Tech Development

(1) Sub-Level Organization and Document

Reorganized the environment hierarchy by separating Tunnel, Platform, Lighting, HereAssests and etc. into individual sub-levels. This setup allowing lighting and environment adjustments to be isolated during pre-lighting and playback tests. Redundant geometry and pre-version assets were cleaned up to reduce file weight and ensure faster scene iteration on set.

(2) Material & Shader Work

Stained Glass

Material Refinement

Several materials were parameterized with real-time controls for roughness, metallic, emissive, and ORM values, allowing quick adjustments under stage conditions.

(3) LookDev & Technical Fixes before shoot day

Cleaned up redundant geometry

Bridges, walkways, and pedestrian assets were rebuilt with corrected UVs to avoid texture overlap during camera tracking. These fixes also improved triplanar projection and maintained alignment with the master materials.

Disabled Nanite on certain meshes

Selective Nanite disabling was applied to translucent and reflective meshes to stabilize lighting reflections and ensure accurate mesh response on the LED wall.

Lighting Development

Volumetric Fog, Godray, and LightBeam Implementation

Adjusted misc lighting for different area, changed volumetric fog and Godrays to enhance visual depth and realism. Adjusted LightBeam materials and position for the train, reinforcing focal contrast and guiding the viewer's attention.

Fill Light Adjustments

Inserted fill lights on the left-side walls and shadowed corridors to balance exposure between bright and dim zones. Conducted multiple lighting tests to refine brightness and color temperature across levels.

Validation & Consistency Checks

All lighting setups were validated through changelist review passes, confirming consistency of shadow response and brightness levels across sub-levels. Robin's previous lighting layout was fully integrated into the reorganized environment, ensuring a coherent light hierarchy and color temperature throughout the scene.

Onsite Optimization | Adjustment

Material Refinement for Matching the physical set

For the columns we need to make sure our virtual set fit the physical set.

Before

After

Unreal Engine has various Optimization Viewmodes built into the platform to help us quickly identify which assets are slowing our environment down. These view modes include:

• Light Complexity
• Lightmap Density
• Stationary Light Overlap
• Shader Complexity
• Shader Complexity & Quads
• Quad Overdraw

Each of these view modes use colour mapping to highlight which assets aren't optimized.

Foliage and Geometry Optimization

Deleted excessive foliage and unused props to reduce render cost and prevent occlusion conflicts with Lumen reflections. Verified that vegetation assets maintain correct shadow behavior under dynamic lighting.

Transparency Cleanup

Cleaned up overlapping emissive and transparent surfaces that produced double reflections during LED playback. Adjusted light positions to reduce flickering and improve calibration accuracy for on-camera exposure.

Color Grading

Refined the Post Process Volume and Color Grading Region.

Texture Map Reduction

Troubleshot oversized texture maps across multiple materials and optimized them by resizing and consolidating ORM channels. This reduced GPU load while preserving material fidelity on close-up shots.

Next step for Week 9

• Website rough draft
• Help with graphic design (typeface/poster)