#vr project

[ratsoupee]

Pspsps I did a VR Interactive Story thing. I cried tears and put blood into it

Visual Development work if you keep reading!

[ikemenfangirl]

VR Kareshi - Virtual Reality Boyfriend By: IVR (illusion VR) For: iOS & Android Genre: VR games, Entertainment for girls Website: http://vrkareshi.com (Eng) http://vrkareshi.jp (JP)

coming in 2021

VR Project, The VR guy is working at Harukaze Cafe Virtual Reality Boyfriend, 4 Voice 4 Style

Cast

Akito Honami CV: Hosoya Yoshimasa #細谷佳正 Childhood friend

Souma Shirakawa CV: Morikubo Showtaro #森久保祥太郎 Be your fake lover for some reason

Yuu Kusunoki CV: Suzuki Chihiro #鈴木千尋 Kouhai, Your junior high school

Yousuke Yamashiro CV: Hiroaki Hirata #平田広明 Cafe master

[theartofmany]

Artist: Tyler Thull Title: Cancelled project “Some of the concepts I am allowed to share from a cancelled project while working with Camouflaj for a VR project. Base models supplied by studio.” Very cool stuff...

[midmarauder]

New Poster for the VR Project “O” Directed by Qiu Yang

www.midnight-marauder.com

[jian-wei-24]

VR Project (Environment Set Up Part 2) [Assignment set by Apache]

Figure 1-2: Usage of Decal Champ.

Decal Champ, a decal generator set up by Akshat, was widely used to create various stains on the environment such as floor marks, ink spills, tea stains, and signs of aging on the walls. These details were added to enhance storytelling within the environment and to make the space feel more believable and less visually flat.

Figure 3: Commanding officer's personal communication section

Since the commanding officer of the castle holds a high-ranking position and is regularly contacted for various scientific and military matters, a small emergency or stable communication line was installed in his office. This setup helps speed up communication and avoids excessive bureaucracy, ensuring important messages reach the commanding officer and other relevant individuals quickly and efficiently.

Figure 4: Hidden room within the commanding officer's office (Left). Figure 5: Inside the hidden room (Right).

The environment is designed to give the illusion of a standard military headquarters. However, as the player reaches the final section of the main room, which is the commanding officer’s office, they discover an exposed hidden room concealed behind two tall bookshelves placed against a large wall, as shown in figure 11. This unexpected reveal leads deeper into the true purpose of the location. In this area, players also encounter the distinct scientist stone statues, placed near the concealed science testing facility where the resurrection of the Basilisk is being carried out.

In figure 15, large ashes and debris piles can be seen as the resurrection succeed that caused the dungeon facilities to shake huge amount of debris and ashes off the walls. The stone statues can all be seen looking or running towards the door as a sign that they were trying to escape the area.

Figure 16: Basilisk's head.

Around the corner of the dungeon, the Basilisk head lurks and seems is ready to come out of its enclosure to find more victims and cause destruction to anyone who stand in its way.

[jian-wei-24]

VR Project (Reflection & Final Thoughts) [Assignment set by Apache]

Figure 1-5 Final appearance of the VR game environment.

This group assignment has been a valuable experience for me both as a team member and a leader. Taking on the responsibility of guiding the visual direction and supporting my teammates helped me develop stronger communication and leadership skills. I learned how to balance giving feedback while respecting each person’s creative input. At the same time, I contributed actively as a team member by taking on tasks, problem-solving, and staying adaptable during unexpected challenges. It taught me how to manage time better, especially under tight deadlines, and how to prioritise work that has the most impact on the project. I also improved in technical areas like lighting, post processing, modular modelling, and asset optimisation. Overall, I grew more confident in my ability to lead creatively and technically, while also learning how to collaborate effectively in a team environment.

Extra:

If more time and resources were given for this project, the following are the additional models or effects I wish to add into the project:

Create more personalised items to give the certain areas more personality and history.

Particle Effect to enhance the scene such as fire particles emitting around the basilisk or lava particles coming out of the stone statues.

More props to fill the room such as stolen artifacts on display, scientific props, books in shelfs etc.

Expand the map to have more rooms such as adding mess halls, armoury, and actual science facilities etc.

Optimise the environment.

[jian-wei-24]

VR Project (Post Processing) [Assignment set by Apache]

Figure 1: Bartosz Kapron's Layers of Fear - Environments | Level Design | Level Art | 1. (Kapron, 2019) [Top] Figure 2: Brandon Cha's The Evil Within Chapter 7. (Cha, 2018) [Middle] Figure 3: Enrico Tammekänd's Cyber Hill P.T. (Tammekänd, 2023)

I conducted research on the type of post-processing colour grading and visual appearance I wanted to achieve in order to enhance the storytelling of this game environment. Since the setting takes place in a historical time period, I aimed for a slightly grainy and desaturated look, reminiscent of aged photographs and worn-out film. This not only reinforces the passage of time but also subtly reflects the decay and secrecy within the castle. Through visual references on ArtStation, I found Layers of Fear (2023) to be one of the most fitting inspirations for this VR project, as it masterfully combines period-accurate visuals with psychological horror through lighting and texture. Supporting references such as The Evil Within (2014) and Fan Art for P.T. (2014) were also valuable, especially in understanding how lighting, colour desaturation, and subtle post-processing effects can amplify tension and discomfort in enclosed spaces.

Figure 4: Post Processing Volume's exposure setting (Top). Figure 5: Post Processing Volume's film setting (Middle). Figure 6: Post Processing Volume's film grain setting (Bottom).

