Title: Better Late than Never
YouTube: “Better Late than Never” | UE5 Superman | Unreal Challenge - Better Light than Never
Hi!
My name is Tyson Butler-Boschma, and I am a Lighting and Unreal artist from Australia! I have been using Unreal since all the way back in the days of UDK when I was a student, to now, either for professional or personal projects. If you’d like to see the other work I have done or the game project I am currently working on, you are more than welcome to follow me on Twitter - @TJATOMICA.
My entry into this challenge was rather last minute as I simply didn’t know if I’d have time but thankfully this week, I found some spare hours to create something I am happy to submit!
I’ll be the first to admit there are some things that could use some improvement here, artifacts and the animation is a bit robotic at times, but due to my limited time and very limited hardware power, I am happy with what I have been able to do and is a testament to what Lumen and UE5 allows lower end PCs to accomplish.
After I decided to enter this challenge earlier this week the first thing I did was consider the criteria themselves. Lighting, Composition, and mood all seem pretty straight forward for a lighting challenge, but the 4th criteria “Use of Theme” stuck with me as a solid foundation for idea generation. I recently had great viral success with a Superman Demo I released that utilised the Matrix City as a foundation, and being a huge Superman and hero fan in general, I wanted to visit the idea again, but in more of an emotional story way.
With this in mind I began breaking down the theme and how I could utilise it along with my “Hero” core concept.
The theme is “Better Light than Never”
Ok, a pretty obvious nod to the saying “Better late than never” but what does that mean?
As I thought on this, I quickly realised that this is at the very core or what a superhero is. Usually victims suffer greatly, even if they are saved at some point, the situation is still traumatic. But what is the alternative… death? So even though what happened might be horrific, the arrival of the hero is better than nothing at all, or in other words… better late than never.
Great, I had my logic, now I needed to convey it in story while still appreciating the core of the challenge… light!
I also had to consider my limited time and resources. As I continued to think, it slowly dawned on me that perhaps light arriving, could be the thing that arrives eventually, both metaphorically and physically. Then boom! Idea. From there it was smooth sailing, the idea of someone trapped with limited light and then eventually being saved with a massive wave of light that is both hopeful and chases away the darkness. This fit well into the theme and the criteria so I was happy with where the concept was heading, but I still wanted to drive home that “Better late than Never” idea… the idea that the bad has happened, but there can still be hope.
My years as a lighter have taught me a few things, but perhaps most importantly that lighting doesn’t just include light, but also darkness, or the absence of light, and that is what was the missing piece of the puzzle. It’s odd to say that in a lighting challenge a good 3-5 seconds of my entry is completely dark, but that’s the point, the absence of light makes it so much more powerful when light does finally return!
The final step was simply to determine a setting.
I knew I needed a small space for performance reasons. I also needed to at some point remove all light in a realistic way, and then have it return. A small room, that gets smaller seemed like a good idea. A disaster or collapsing building would allow me to systematically remove light from the scene before the hero could bring it back by removing the debris. Then all I needed was a victim… due to my limited animation skills I saw potential in using metahumans but then decided to settle on a pet instead, it made sense to me in the story that a pet could be left behind accidentally, and that they would be truly helpless. It also helped from a technical standpoint to have a smaller being hiding from falling debris under the table. Also, seeing a helpless puppy is just sad!
After acquiring the marketplace assets and MegaScans I needed, I assembled my scene and cameras and began putting it all together. I animated the cameras, quakes, lighting and effects in the environment, always being careful to focus on the theme itself… light.
Light disappears and then just in time, returns, physically and metaphorically through the despair of the puppy and then hope provided by the hero. Everything about this short 30 second story was designed to attempt to showcase the 4 criteria.
- Lighting
- The concept and physicality of light being the driving force for all that is in the scene.
- Composition
- Tight and confined spaces with limited lighting to invoke emotion.
- Conveyance of Mood/Atmosphere
- Colder lighting becoming warmer by the end to showcase hope, and light disappearing to convey fear and despair until light returns to provide a chance at life.
- Use of Theme
- And finally, “better light than never”. Light itself and the light of a hero metaphorically, works in tandem to get to a lost puppy, just as all hope is lost, just in time.
I also knew how important sound would be to convey emotion, so even though this is a lighting challenge and my focus here, all of this is also elevated by the incredible audio work by Alec Shea who you can find in the credits below.
I hope you all enjoy the short story I have created and this rather pretentious spiel about my thought and creation process.
A late entry, but you know what they say, “better late than never”.
I am glad I was able to submit something at all that I am proud of and really enjoyed this challenge! I look forward to more in the future, thank you!
Student Submission: (No)
Credits to sourced content:
Music / SFX - Alec Shea - Twitter: @slaleky
Dog - IPeunov
Apartment Tech Props – Dekogon Studios
Superhero Constructor - BL
Superhero Flight Animations – Indie-us Games
4K Materials: Wood Flooring Vol.01 – Karl Detroit
Chameleon Post Process - SUMFX
Concrete Debris VFX Pack – Tuatara Games
Megascans – Quixel Bridge
Film Screenshots:
In Engine Screenshots:
