More Unreal + general updates: 1st week of April

Klo has officially become my new manager and I think she will be the manager for all incoming interns. Here’s hoping to getting more hands on fun practical stuff to do.
On that note there was a kick off for the new how to make trailer video that needs to be done and we are finally restarting the outreach video project again. Looking forward to working on those.

I decided to make a fun little clip for an easter Instagram post attempting to utilise the things I’ve learnt from using unreal. It turned it quite nice!

The Process!

After organizing my idea in my mind, I started to by hunting around for assets, I couldn’t find what I wanted, so I fired up blender and got to work lol.
I did a little set up beforehand. I downloaded the textures I wanted for my basket and created the print for the eggs in photoshop.

I then began modelling my main asset the egg and basket! The egg was harder than I though it would be and the basket was easier than I though it would be lol but I did it! THANK GOD for google and free YouTube tutorials. I wish I had taken more pictures of the process but I forget to document things TT

egg model
eggs in basket model

I unwrapped the models before adding the print I made and texture I downloaded

UV texture
Shading and materials

I then exported the piece as a GLB file and imported it into unreal! I gathered the other assets and materials from the holy grail quixel bridge and used the foliage tool to really build up the scene. Added some lighting and wind (which is easily done by checking the wind box under the foliage material tab) for finishing touches. Se up the camera animated that and it all came together relatively quickly!

Unreal Scene

Career Fair day poster designs!

These are the original designs vs finals! I know I said I kind of hated them but is moreso certain aspects that I didn’t like lol but they looked great printed!

The mood board Klo made for me

Also here’s the timetable I did as well

The Months of January and February

January

It took a little time for me to get back into the rhythm of doing things after December break but once I did it was fine!
I’m basically social media manager at this point so I was mainly doing that. I got invited into some initial client calls to take some notes, it was interesting to learn what is spoken about in these early meetings. I also helped put together pitch decks for said clients. I was also able to practice replying to client emails with my supervisor and was then released into the wild lol! The first official client I responded to did not get back to me and it was eventually revealed after sending to follow up emails that they decided to go with another studio.
Our social media templates also got a bit of a revamp from our Creative Director Moog and he also was kind enough to explain the reasons why he made certain changes which was actually super insightful. Learning about what makes images look good from a technical standpoint was enlightening and eye opening.
This month I also started learning unreal, there was a super helpful course in the “cinematic training” slack channel that I’ve been following on and off and was able to produce a cute little still.

My first unreal engine render

It’s very basic and honestly compared to something like blender I don’t think I like unreal very much lol, it’s not as intuitive and the learning curve is definitely higher in my opinion but I’m having fun with the process.
Towards the end of this month I also fully began working on the outreach video project with Creative Lead Katie Lowndes A.K.A Klo. We had our first meeting and I finished up my concepts while Klo aimed to see if we could get an official brief and a Project Manager for this project.

February

February and early March was definitely the busiest month I’ve had so far. The most important thing now was thew outreach video as we now had a deadline and needed to put together the video before the 8th of March as that was when we were going to be at the “hello future 2023” event at Brighton Met, which is a career event for college students to figure out their career options. Working with Klo was so fun honestly I learnt so much!
After refining the concepts a bit and getting notes here and there about budgets and possible constraints, we were able to pull together a deck and I gave my very first pitch. I was super nervous but they all really liked it and ended up wanting a kind of marriage between mine and Klo’s concept.
I was also asked to create some posters and concept art for this event. I was really excited to do the posters but grossly underestimated how long it would take, how many revisions I would have to do and how much creative control I would have to let go of. My original idea was a yearbook aesthetic with like doodles and stuff all over it which everyone seemed to really like. then we added a kind of 80s-90s spin on it to tie into a similar aesthetic we were going for in the outreach video. I’m not going to lie I got a little bit frustrated at times but I think it was a very valuable experience for me. I’ll link the posters in a separate post from this.
We also very quickly realised there was no way to put together the video in the timeframe they had given us, so we made a compromise and made a quicker rip-o-matic type video instead, with plans to make the longer form video in the future!
I started working on a practice edit of a trailer we had already delivered with some old footage provided to me by one of our Creative Directors and editors. This is the original one he did!

I also created a pretty cool video for social media using After Effects! Quite proud with how it turned out as I’m still learning my way around AE But I think I did a pretty good job 🙂
Potato quality due to website limitations.

Meet the team post

We also did a live-action shoot to get some stock footage for a game! I also got to star in it!
I also put together some cute cards for a Valentine’s Day post on our social media. And went on a tour of the new London office that will house all the marketing studios owned by our parent company.

Those were some of my favourites.

Velostat touch sensor but with sound

This was easy for me to figure out although I mixed up the wiring once again, once I corrected that It worked fine.

Enjoy the harry potter theme song.
I’ve been struggling to come up with more creative ideas and applications (creating experiences) This is definitely an area I need to improve in.

