WIP: The Ballad of KELL_CiVaLPHA @glenFae

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The Elderwood section of the challenge prompt instantly resonated with me as in Ireland & Ulster the Elder Tree is commonly know as a Fairy Tree or Fae Tree, with stories even in these modern times of people voicing concern with one being damaged or cut down, so then I wanted a playful/whimsical backstory for the challenge. I'll be filling out in this post the narrative I'll be hanging the environment & elements upon, for now I'll just share some pics I took on a wee trip walking up the coast road from Glenarm to Carnlough, the jewellery is from Steensons who did the jewellery for Game of Thrones and the oval piece is inspired by the Fae tree lore, their shop in Glenarm is inspiring and you can watch the brilliant artisans work and chat, you can even say to them "before I go, I forgot to say...summer is coming! "
all the best

Game Concept

Kelso 'KELL' Huxley, young brilliant(German/Irish) coder release his Ai trawl bot CiVaLPHA to find what he believes are rare, esoteric and often protected data of ancient civilisations, his bot gets entangled with a global spasmodic Singularity event and results in the entirety of Ireland & Ulster being subsumed in a 'paperclip maximiser' scenario, the Isle is abandoned and an artificial fog bank covers her for 23 years, then a message from within transmitted on a hacker board with authentic KELL sig "Elderwood is @glenFae". Autonomous exploration collects samples from within that suggests the land has aged 23,000 years, and that KELL had remained, there is no sign of him nor the presence of his CiVaLPHA Singularity mutated bot and its Von Neumann machines, that have appeared to have terraformed the land in ancient Celtic runes and Sigils, the evidence of a lost civilisation, and monolithic forms that have endured deep time within the isle and was only 23 years before the natural Island of Ireland...."

that was pretty much the basis of the concept to give me a direction and an energy, hopefully it will evolve over the next few weeks, for now I'll just be focusing on doing some things I've never looked into at all, most of all an Elder Tree version of the Dark Hedges in Co.Antrim, used as the Kings Road in Game of thrones, so that will be fun getting to try out the excellent looking Natsura suite of tools.

Slainte!
Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年5月17日 02:53:12

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Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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The Form before The Lore....the beginning is a delicate time
(so I maybe broke a few bits...., sure , why not
..(no Ai was harmed in the making of this film)


Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年5月12日 15:33:47
Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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Preview Mesh as planning to push this through the Project Pegasus Workflow(I hope ), Labs Terrain Mesh output fbx tiles. ~7.5X7.5km

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Labs_Terra_Export.jpg (285.2 KB)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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Early stage captures(space mouse nav)



Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年5月13日 01:30:47
Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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Working with the concept of the Isle of Ireland being shrouded for 23 years in impenetrable shroud of mist/fog I dived into trying to the Cloud system for the first time, these are just base layers that I'm hoping I can sculpt into some kind of magical form to reveal the landscape in the cinematic final submission...

(edit..added in updated Cloud layer using content library billowy cloud workflow after my first smash and mash attempt, the spiral is a perfect form to work in a Triskelion sigil, its Celtic meaning covers cycles of time/change/transition)

Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年5月19日 18:35:33

Attachments:
ShroudMist_Screen.jpg (441.4 KB)
Shroud_Inner_Viz.jpg (272.0 KB)
Sigil_Mist_SideaWays_Full.jpg (376.4 KB)
Sigil_Mist_SideaWays.jpg (289.9 KB)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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well I was hoping for something dramatic from a Triskelion Sigil but kinda surprised this developed from SimonHoudini's robust Project Groot Proc.Smoke walkthrough. I guess when life gives you cloud Sigils you make Thermo Nuclear Fae explosions...beginners luck ..now to tame this voxel beast into something importable for Unreal...(edit: I got it in, well something to work from, something for the morrow...)

Not having used Unreal for 3 years and diving into Heterogeneous Volumes is a bit of a stretch, so will utilize the cloud Shroud and Triskellion Sigil in a simpler more static simpler approach, given myself till end of May for Experimentation and learning so nothing wasted on the Houdini front...

Onwards up the Glen, the weather is grand...



