Rendering in UE
In Serra’s rendering session, we focused on how to push image quality in Unreal and why the final render often needs higher settings than the viewport. Serra shared several useful console commands for improving output, such as screen percentage, motion blur, depth of field, bloom, tonemapper quality, Lumen reflection tweaks, and virtual shadow settings (for example, starting r.ScreenPercentage around 120 and increasing carefully).
We also learned about LUTs for colour grading. A LUT is a lookup table that remaps colours so the whole scene keeps one consistent tone. The workflow was to take a screenshot, grade it in Photoshop, apply the same adjustment to a neutral LUT image, then import it into Unreal as a texture, disable mipmaps, set it as a Color Lookup Table, and load it in a Post Process Volume.
Finally, Serra showed us how to render with a Level Sequence in Sequencer: we set camera cuts, frame range, and output settings, then render a clean final video using the recommended quality parameters.
Water VFX
This week I created a small lake using Fluid Flux in Unreal Engine. In my scene the water is mostly still, so I did not add any interaction like footsteps or splash forces. I first placed a Fluid Flux simulation area only around the lake, because I wanted the effect to stay focused and not cost too much performance. Then I aligned the water height to the terrain so the surface sits correctly in the low area.
After that, I adjusted the settings to keep the water calm. I reduced strong flow movement and kept only very subtle surface motion, so the lake feels quiet and natural. The main purpose was to give the water a believable look, with soft highlights and gentle variation, instead of large waves. I also checked the shoreline area and tried to make the edge blend better with the ground, so it does not look like a flat plane.
To save performance, I did not keep the simulation running all the time. Instead, I cached the result into textures, including Ground, Height, and Velocity maps, and used a Fluid Flux data asset to manage them. This way the lake can use the texture data for the water surface look, without heavy real-time simulation. It helped me keep the water clean and stable, while still having small natural variation and highlights.
Overall, Fluid Flux helped me create a clean, reflective lake surface that supports the mood of the Narcissus project.