Firstly, the exposure were readjusted to not have the lights appear too bright, with the help of William Faucher’s lighting beginner guide (Faucher, 2022). Then the film setting for slope was activated and lowered slightly to create a subtle contrast of light and contrast. It flatten the highlights slightly and retain shadow details, making the lighting feel aged, cinematic, and unsettling. Followed by the activation of a subtle film grain which helps in mimic the look of old film reels or archival footage. It also introduces slight unpredictability and noise to the view, subtly reinforcing feelings of discomfort and unease.

Figure 7: Post Processing Volume's colour grading setting.

The temperature setting was adjusted to introduce a subtle cold blue tone, reinforcing the unsettling atmosphere of the environment. Saturation was slightly lowered to unify the colors of the props and architecture under a consistent, gloomy palette that reflects the horror theme. Contrast, gamma, and gain settings were carefully tuned to enhance shadow depth, draw focus to key areas, and maintain readability in darker zones. These adjustments collectively supported the environment’s eerie mood, giving the space a worn, haunted feel while also aligning with references from horror games like Layers of Fear and The Evil Within.

Figure 8: Final appearance in Commanding Officer's Office (Top). Figure 9: Final appearance in Administrative part of the castle (Bottom).

Using post processing in Unreal Engine 5 has helped me bring out the intended atmosphere of my environment more effectively. It allowed me to fine-tune the overall mood and storytelling through subtle adjustments like color temperature, saturation, contrast, and film grain. Instead of relying solely on asset design and lighting, I was able to push the visual identity of the space further and make it feel more cohesive. It also taught me the importance of post processing as a final polish step in the environment art pipeline. This experience has given me more confidence and helped improve my relevant skills in using this post-processing tool to strengthen visual storytelling in developing game environment.

[jian-wei-24]

VR Project (Lighting) [Assignment set by Apache]

After setting up the entire environment, the next step was lighting. In the past, I would usually place a few point and spot lights and leave it at that, but this time I decided to challenge myself by optimising and baking the lighting instead of using real time lighting which can cause performance drops, following advice from both lecturers.

Figure 1-2: Lighting set up example for ceiling chandelier and wall lamp.

The first step was to set up the light sources. Since the environment is set during the night, lighting primarily comes from electrical ceiling chandeliers and wall lamps. Each chandelier and lamp was paired with both a point light and a spot light. The point light was adjusted to illuminate the general area, serving as the main source of light, as shown in figure 1.

However, an issue arose where the chandelier model cast unrealistic shadows onto the upper walls due to its protruding lamp parts. I recalled a useful tip from William Faucher’s night lighting setup video (Faucher, 2022), where lighting and objects can be assigned to specific channels for better control. This technique allows the artist to decide which objects are affected by which light sources.

Following this, I assigned the spot light to the same lighting channel as the chandelier to illuminate only the chandelier, while the point light was set to a different channel that illuminate the whole area. This allowed the spot light to illuminate the chandelier more believably without affecting surrounding geometry.

Figure 2: Red lights introduced to the scene.

From the entrance of the commanding officer’s office, the far left side remains lit with a typical yellow-white light, while the far right gradually shifts into a fear-inducing red tone. This contrast was designed to evoke feelings of uncertainty, danger, and tension as the red lighting casts an unsettling atmosphere onto the players (Andersson, 2022).

Video 1: William Faucher's Bake Lighting FASTER with GPU Lightmass - Unreal Engine 4.26. (Faucher, 2021)

After doing some research on which method works best for my case, it seems like baking the lighting using GPU Lightmass was the ideal method to bake lighting. I followed the steps discussed in the video above by setting up the necessary plugins and reading up GPU Lightmass and Raytracing features of Unreal Engine 5.

Then I set all of the objects in the environment as static, including the light sources. This is because throughout the gameplay, the light source and object in the environment will not change its position or settings.

Figure 2: Override Light Mas Resolution.

The light map resolution of the environment assets was significantly increased from its original value to ensure the baked lighting could accurately capture all the necessary light and shadow information.

Figure 3 : GPU Lightmass setting (Left). Figure 4: World setting (Right.)

By checking irradiance caching and first bounce ray guiding, it was good to go as the original settings are good enough for the environment. Viewport Realtime was turned off to ensure faster light baking.

There were some artifacts caused by compression. Hence, compress lightmap from world setting was disabled to ensure a smooth appearance.

Using baked lighting instead of real time lighting was a valuable learning experience for me. It pushed me to think more carefully about how light behaves in a space and how to optimise performance, especially for larger environments. While real time lighting offers flexibility, baking the lighting helped reduce the strain on the engine and kept things running smoothly. Essentially making more memory space for more assets to be imported into the environment without burdening the player's device performance. It also taught me the importance of lightmap resolution and how it affects the final visual quality. Overall, it was a step forward in improving both the visual and technical aspects of my environment work, while also introducing a new step to perfect my environment development pipeline.

Reference

Andersson, I. (2022). The effect of red-light sources on the player experience of a horror game level. Uppsala Universitet. Available at: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1668274/FULLTEXT01.pdf. (Accessed on: 12 March 2025)

Epic Games. (n.d.). GPU Lightmass Global Illumination. Epic Games. Available at: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/gpu-lightmass-global-illumination-in-unreal-engine?application_version=5.4. (Accessed on: 12 March 2025)

Faucher, W. (2021). Bake Lighting FASTER with GPU Lightmass - Unreal Engine 4.26. YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/hq1WFFF6iD0?si=w5Zx7M-UolQIUK9j. (Accessed on: 12 March 2025)