Lighting Exercise II - Electric Boogaloo

 Hey everyone!

Wow has it been a rough week! But I'm still kickin' and bringing down the house with these Lighting Exercises! Keep 'em coming! 

This assignment was kind of a doozy, because my original file corrupted! I couldn't figure out how to get the depth of field working and I was anxious to try to add it. After following UE5 documentation, I thought I had my answer... Then, I clicked a slider and my project crashed!

I restarted the project and to my horror, everything in my scene was gone. Not only that, I couldn't save my project, as an asset had corrupted during the crash. Needless to say, I was not too happy to be recreating the scene again in the eleventh hour.

So, to preface, I didn't figure out the depth of field. I just wanted to upload this on time, so here I am. I really wanted to learn how to do it, as I think it creates a cool effect. But, I really couldn't figure it out and could not risk not turning this in with only an hour left to go. 

But, yep. This assignment was certainly an assignment for me. This was actually a struggle to complete because of the technological pitfalls, yes, but also my own confusion surrounding UE5 in general. I don't understand anything that has to do with the camera actor. And despite being a photographer, I really struggled to get the effects I wanted in this project.

Nonetheless, I just wanted to turn something in, regardless of my own pitfalls with my work. I am happy with the HDRI I chose and I like the moody lighting and volumetric fog I added. I had fun playing with bokeh, but didn't think it was worth including in the assignment, as it confused my lighting and made the metallic pattern on the sphere quite chaotic. 

But, it was fun clicking through all the menus and checkboxes and seeing what everything did. Am I a lighting expert yet? By no means! But did I learn something? Yes! 

I will continue to keep you all updated about my artistic journey! I'm just tired and need to hit the hay, so this was a relatively short post.

Thanks again for checking out my stuff! 

Zzzzzz!

Also, before I go-- check out my setup! 

Pretty cool right? Now it's officially, for really reals, time to catch some Zs. 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!