, I need to create a circular sheet and then add a ‘scatter’ to it to sprinkle points on the surface. Secondly, I need to find the trailing smoke in different positions on the plane and make it symmetrical.

Next, I gave the particles velocity and added a scrambling field to change the direction and speed of the wind, and grew the survival time of the particles so that the smoke would continue to trail off.

After setting the number of particles and the survival time, adjust the degree of particle fluctuation

In addition to that, since I want to create a smoke effect, I need to transform the particles into smoke, so I created the ‘Density’and ” Temperature” attribute.

Select pattern types as noise and modify the parameter range.

Add ‘volume rasterize’ to make the smoke volume.

It creates an easy effect, but it’s not realistic enough

In order to make the smoke trailing more noticeable, I need to add a ‘dopnet’ node that will help me control the wind direction and the duration of the smoke trailing in more detail, and especially a Gas Resize Fluid Dynamic node that will dynamically scale the volume container around the active area of the smoke, always keeping the The volume container will dynamically scale around the active area of the smoke, always keeping the size of the container close to the boundaries of the smoke.

The dopimportfield node is used for the export of smoke

I tried rendering it out and compositing it with a still image inside nuke, but I thought the result was poor and fake, so I went to the internet and searched for tons of tutorials, and I’m thinking of trying to use ae to create shuttle dribbling shots.

This week I’m going to create the shot of the spaceship landing, and since I already finished the scene outside the cave last week inside ue5, I need to create the effect of the landing smoke inside houdini.

First I will create a square and adjust its size and shape. The ‘pointvop’ node is added to scramble the velocity layer because I need a smoke effect that spreads outwards.

On top of that, I need to add an additional square and add keyframe animation to simulate the falling of the square.

After animating the falling square, I use the ‘pyro’ node to enhance the volume and realism of the smoke.

I’m trying to adjust the parameters in ‘pyro solver’, I need to increase the randomness of the smoke outward expansion, so that it looks more realistic.

I then needed to add the lights and the model of the ship, and rekeyframe the ship to simulate the descent (replacing the square previously used to simulate the landing)

I tried rendering the background inside ue5, rendering the ship model and smoke inside houdini, and finally importing it into nuke for compositing.

So next I rendered the ambient light so that it looks very nice

Next go for the environmental light compositing

Another very important task was that I needed to create my sci-fi screen effect inside ae, which was not an easy thing to do because it was my first time with this software and I had never used it before.

I’ve tried to collate some of the necessary UI interface text, e.g. heartbeat changes of alien species, embryo images, oxidation, brainwaves, humidity, temperature, ground temperature, and so on

Firstly I downloaded some footage from the website then combined it together and changed the text inside to make it more in line with my theme.

Here’s the final result, I added a layer of ‘highlights’ to make it look more like a sci-fi screen.

To make the story more coherent, I need to add a shot of the man in the spaceship walking into the cave to activate the alien species

I need to create a shot of a man touching the screen, so I need to ‘roto’ the hand animation in nuke to create a mask.

Here’s the final composite, next week I’ll be working on the spaceship trailing smoke effect as well as most of the compositing in nuke.

First I imported the model into sp and baked the maps at the same time.

I experimented with different textures, but went for a more real-life colour, as I wanted my model to look more realistic!

I used PS to create some text on the aircraft, which I imported into SP for texturing.

In order to make my ‘scientific mechanism’ more realistic and characteristic, I went to the Internet to find a lot of reference pictures, so as to design the form of the mechanism again.

This is the whole process of making the ‘Scientific Mechanism’. Firstly, I create the basic form in Maya, and then I use ‘Boolean operations’ to cut the two objects. At the same time, I need to adjust the symmetry of the points and lines, so I will delete the other half of the object first, and then use the ‘special copy’ to finish it after I finish the half.

The most annoying thing is that every time I make a boolean cut, the lines of the model get messed up and I need to spend a lot of time sorting out the wiring and using multicuts to get it to have perfect wiring. This also makes it easier for me to subsequently unroll the UVs and get the materials on to save a lot of time.

After importing inside SP, I need to bake this model for mapping so that I can generate curvature and so on. So I can go ahead and add dirty marks and gullies, which is also for my model to be more realistic.

At first I used red lights for the energy transmission tubes of the ‘science machines’, but I thought that the colour didn’t look that coherent, so I went back to SP and adjusted the colour to lime green, which would give my whole scene a more scientific look.

