The Wandering Spirit
- SOUND ON
- This is a piece Titled: The Wandering Spirit. It's the brain child of what I was inspired lately: Pragamata (incoming new game) and Ori and the Will of the Wisps.
- I initially made this VFX (the very 1rst version) to help a new VFX Artist (on Discord) on how to achieve some kind stationary VFX like that. I was playing Pragmata's Demo at the time and really loved the Gameplay and the songs. I then asked myself ''What would it look like if I link the Light Intensity and Particle Speed to the Audio?''. Then the Rabbithole began and evolved in a way I wasn't expecting.
- It became a reason for me to actually even get more proficient in JangaFX's latest software: IlluGen. I learned VATs workflow in this, texturing like I would do in Substance Designer creating flipbooks, Meshes, etc.
- There is also an intention/scenario behind this piece. To be brief: ''A Wandering Spirit is roaming the forest, looking for his final place to settle and finally finds it that tree. It then fuses with it towards the end''.
- Everything in this personal Artwork (except from the map) was made entirely from scratch using IlluGen, EmberGen and UE5. Also Photopea for the thumbail creation/editing.
- Credits:
- @Tidal Flask Studios for the Map ''FANTASTIC - Ancient Forest'': https://www.fab.com/listings/bb7df0df-a2e7-430f-a382-7c3b121bf767
- @Yasumasa Kitagawa for the amazing Soundtrack fron the upcoming game ''Pragmata'' (played the demo and loved it): Song name is - Thank You For Playing;
- @JangaFX for their amazing softwares, especially IlluGen and EmberGen;
- @blu that I helped but ended up being the starting point of this project. Thanks!
- @Timothée Letourneux for helping me out on some technical suggestions for my Spirit material and meaningful feedback
- @Marie-Charlotte Derne for the meaningfull feedback
- @everyone else that helped with feedback!
SOUND ON as some particles velocity and the point light intensity are linked to the Audio Spectrum.
And in this case: incoming Pragamata's iconic music ''Thank You For Playing''
Spirit face reveal closeup
Ambient VFXs overview. Removed the old VFXs that came with the map and made new ones from scratch.
Includes Falling Leaves, Ambient radial whispy fog, Dust motes & Fireflies.
This project was also a way for me to get more prodicient with IlluGen by testing the current VATs workflow and it came out pretty good!
Can't wait for an update on the Spline 3D tho.
Tree Roots VAT setup in IlluGen.
Spirit Energy material overview. The VFX itself has multiple other components but this is the most complex ones with controls I've added to animate the core for the spirit face reveal you see above.
Niagara System overview. Also organized all my user parameters in sections using the user parameters hierarchy.
Using a simple Scratch Pad module to link the Light Radius & Particles Velocity to a Multiplier.
Using the Sequencer for the whole composition by adding a fade out track, animating various parameters like the Tree leaves foliage animation, Post Process Chromatic aberration, etc. The whole thang.
Original fog texture sim in EmberGen. Not optimized of course but I didn't wanted to spend too much time on it so I optimize it in UE5 with the particle CutOut feature.
Exporting generated spritesheet from EG to IG for additional correction and to add a Kuwahara filter to make it stylized to fit the visual direction I am taking with this project.
An overview of the texture pool that I'm using for this project. All generated in IlluGen. Also re-using some distortion texture that I made for another project.
Folder structure, because one have to be structured and organized a little bit.
Early version