Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• This idea has some really lovely potential. I feel you could push this farther by a bit more twinkle into and out of the stages versus fading in and out of the stages, as well as taking that step where more motion happens as the fireflies come and go to create the result as was suggested in the documentation.
• This is a very beauty-filled effect that could be used in a thoughtful, quiet moment in a game, or in directing the player's motion, or even part of a puzzle. You have supplied strong visual and narrative references for your goal. In your art docs, the intent is to have some variation in the intensity and saturation of the colors. This a solid idea, but this is not implemented well in the materials and asset - there is very little pulsing. The premise of swirling fireflies and the dispersion of the shape was quite ambitious – it was not implemented here, and the technical challenges that cause it to be absent are not thoroughly explained. It would also add interest to make the target shape a bit more abstract, with fewer points of light populating the surface. Giving it a fresnel-type shader with a darker core, emphasizing the outline more than the interior density. Though it matches the reference of the holiday decorations, the result is too uniform, and too literal in its representation. There are some problems with final UE level. The asset does not perform robustly as outlined, because the behaviour of the disappearance is not repeatable. The player spawn itself does not create a character. Also, it would have been more effective with a backdrop, not just a single ground plane. Overall – this was a strong concept that has interesting gameplay applications, but the execution of it is lacking some key components.
• The idea of this effect really excited me, however I was somewhat let down by how static the effect is. You could have explored different techniques to achieve a similar effect with more dynamic results. For example, using a skeletal mesh as a base to particle location using UE4's Niagara system would have allowed you do have your deer run around the scene as a set of particles. You could have then built that into more exciting elements such as a trail, a burst - just any sort of movement to make it more interesting. I do like that you're using Houdini to experiment, but try not to limit yourself to singular work flows. You've shown an understanding of UE4 blueprints though, but again I feel like perhaps too much time was spent on getting the blueprint working, rather than pushing the VFX as far as you could.
• Hello nice looking, i would say have a look to Unreal´s tool , because you can do that very quickly without using Houdini and points, just using a mesh and emit a particle per vertex :)
• Overall Thoughts: It's a very pretty effect, I love the visuals. There's not too much body to it but overall it's very clean and nicely executed. It would've been nice to get some more motion into the effect, it can feel a little static but I do like the concept of combining the fireflies of nature with the timid aspects of a Deer; fading out when the player gets too close. You've not put anything else in the scene to detract from the effect itself and this is great. Showcasing your effects in a neutral setting is always beneficial, in my opinion. Your documentation was good, nice mood-boards and colour pallets. It was clear to see where you wanted to go with your project, it was easy to understand and follow and your final product was quite close to your initial idea. Great stuff! Areas of Improvement: More motion! As I mentioned above the effect is clean but I want to see some more movement, especially if your lights are supposed to be fireflies. They can be quite erratic and unpredictable by nature. They are often more de-illuminated than illuminated, its not a continual glow. pulsing and flickering the colours with random intensities will help this. You could also attempt to use the WPO (World Position Offset) on the mesh with multiple panning noise's to get some more erratic and random movement onto the mesh itself. Emitting particles from the vertices or faces of the mesh with a velocity along the normal of the surface would have been a nice touch. Add some turbulence onto those particles and you'd have some nice secondary motion. In your documentation you say in phase three that you want your particles to explode. This wasn't apparent to me until I read your documentation. The fade out was too slow and there was no sense of an explosion or 'pop'. Quickly punching the colours through red and into a white, then immediately fading out would have helped sell this behavior. I think you could go more exaggerated with your bloom also and push your brightness multiplier much higher, to get a really nice glow onto your fireflies. Quick Note: I couldn't get your effect to trigger more than once in my testing without restarting the scene. It may have been something locally on my end but if not, it might be worth looking into your behavior in order to get it to reset once the trigger box has been exited, or you sequence has finished. Thanks for you submission. All in all it's a very pleasing piece on the eyes. Simple, yet effective! I wish you all the best for the contest, your studies and your future career. VFX Artist @Sony Playstation
• Hi Laura, Good realisation on this effect, but it's simple effect. Maybe you can add more spécification inside shader ? Your blueprint don't loop, so when you the player turn on the trigger, he can't do it second time. The good point of your submition is : you use houdini ! Houdini is very good tools for AAA games and become a tool you want for apply in AAA industrie. Well done, Keep working ! LOWYS Clément Ubisoft vfx artist MONTREAL