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Screnshot

8th Semester 2022, 4.5 months

Restrictions      Bachelor Project
Programs          UE5, MetaHuman, Blender, Substance Painter, Photohsop.

What’s left of Falkland Fort

What’s left of Falkland Fort is a 3D environment specifically for video games as a vertical slice. The level reacts to the player walking through it. As a reference for the story and the atmosphere, I took inspiration from the book “To the Lighthouse” by Virgia Wolf. Quotes from the book appear to create an atmospheric context.

The goal of my Bachelor’s thesis was to create an atmospheric environment with the help of an asset system

The Falkland Islands, located on the shore of Argentina, were first populated by the British a few centuries ago. 

 

 

1982 Argentina invades the Falkland islands and claims it as Argentinian land. England follows with troops soon as well. 

 

 

The fort, now known as ‘‘Sealand‘‘ was a Military base 10 km off the shore of the North Sea in England. It was used to shoot down airplanes and ships in WW2. 100 soldier used to live there, months at a time. It was later occupied by a pirate radio station and declared its own state called “Sealand“. But it is not recognized as a state anywhere.

 

The Falkland Fort is now home to five sisters. Their parents, who made the Fort their shelter, died of old age. The sisters all had their separate lives, families, and troubles but now decided to move in together again to rebuild their relationship with each other and with themselves.

 

Taking the book as inspiration, I created my own story. A family, two parents, and 5 children lived on the fort. The parents died a short while ago and Vina, the player character and the only one who still lived on the fort, informed the rest of the family. Shortly after that, the 5 sisters decided to move back onto the Fort to support each other and reconnect with each other. The sisters decided to all share a Journal, where everyone could talk about their feelings. 

 

 

 

The common diary shows one written page of each sister. They talk about their state of mind and what they feel. The player can flip through the diary. The transition between the pages is animated. The animations are played with the help of a media player.

 

 

 

Thanks to a block out, I had a rough overview of the assets that were needed to make the fort a believable environment. 

 

After I modeled and textured all the assets, it was time to replace the
block out. I started the set dressing with the most important objects and ended with clutter assets. Each room tells something about the people that live there. Remnants from the second world war are repurposed and new furniture was brought from the mainland. Thinking about material availability, some materials were rare and therefore used sparingly.

 

I used many references to help me fill the fort with life; the real Sealand fort, but also camping grounds, off-grid houses and ships.
It was also important that the surroundings were not static. for this, I created several objects that have movement patterns; flickering lights, ticking clocks, and rotating turbines.

To make cables, ventilation pipes and other bendable objects, I used splines. I created a blueprint that spawns a mesh at each point in a spline. This helped me to break up non-dynamic rooms. With the splines I had perfet control over how I wanted the cables, ropes and chains to be draped.

Having just survived the pandemic, I realized that home-office is not my thing. Sitting alone at home, needing to specifically contact and ask someone for feedback was exhausting and did not fit in my workflow. On the other hand, just standing up or asking someone to look over my shoulder was efficient and fun.

I had to find clever workarounds for otherwise lengthy tasks. For example, I did little to no concept art or fake screenshots. As a solution for that I needed to efficiently convey and develop my artstyle in other ways. 

I am happy with the results I have achieved in my bachelor‘s thesis. I have an atmospheric and unique vertical slice with an interesting setting that I have never seen in a game context before. The level has guidance. I have a big asset system that can tell different stories. Every screenshot is recognizable as “what‘s left of Falkland Fort“. 

I designed a character and have used the existing systems for it, for example the standart female animations in UE5. I wanted to tell a female narrative. I am also happy that I could show the dynamics of the sisters.

I always strived for feedback and implemented it in my game. I have proven to myself, that I can make timelines and stick to them to avoid crunch. I now have a deeper understanding of the Unreal – Blender – Substance Painter – Pipeline. I can work with Unreal Engine 5 and know the differences to Unreal Engine 4. I can work alone for a long time and achieve high-quality results. But I have also learned how valuable external feedback is for my growth.

I am of the firm belief that my single decision cannot be as good as a decision two people would make. 

 

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