Fun Rating so far 9.2/10

Simon's Excellent Smoke [youtu.be]
Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年5月21日 05:08:02

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I_Have_Become_Hmmm_01.jpg (358.1 KB)
I_Have_Become_Hmmm_02.jpg (383.7 KB)
I_Have_Become_Hmmm_03.jpg (285.5 KB)
I_Have_Become_Meh.jpg (306.7 KB)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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Stuffed full of the cold, so just been trying out POPs to Niagara at a relaxed pace, not sure if I'll be pursuing any major VFx for submission, probably stick to some interesting meshes as emission sources, we'll see, of note Lemsip(Cold Remedy)is £6.50 a box yet a miniature bottle of Black Bush(with Honey, Cloves, Sugar & boiled water) is £3.50

(edit.. added further rough concept, will most probably just use more standard UE fog and save the POP/Niagara rabbit hole for another time)





Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年5月22日 17:16:09
Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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For a day off and to shake the Cold/Flu from the system I grabbed the guitar and went down to Waterloo bay thinking I'd get some interesting rocks I'm planning on including using VOP volume noises, something I've done but not for a while, what I ended up with was a refreshing walk then the rain came on so popped into the local museum where they had a "Cutting Edge Technology" featuring a collection of Stone Tools from Pre-History, interesting enough, especially as they were all collected by locals from the Antrim area, then with the rain still on I popped into a bar (I know, what a surprise) to see two gents I hadn't seen in decades, Vinny, former groundsman of the local Golf club and Skoob, who sold me my first guitar around '88. History came up as it does and I mention the Elderwood project and Vinny just casually says "I dug up a Bullaun Stone from Cairndhu","seriously Vinny, that's tied to the Fae, what happened to it" I was thinking it was in some exhibit like I had just come from, nah " Its outside my Da's house". So anyway quite the day and the Cold feels near gone and here's my mate Vinny and a pre-Christian artefact with debated purpose and meaning, 4 doors down from where I am currently staying...A grand day. Slainte

Attachments:
Bullaun_Stone.jpg (279.3 KB)
Waterloo_Bay.jpg (669.6 KB)
Cutting_Edge_Tech.jpg (323.7 KB)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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Creating some 'tiles' inspired from a mini odyssey up the Antrim Coast and recent exposure to ancient local artefacts...

(edit: added last of the tiles for now, material setup then onto placement, in Nanite we trust)








Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年5月27日 19:10:01

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Noda_Sigil_Tiles.jpg (386.7 KB)
IMG_20250525_131829.jpg (1.7 MB)
IMG_20250525_195048.jpg (2.2 MB)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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entering into June and its time to start dressing and laying out the scene proper, these where to help me get a feel for where I need to aim for, a lotta work yet, should be fun, as always


Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年5月29日 16:01:04

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ElderBorder_WoodLandArches.jpg (611.2 KB)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
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Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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First Major Greeble (1 of 6 planned) to help fill out the scene efficiently and hopefully give the overall aesthetic some consistency, I've orbited around to show the various profiles that hopefully I can utilise along with material changes to enable it to be versatile...

Fun Factor 9.8/10
Slainte.
(edit added into scene..4am so just went and threw in the unoptimized mesh for a quick look-see)
(further edit, another Greeble, bit of sculpting in this one...)



Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年6月1日 12:12:52

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NODA_Claw_Inst_First_Pass.jpg (627.9 KB)
UE_Greeble_02.jpg (295.2 KB)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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at this point I'm just layering and seeing what's working, another 4 greeble forms to create and then I'll see how far I can push them into different uses, material and color balancing done last, I've just knocked back the Saturation in a post-process volume (I'm color blind anyhow )

(edit added in a band of greebles at the base of the 'towers', had issues with the screen record so this was take N++ and it flips out a bit with pulling out this far, but the space mouse is great for the usual navigating)

(further edit. was planning to use the UV pack method to place the centre Sigil tiles but have opted for something more akin to Celtic bands you see on jewellery and metalwork)

(final edit for now, the Sigil tiles on all three 'tower' sections, a general overview ending up on the causeway where I will be placing Fae Trees built in Natsura and styled in the same fashion as the Dark Hedges in North Antrim..see below)



Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年6月2日 23:46:57

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NODA_Tower_Prev_01.png (3.0 MB)
NODA_Tower_Prev_02.png (3.1 MB)
NODA_Tower_Prev_03.png (2.6 MB)
NODA_Sigil_Bands.jpg (532.1 KB)
NODA_Sigil_Bands_A.jpg (392.5 KB)
NODA_Sigil_Bands_B.jpg (404.6 KB)
dark_hedges.jpg (108.9 KB)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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before jumping into the Natsura workflow I decided to take a run at some more appropiate material for the Sigil Tiles/Greebles on the towers, will be doing a light dab of 'pipework' ancient patina Gold/Bronze and subtle in some kind of Celtic Knot fashion

(edit, after midnight and just a quick look at some Unreal bloom added in for a look...)

Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年6月3日 19:17:31

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MAT_Pass_NODA_Sigils_A.jpg (517.5 KB)
MAT_Pass_NODA_Sigils_B.jpg (348.1 KB)
MAT_Pass_NODA_Sigils_C.jpg (414.4 KB)
MAT_Pass_NODA_Sigils_BloominEck_A.jpg (249.7 KB)
MAT_Pass_NODA_Sigils_BloominEck_B.jpg (309.4 KB)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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Enter Natsura into the Challenge, just getting started and already veered into Eldritch territory, always a good sign, a quick attempt to get Niagra to play nice and I'll get back to learning its impressive native workflow

(edit: I hashed together a rough pass of an effect that I will be blending in with actual geo when I get comfortable with the Natsura workflow proper, something to work with but in the end will be more subtle...i hope, anyhoo, still havin fun

(further edit, wanting to get my greebly mitts on the great Natsura base meshes(great fun!) I've went ahead with my own workflow as more suited to the aesthetic for the Fae Dark Hedges, looking to populate the boundary area with more standard style Natsura trees)

(Final edit on this section for now: The volumetric clouds native to Unreal have helped the parallax and the Natsura base meshes were perfect for the intended heavy processing, the causeway & Dark Hedges approach I imagine to be some kind of conduit for this mysterious techno/magical machine that seeks to emulate an Elder Tree(Fae Tree) Portal to hack into the Fae realm, but where's Elderwood? we're yet to find out...)



Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年6月7日 04:18:43

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Natsura_Eldritch_Tree_A.png (1.1 MB)
Natsura_Eldritch_Tree_B.jpg (357.7 KB)
Natsura_Eldritch_Tree_GEO.jpg (266.6 KB)
Natsura_Eldritch_Tree_GEO_A.jpg (270.6 KB)
Natsura_Eldritch_Tree_GEO_Ancient.jpg (485.8 KB)
Natsura_Eldritch_Tree_GEO_Ancient_Collection.jpg (213.7 KB)
Natsura_Eldritch_Tree_GEO_Ancient_Collection_A.jpg (280.1 KB)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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To begin woking out the background area I've done a mesh derived from a previous mesh and from and earlier Snippet sketch, some rolling hills and then hopefully woodland, rolling and clinging, trees, lots of trees..
blocking out at this stage and then hopefully can get it blended in with combination of material and scattered assets..

(edit: while I work on, starting to see some contenders for shot angles, the Fae Hedges would need some work though, only really intended as a mid-far shot asset)

(edit further: tried to see the feasibility of the camera passing through the Unreal Volumetric Clouds, 50/50 and then reacquainting myself with the Unreal Post Volume. again undecided what the final approach will be but for now it adds enough for me to explore more later)

(low energy edit, some therapeutic geo(not just LA in flames) filler mid-back assets to fill outer area

Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年6月12日 07:22:11

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Ben_ElderFae.jpg (470.5 KB)
Ben_ElderFae_Hou.jpg (414.9 KB)
Now_The_CloudsHave_Meaning.jpg (394.6 KB)
Fae_Hedges_Interior.jpg (250.3 KB)
Cloud_Buating.jpg (434.7 KB)
Ben_Dhu.jpg (350.1 KB)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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Mid to Far landscape first pass, enough to scatter some trees and ready for mytical/whimisical/eldritch towers to break up the 'foothills' and beyond into the distance, spacemouse isn't very effective at this scale but average framerate is around 30fps, not great but not a concern at this point to be honest, will look into an Unreal runtime flying player controller for cinematic capture, added grass hopefully doable...

(edit: (2nd Video): Just a SideFx 'quick basic tree' proxy model to test the look of around 50K tree density, FPS down to around 20FPS, we'll fix it in post(post-Quantum Compute GPU perhaps....or maybe Natsura has the magic needed...)

(edit: sticking to static mesh as Unreal is too much too wrestle with at this stage, like arriving in a foreign country. Have modified a basic tree and generated some custom 'magical' leaves for a bit of card trickery, that will need further looked at, ignoring the tempting Nanite Foilage rabbit hole, for now, a few local volumes dropped in also)

(final edit for now: 1st video: Glen Fae Tree Pass 02: Getting a look at first attempt at custom stylized Leaf Cards, another pass or two required...)

