Project Evree
Skills: Unity, Maya, Proticle System, Shader
Project Evree is a project hosted by the University of Utah, aimed to create a Virtual Reality educational math game that can help students better learn math.
My role
In project Evree, I served as a techart lead and an engineer. My job as a techart lead was to rig and create animations based on the models provided by the artist, to create vfx using particle system and shader, and to integrate them into a piece that can be used by the gameplay engineer.
Produces
1. Energy flow
Energy flow is an effect created using Unity Shader Graph. In this shader, I used double sides and masks to create a semi-transparent effect, aimed to give the flow the feeling of dense liquid.
Using different shapes of masks to create the feeling of flowing liquid.
I also created a mesh-generating tool using Houdini. By using the tool, the scene designer can easily create different shapes of flow inside Unity.
2. WaveEffect
For WaveEffect, I used particle system to form the shape of a wave function that can be changed based on the frequency, amplitude, and offset. I dynamically changed the mesh of a tube and baked the mesh into an SDF (Signed Distance Fields) file, which is then given to the particle system to attract the particles accordingly.
Working Methodology
In this project, I used the working principle of SDK engineer in my techart works. As an SDK engineer, we treat every product as tools that will be used by different developers with different use cases. I put this idea into my work. When I am working on my techart products, I consider them as tool assets that will later be used by the gameplay engineer. Therefore, instead of finishing the VFXs and animations separately, I integrated all of them under an interface also designed by myself. In the interface, I opened API functions for the gameplay engineers to use. By doing so, I can control what my effects and animations will be used in the game, without taking the risk of allowing something I did not expect to happen, and to lower the effort the gameplay engineers need to take to put my produces into the game scene. For more details on my working methodology, see this page.