My Slightly Twee FMP Inspiration

My current main idea for my FMP first came to me while working on the group project at the end of last term. I was listening through some songs by my favourite musician that I hadn’t heard in a long time as I worked, and I found myself really inspired by one particular track. I had a very vivid picture in my head of what the song depicted and I really wanted to create that scene. Naturally there was a problem in that I was busy with the group project and didn’t have the time to commit to a large side project just for fun. So I put aside the idea for the FMP.

During the summer holidays I revisited the idea to keep it fresh in my mind. I created a Pinterest board to collect some visual examples.

The main idea was some kind of treehouse research base in the middle of the rainforest, overlooking a huge vista of trees stretching off into the distance. The base would be mostly constructed out of scrappy-looking materials such as tarpaulin and wire meshes on a base of wood. The strongest part of this idea I feel was how the humidity of the rainforest could bring out the colours in all the different materials. However the rest was very wishy-washy and hard to elaborate on, so I knew I’d have to rethink it.

More recently however I have had another brainwave that I think simplifies the idea yet makes it far more interesting. It would be pointless to constrain myself to keeping things exactly like my original vision when I could build off that base and make something better. I think it would be really interesting to actually have the inside of the treehouse be very modern, possibly even futuristic. This would both provide a more solid theme with greater contrast between interior and exterior, and also allow me to model a wider variety of assets. Modern design has the added bonus of still looking good with fewer assets so it is harder to mess up.

I’ve yet to pin down the interior design to the same extent as the rainforest outside but I think at least the theme is very clear. Amplifying the contrast between the interior and exterior should create a very comfortable atmosphere.

Technical constraints I would need to consider might include Unreal Engine 4’s ability to render glass convincingly and my own skills in creating a realistic humid or rainy scene. I’ve also been having issues with doing lightmaps on two-sided materials in my current project, and not having them on foliage in a scene with so much of it could cause serious performance issues so I need to find a solution to that problem soon.