Code

int buzzer = 13;
define NOTE_B0 31
define NOTE_C1 33
define NOTE_CS1 35
define NOTE_D1 37
define NOTE_DS1 39
define NOTE_E1 41
define NOTE_F1 44
define NOTE_FS1 46
define NOTE_G1 49
define NOTE_GS1 52
define NOTE_A1 55
define NOTE_AS1 58
define NOTE_B1 62
define NOTE_C2 65
define NOTE_CS2 69
define NOTE_D2 73
define NOTE_DS2 78
define NOTE_E2 82
define NOTE_F2 87
define NOTE_FS2 93
define NOTE_G2 98
define NOTE_GS2 104
define NOTE_A2 110
define NOTE_AS2 117
define NOTE_B2 123
define NOTE_C3 131
define NOTE_CS3 139
define NOTE_D3 147
define NOTE_DS3 156
define NOTE_E3 165
define NOTE_F3 175
define NOTE_FS3 185
define NOTE_G3 196
define NOTE_GS3 208
define NOTE_A3 220
define NOTE_AS3 233
define NOTE_B3 247
define NOTE_C4 262
define NOTE_CS4 277
define NOTE_D4 294
define NOTE_DS4 311
define NOTE_E4 330
define NOTE_F4 349
define NOTE_FS4 370
define NOTE_G4 392
define NOTE_GS4 415
define NOTE_A4 440
define NOTE_AS4 466
define NOTE_B4 494
define NOTE_C5 523
define NOTE_CS5 554
define NOTE_D5 587
define NOTE_DS5 622
define NOTE_E5 659
define NOTE_F5 698
define NOTE_FS5 740
define NOTE_G5 784
define NOTE_GS5 831
define NOTE_A5 880
define NOTE_AS5 932
define NOTE_B5 988
define NOTE_C6 1047
define NOTE_CS6 1109
define NOTE_D6 1175
define NOTE_DS6 1245
define NOTE_E6 1319
define NOTE_F6 1397
define NOTE_FS6 1480
define NOTE_G6 1568
define NOTE_GS6 1661
define NOTE_A6 1760
define NOTE_AS6 1865
define NOTE_B6 1976
define NOTE_C7 2093
define NOTE_CS7 2217
define NOTE_D7 2349
define NOTE_DS7 2489
define NOTE_E7 2637
define NOTE_F7 2794
define NOTE_FS7 2960
define NOTE_G7 3136
define NOTE_GS7 3322
define NOTE_A7 3520
define NOTE_AS7 3729
define NOTE_B7 3951
define NOTE_C8 4186
define NOTE_CS8 4435
define NOTE_D8 4699
define NOTE_DS8 4978
define REST 0
int tempo = 144;
int melody[] = {
// Hedwig's theme fromn the Harry Potter Movies
// Socre from https://musescore.com/user/3811306/scores/4906610
REST, 2, NOTE_D4, 4,
NOTE_G4, -4, NOTE_AS4, 8, NOTE_A4, 4,
NOTE_G4, 2, NOTE_D5, 4,
NOTE_C5, -2,
NOTE_A4, -2,
NOTE_G4, -4, NOTE_AS4, 8, NOTE_A4, 4,
NOTE_F4, 2, NOTE_GS4, 4,
NOTE_D4, -1,
NOTE_D4, 4,
NOTE_G4, -4, NOTE_AS4, 8, NOTE_A4, 4, //10
NOTE_G4, 2, NOTE_D5, 4,
NOTE_F5, 2, NOTE_E5, 4,
NOTE_DS5, 2, NOTE_B4, 4,
NOTE_DS5, -4, NOTE_D5, 8, NOTE_CS5, 4,
NOTE_CS4, 2, NOTE_B4, 4,
NOTE_G4, -1,
NOTE_AS4, 4,
NOTE_D5, 2, NOTE_AS4, 4,//18
NOTE_D5, 2, NOTE_AS4, 4,
NOTE_DS5, 2, NOTE_D5, 4,
NOTE_CS5, 2, NOTE_A4, 4,
NOTE_AS4, -4, NOTE_D5, 8, NOTE_CS5, 4,
NOTE_CS4, 2, NOTE_D4, 4,
NOTE_D5, -1,
REST,4, NOTE_AS4,4,
NOTE_D5, 2, NOTE_AS4, 4,//26
NOTE_D5, 2, NOTE_AS4, 4,
NOTE_F5, 2, NOTE_E5, 4,
NOTE_DS5, 2, NOTE_B4, 4,
NOTE_DS5, -4, NOTE_D5, 8, NOTE_CS5, 4,
NOTE_CS4, 2, NOTE_AS4, 4,
NOTE_G4, -1,
};
// sizeof gives the number of bytes, each int value is composed of two bytes (16 bits)
// there are two values per note (pitch and duration), so for each note there are four bytes
int notes = sizeof(melody) / sizeof(melody[0]) / 2;
// this calculates the duration of a whole note in ms (60s/tempo)*4 beats
int wholenote = (60000 * 4) / tempo;
int divider = 0, noteDuration = 0;
void setup() {
//start serial connection
Serial.begin(9600);
//configure pin 2 as an input and enable the internal pull-up resistor
pinMode(2, INPUT_PULLUP);
pinMode(buzzer, OUTPUT);
}
void loop() {
//read the pushbutton value into a variable
int sensorVal = digitalRead(2);
//print out the value of the pushbutton
Serial.println(sensorVal);
// Keep in mind the pull-up means the pushbutton's logic is inverted. It goes
// HIGH when it's open, and LOW when it's pressed. Turn on pin 13 when the
// button's pressed, and off when it's not:
if (sensorVal == HIGH) {
noTone(buzzer);
}
else{
// iterate over the notes of the melody.
// Remember, the array is twice the number of notes (notes + durations)
for (int thisNote = 0; thisNote < notes * 2; thisNote = thisNote + 2) {// calculates the duration of each note
divider = melody[thisNote + 1];
if (divider > 0) {
// regular note, just proceed
noteDuration = (wholenote) / divider;
} else if (divider < 0) {
// dotted notes are represented with negative durations!!
noteDuration = (wholenote) / abs(divider);
noteDuration *= 1.5; // increases the duration in half for dotted notes
}
// we only play the note for 90% of the duration, leaving 10% as a pause
tone(buzzer, melody[thisNote], noteDuration*0.9);
// Wait for the specific duration before playing the next note.
delay(noteDuration);
// stop the waveform generation before the next note.
noTone(buzzer);

}


}