I downloaded an asset from the internet which is allowing me to better add fog to the scene to simulate a real cave scene.

On top of that, I need to make the scene outside the cave, and this time I’m going to use c4d to model it first, because I want to use the volumetric mesh feature inside c4d, which might help me to simulate irregular forms better.

But I ran into a problem, c4d’s volumetric mesh generates a messy model uv, causing me to be unable to import it into sp to make a texture, so I chose to go with a different approach, which is to use maya to make the model, I went straight to the beginning by creating a base square, and stretching and adjusting the model section by section by expanding the surface.

Finally add some brushes with zb appropriately for more of a stone effect

I’m still using sp to make the maps.

After creating the terrain, I imported the models all into ue5 and used the bridge assets to build the surroundings.

Above is how I built the scenario, I found a reference image and used assets from inside bridge.

Because it’s a spaceship flying from the sea, the surroundings are still the ocean, I used the water plugin inside ue5 to add the ocean material.

Finally I need to add the level sequence and set up my shots, And I used post-processing volume to give my scene tonal and exposure harmony

故事发生在人类诞生的最初时期，一个神秘的外星种族曾与地球建立过秘密联系。这些外星生物具有强大的繁殖能力和适应性，能够通过控制宿主来扩展势力。随着时间的推移，这段历史被埋藏大多数人都不知道。
The story takes place in the earliest days of humanity, when a mysterious alien race had established a secret link with Earth. These aliens were highly reproductive and adaptable, able to expand their power by controlling their hosts. As time passes, this history is buried unknown to most people.

然而，有一群人被外星种族选中，作为“通讯员”。这些通讯员肩负起沟通地球与外星种族的责任，并获得了先进的外星科技和长寿的奖励。作为交换，他们必须遵循外星人的指令，等待时机，协助这些外星物种完成对地球的最终入侵。
However, A group of people have been chosen by an alien race to act as ‘“ communicators.” They have been given the responsibility of communicating between Earth and the alien race, and have been rewarded with advanced alien technology and longevity. In exchange, they must follow the aliens’ instructions and wait for the right moment to assist these alien species in their final invasion of Earth.

这一天，“通讯员”开着这艘飞船，它是连接两个文明的桥梁。它在海底沉睡了数千年，等待着被重新唤醒。今天，这个时刻终于到来。飞船从深海中破水而出，准备完成最终任务——启动入侵计划。
On this day, the communicators drive this space ship, a bridge between two civilisations. It has lain dormant at the bottom of the ocean for thousands of years, waiting to be reawakened. Today, that moment has finally arrived. The spaceship breaks from the ocean, ready to complete the final task given to it by the alien race – to initiate the invasion programme.

通讯员们在飞船的指引下，前往洞穴。洞口站着一位神秘人影，这个人影并非普通人，而是外星种族的代理者，专门监督计划。他象征着外星种族对整个行动的掌控。
So the communicators were guided by the spaceship to the forgotten cave on the coast. At the entrance to the cave stood a mysterious figure, a figure who was not just any man, but an agent of the alien race, specifically supervise this plan that had been carefully planned for thousands of years. He symbolises the alien race’s control over the whole operation.

I tried to use houdini to make the spaceship’s shockwave

I go through the sweep to scan out the volume, which transforms it into particles, and add particle scrambling

However, it doesn’t seem to work and I can’t get through the tutorial because it’s too condensed, so I’ll start over with a different tutorial

This tutorial told me to first create a basic base for the geometry that would act as the source of the shockwave emission

I converted the geometry to pyrosource so that I could simulate the formation of flames

I had to generate a ‘dop net’ which helps simulate the colour of the flames.

I used the ‘transform’ node to make the shockwave follow the ship around.

And so the shockwave of my ship was made.

I’ll start working on the inside of the cave.

Firstly I’ll go and build a semi-enclosed scene as I only need a very faint top light and I need to remove the rest of the messy light sources.

I simply left just one light source that releases a lime green colour which makes my scene look more mysterious

I’ve learnt a new trick of blending materials from the bridge to create a ‘blended material’, I have the freedom to adjust the level of the material in ue5 and paint different materials in different places with brushes, which is very useful for me.

In the ‘Mesh Painting’ mode I can adjust the material sphere with the brush as I like, and the amazing puddle effect I created with the ‘Mixed Material’ mode.

next week I’ll be working on the sci-fi machines inside the cave and the trailing smoke effects of the spaceship.