(INTERMISSION::June22. Moving from home town to Belfast, lots to do, hope to get back and get something for final submission, this is just to get a look at the 'Elder' Trees within Elderwood (@glenfae?))





Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年6月22日 16:23:59

Attachments:
Ben_Dhu_Mons_Fae.jpg (604.8 KB)
Noda_Towers_AA.jpg (444.0 KB)
Glen_FaeTree.jpg (193.3 KB)
Glen_FaeTree_Leaves.jpg (279.0 KB)
Glen_FaeTree_Pass_02A.jpg (356.0 KB)
Glen_FaeTree_Pass_02.jpg (360.0 KB)
intermission.jpg (437.3 KB)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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TOPs said no, my HDAs in Unreal just freeze with any parameter adjustment and Maps baking (Vulcan & OpenGL) nulls out Houdini but managed to get these variants bashed through a for number loop(each HDA parameter with random value within set range) now have to see about LODs. The Lore behind these are 'capacitors` that have blown and a pristine version will also be present to give them some kind of context.
fun factor 9.4/10

(edit: first pass, utilizing Labs measure, Ao and standard curvedness attribute masks, also just dropped manually into scene for further tweaking TBD)

(further edit, tweaked for now and onto some more of the overall intended structure to hold the intact 'Caps' and indicate location of where the blown 'Caps' where, the blown caps will be placed through a simulated collapse/force)

(into some more 'rational forms' here previewed in white is the intact 'Capacitor with plug/stand and an example of my next level laziness doodling, more like a short hand as it was well formed in my minds eye. The stand will be destroyed randomly and the 'Cap' top will be the eldritch malformed 'blown' versions. I'll be doing a bit of sculpting on the stand also)

(morning sculpting pass, first time really drilling down into the sculpt node, and what a beauty of a node. the switch to OpenGL did indeed get nice and responsive and great to get my stylus onto a bit of Houdini geo proper, noise bump displacement maps will drive further detailing then let destruction begin, only in Houdini can 'ruining' yer work to get ruins is so enjoyable, fun factor 25/10, (Tommy to Scale, 'Capacitor Stand' is 40 metres))



Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年6月17日 06:58:08

Attachments:
TOPaThe_Loop_Ma.jpg (150.4 KB)
Fae_Blown_Caps.jpg (340.8 KB)
Fae_Blown_Caps_inSITU.jpg (573.9 KB)
Fae_Blown_Caps_inSITU_AA.jpg (600.0 KB)
Esoteric_Cap_Stand.jpg (152.0 KB)
Esoteric_Cap_Stand_SculptPASS.jpg (311.0 KB)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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Knowing when to stop is important when the process is so enjoyable but I've hit the brakes at this point. This will be the main structural form in the scene, flash mob of Tommys for scale, now onto texturing in COPs and final look-dev in good ol Unreal

(edit: done a pass in COPs aiming for an ancient Pewter look, further look dev in Unreal upon the morrow...)



Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年6月17日 21:09:48

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CeardLannCap_Stand.jpg (230.8 KB)
CeardLannCap_Stand_COPs.jpg (284.8 KB)
CeardLannCap_Stand_COPGRaph.jpg (339.1 KB)
CeardLannCap_Stand_COPsAA.jpg (324.9 KB)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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so, it was quite a relocation from the glens to Belfast City, I've lost pretty much 2 weeks and estimate ~100 hours to get something submissible, so its Houdini time and yeah its crunch time. sharing a few snaps of recent days and will be doing a daily update here around midnight GMT in the run-up to the deadline.
Allz good and feeling energized, so lets blow thing thing kid and...
Edited by geetee2323 - 2025年7月8日 09:40:29

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IMG_20250705_182529.jpg (2.0 MB)
IMG_20250701_140802.jpg (3.3 MB)
IMG_20250708_135847.jpg (1.5 MB)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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just a video with lighting tweak I'm going to use for trying out various soundtrack options, 11th-13th is final dev/assembly, 14th final lighting, output, editing

(bike stolen 2 nights ago, so another day lost yesterday sourcing a decent 2nd hand replacement, got drive by heckled by the thieves, City life sure is never dull)

Gareth J.R. McFarlane
Occupation:hmm...Houdini is kinda keeping me occupied of late, in good fashion :)
Location:Not far from where Ned Stark beheaded that fellow(we were not consulted)
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