Month: September 2026

Carousel Scene Production

• Added warm lighting to strengthen the contrast between light and dark areas and create stronger colour contrast.
• Created a rotating carousel animation and adjusted the speed to make the movement feel slow and continuous.
• Added falling snow to create a quiet, cold and mysterious atmosphere.
• Combined the warm lighting of the carousel with the cool colours of the surrounding environment, making the carousel stand out more clearly.

Why Use Warm and Cool Colour Contrast?

• Warm colours, such as orange and yellow, often create feelings of warmth, comfort, happiness, or safety.
• Cool colours, such as blue and cyan, can create feelings of coldness, loneliness, sadness, or mystery.
• When warm and cool colours are used together, the strong contrast can make the main subject stand out and create a stronger visual focus.
• Films and TV shows often use this contrast because it can make the scene more visually interesting and help create different emotions.

Connection to My Project

In my carousel scene, I used warm lighting on the carousel against the cool blue environment and snow. This makes the carnival look beautiful and peaceful at first, while also creating a slightly unnatural feeling. This contrast supports the idea that the carnival looks beautiful on the surface, but something is slowly going wrong underneath.

Scene 1:

1. Terrain creation

Terrain Production

• Created and adjusted the basic terrain for the amusement park.
• Applied different landscape materials, such as grass, dirt and rock, to create natural ground variation.

Plant Production

• Added dynamic plant instances to make the environment feel more alive.
• Adjusted the random scale of the plants to avoid repetitive and identical vegetation.
• Adjusted the plant density in different areas to create a more natural distribution.
• Adjusted the placement and distribution of the plants to fit the composition of the amusement park.

2. Snowflake particle creation

Snow Particle Production

• Created a Niagara particle system to generate falling snow.
• Adjusted the spawn rate to control the density of the snow.
• Adjusted the particle size and falling speed to create a more natural snow effect.
• Added slight random movement and wind variation to make the snow fall less uniformly.
• Adjusted the particle distribution area so that the snow could cover the whole amusement park.
• Applied a snowflake texture to the particles to make the effect more realistic.

3. Import Maya animation

Maya Animation – Ferris Wheel and Pirate Ship

• Created the Ferris wheel and pirate ship animations in Maya.
• Set up the main rotation and swinging movements to make the amusement park rides feel natural.
• Adjusted the animation timing and speed to create smooth and continuous motion.
• Prepared the animations for later export to Unreal Engine.

4. The clown’s hint

Clown Pollution Transformation

• Created three different material states for the clown, showing the progression from clean to increasingly polluted and damaged.
• Used Visibility keyframes in Sequencer to switch between the three clown states and create the pollution transformation.
• Designed the transitions to appear suddenly rather than gradually, making the pollution feel unexpected.
• Used this sudden change to create a horror-like and unsettling feeling, making the clown a visual symbol of the carnival’s corruption.
• This transformation also foreshadows the development of pollution in the later scenes, showing how the once beautiful carnival gradually becomes corrupted.

Storyboard

1. The Beautiful Carnival

• The first stage shows a beautiful and peaceful carnival.
• The carousel remains normal, representing people’s familiar life and the beauty on the surface.

2. Pollution and Retaliation

• The second stage reveals the spread of pollution through the changing carousel.
• Marine life is damaged, and the carousel becomes covered with ruined marine creatures, symbolising the destruction of nature and its retaliation.

3. Humans Become Part of the Cycle

• In the third stage, humans become trapped on the carousel.
• The carousel changes from a symbol of joy into a symbol of control and punishment, showing that humans eventually become part of the pollution cycle they created.

Visual Thread

• The carousel is not only an element of the scene, but also the main visual clue separating the three stages.
• Its transformation helps show the development of the story and the gradual change from a beautiful carnival to a polluted and destructive world.