Morph Spectrum is my highest-quality work to date, and it’s also the first piece in the Monster Universe series that I designed during my undergraduate studies. I’m also honored to use it as a summary of my graduate animation studies.

Over the nearly six months of creating this animation, I’ve made significant progress in both animation and my understanding of Unreal Engine. During the production process, I learned the basic logic of Blueprint, the fundamental operations of the Niagara particle system, and how to write basic UE materials. Since first encountering UE a year ago, my understanding of this engine has gradually deepened, and now I can independently complete personal animation production using UE. All of this is inseparable from my practical production experience in various projects.

I would like to thank everyone who has guided me. My FMP graduate program marks the end of my student life and the beginning of my professional career. The knowledge I gained in these short fifteen months will form the foundation for my continued dedication to the 3D industry I love 🙂

Of all the production stages, sound design took an unexpected amount of time. I spent almost a week resolving the film’s sound issues, including sound effects and AI dubbing.

Soundtracks

In the approximately 4 min 20 s video, I layered about 300 audio tracks, designing sounds for almost every element in the scene, including the two main characters, the aircraft, the laboratory, and the military base. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to design sound effects by my self, so I had to spend a lot of time searching for sound effect resources online, then selecting appropriate sound effects to place at the right time, and adjusting the relative volume between them to control a reasonable listening experience.

AI dubbing

Besides the sound effects, my video also had a few lines of dialogue, so I decided to use AI voice-over to read the narration I needed. After consulting with friends who specialize in sound design, I chose the MiniMax platform because its AI reading function has a good grasp of the characters’ emotions. After a period of modification and debugging, I achieved relatively satisfactory results and used it in the final video.

In the compositing process of this work, I used a layered rendering workflow. This mainly involved further adjusting the lighting of the characters in some scenes using different light channels in the post-production software After Effects, as well as adjusting the depth of field effect controlled by the Z channel.

For example, in the image above, I used a light channel to control the cyan light on the right side of the character to only illuminate the character. During rendering, the light layer was rendered separately, and the intensity and color of the light were further adjusted during post-processing, which increased the controllability of the image.

The compositing process for 3D animation is not that complicated. All the visual elements are controllable in the software, so what I do in the composition part is to control the overall visuals, such as adjusting the contrast and curves.

Shoot VFX

The shooting sparks and laser are the most complex part of the Niagara system. It consists of three emitters, namely the main laser, energy particles, and halo. The main laser is composed of a beam ribbon emitter. By attaching corresponding materials to the emitting surface, a theme laser column is created. At the same time, meshes are emitted in the direction of speed to carry stones, and smoke and lightning are emitted to enhance the overall layering of the main body.

The next is the muzzle flame emitter. In this emitter, apart from the scattered sparks, there are also two types of smoke – dark and light – which are used to highlight the bright particles. At the same time, in order to achieve a better visual persistence effect, I extended the lifespan of the spark particles, and at the same time used a large vortex force field to create the effect of the particles drifting with the wind.

Finally, there is the light halo emitter for enhancing the lighting effect. I used a long-shaped light halo to simulate the flare light spots in the lens, and at the same time, I used the masks in the materials to create transparent cyclone shock waves. Then, by layering different particle lighting effects, I completed this shooting NS special effect.

During this year of study, I gradually found my area of interest. I aspire to become a Niagara special effects designer. Therefore, in my future works, I will also create more special effects using NS, and this will become my main occupation in the future.

In the lab level, many special effects are created using the Niagara particle system, such as fog, sprayed blood, and laser beams from weapon firings. I will introduce the Niagara system I created and the creation logic of these effects in the following chapters.

Fog

Creating fog in Niagara is very simple; all you need is a continuous emitter. The material of the fog is also quite simple. It is based on particle elements and uses the depth fade node to create an edge-blurring effect to simulate the fog-like texture found in the real world.

Sprayed Blood

The blood emitter is a bit more complex. It is composed of a total of 4 sub-emitters. Two of them are flat-shaped blood jets, one is a blood mist emitter, and the other is a splattering of blood dots. All four emitters share the same principle, aligning the particles in the direction of the velocity tangent, thereby creating an effect of spewing out from the central store to all surrounding areas.

In the lab level, there are many small objects that constantly changing, such as alarm lights, mechanical arms, fog, and so on. Next, I will introduce some objects that I used in the scene which were realized through blueprints or materials.

Alarm light

I used a very simple method to create the alarm light. By combining the “time” and “sine” nodes, the black and white mask exhibited periodic movement, and it was linked to the lighting channel to control the light to perform a periodic circular motion, thus creating the effect of the alarm light.

Bloodstain

There are two types of bloodstains in the scene. One is the static bloodstain, and the other is the dynamic bloodstain that is sprayed. The former was achieved in the form of decal, while the latter was realized through the Niagara system. In the following VFX section, I will provide a unified introduction to all the Niagara particle systems in the scene.
In the static bloodstains, apart from the bloodstains achieved by the decal material, I also used another type of randomly generated bloodstains driven by the blueprint. The basic principle of this is to identify the distance of the projection surface and then randomly create material instances. By adjusting the rotation angle and scaling of the material, a random effect is achieved.

From this scene, the film enters the main fighting sequence, which is the part where I need to constantly switch back and forth between Blender and Maya to adjust the animations. The design concept of the entire fight is to show that Nullifier evades the attacks of subject 1942 through acrobatic moves such as somersaults and jumps, highlighting his overwhelming superiority over subject 1942 in terms of combat capabilities. All the battles were merely for the purpose of transmitting the monster’s combat data back to the headquarters. Then, the high-energy weapon Viper would be used to eliminate subject 1942.

Therefore, in terms of the action design, I designed Nullifier to use a large number of evasive movements to counter the offensive of 1942. Only when it activated the combat mode did it use a tough offensive to quickly knock 1942 down.

In terms of action references, I referred to some action games and CG animations to enable the robot to perform some dramatic and tense actions such as sliding kicks, in order to enhance the visual impact of the animation.

Scene2

After the robot entered the laboratory, a communication device belonging to a soldier was found beside the body. I used the recorded surveillance footage from the device to present the 1942 subject and explain the circumstances of the soldier’s death.

While it is reviewing the surveillance footage, the robot detected the distant monster’s roars and human cries. It witness the process of the 1942 subject hunting humans on its own. At the same time, the monster also sensed the robot’s presence, and the battle was about to break out.

When creating this scene, I referred to some film scenes where humans faced powerful predators, such as in movies like “Alien”. The purpose of this scene is to showcase the brutal hunting instinct of No. 1942, as well as to highlight the overwhelming superiority of Nullifier over humans and its subsequent elimination by Nullifier, thereby emphasizing Nullifier’s power. Behind this shot, the combat part begins.

Workflow

The final duration of this film is approximately 4 minutes and 20 seconds, and it contains many fighting scenes. Therefore, it is the project that I have spent the most time on in the animation section so far. From June to October, I was almost constantly engaged in the design and production of animations. However, due to the remaining lack of time and my lack of experience in creating fighting animations, the final quality of the animation still can be improved. Nevertheless, this was a rare opportunity for practice. I will go through my animation in the next three parts.

Firstly, it’s the workflow. Unlike previous projects, since the robot was rigged in Blender and the monster was rigged in Maya, during the process of makting the fighting animation, I need to constantly synchronize the animations of the two characters by exporting and importing FBX animations between different software. At first, this workflow was very painful for me. The frequent import and export of animations to adjust was definitely not as easy as real-time adjustment. But after I got used to the “preview” approach, which means image the next motion of the characters in my mind, I found that this workflow could also be relatively efficient because the characters are independent. It is nothing more than adding a switching software process during the switch of controlling the characters.

Scene 1

How will Nullifier make its appearance? I considered this question. As a cold-blooded monster killer, the existence of the character was to eliminate all those who attempted to escape confinement. I tried to get it out of the transport vehicle, but I felt that this wasn’t a cool and dramatic way of making its debut. Therefore, I decided to have it jump out of the cabin and crash heavily onto the ground, creating a dramatic tension of a heroic entrance.

Then came the scene where it turned off the security system and entered the laboratory. The function of the first exterior shot was to show the external structure of the laboratory and introduce the robot.

Before starting the animation , the scene design needs to be completed, which can be used as a reference for the interaction between the animation characters and the scenes. This film contains only two scenes, one of an outdoor setting at a military base and the other of an indoor setting in a laboratory. In the setting, Base 73 is a secret research facility for biological weapons in a near-future science fiction scenario. Therefore, I collected several assets with a similar style and created a military base with a metallic look, a cold and futuristic feel. I set Nullifier to appear on a rainy night, hoping to create a somber and sci-fi atmosphere.

Most of the story takes place in a secret underground laboratory. In my imagination, this should be an institution that operates efficiently like a sophisticated machine. Then, after the 1942 experimental subject broke through the containment, under its brutal killing of humans, it became bloody and chaotic.

In this map, it is divided into several different periods, and there are also changes in the scene setting and lighting. Therefore, I use “sub level” to manage the changes in scene assets, in order to better distinguish and switch between different shots.