This month’s VJ clip reward on Patreon is Astromancer. Check it out:
Available On Patreon
Astromancer is a set of 7 VJ clips, in 1080p & 2160p DXV. It includes the Astromancer in several versions: revealed by light twinks and blinks, a functioning one, an emissive scanning and headbanging and 2 niche backgrounds. It’s available now and until 31st January 2023 to superfans on Patreon.
The almighty Resolume Arena project is included as well. Opening it will set the 7 clips into a plethora of variations, accents, mixing matches (arranged into columns) and more. You’ve been telling us that the project really helps you in understanding what can be done with the clips and teaches awesomely. Happy to include that every month with the reward! More about how to mix Astromancer in the tutorial below.
How To Mix Astromancer On Resolume Arena
Sharing with you how I envisioned that Astromancer will be mixed. Of course, this could be just a starting point for you to add your own spice to the mix.
Creation Process
Astromancer is continuing last month’s Alienated theme, and might even progress into a whole Alienated VJ pack. This time I’ve been using assets from the Mummies, Hover & Ancient Stones asset packs.
I started with importing the assets in Unreal Engine 5 (UE5), then tried a bunch of asset kitbashing until I was satisfied with the Astromancer look.
At this point I recorded a short screen cap for superfans on Patreon, revealing how this reward will look. Check it out:
On Patreon I asked: what do you think, once I find how to switch it on, what will it do? Then two Superfans suggested that it would have laser eyes or halo/horns. I liked these ideas and started considering them.
Animating
The first clip I made was of the Astromancer moving gently. I took that clip into Arena, applied all kinds of effects on it, and liked the outcome.
Then I went on creating an emissive version. I needed to create an emissive texture and connect it to the emissive node in the material. I tweaked some of the textures that were already existent in order to get some of the outlines that will eventually be emitting light and had it on a transparent background. When the emissive material was ready, I added two spotlights nearby the eyes for them to shine like headlights of some sort (one superfan on Patreon suggested to add Laser eyes – an awesome idea that inspired the headlights).
In previous session I had some issues when using Lumen GI with emissive material, causing flickering in the final render. One solution to that was using RTX GI instead (but it has its quirks, too). This time I decided to test the improved Path Tracing feature in UE 5.1. Here’s a quick tutorial that helped me through it. No flickering this time, path tracing does take longer to render, but it was worth the flawless renders overall.
The next clips I made were the twinks & Blinks ones: where a pointlight is moving around and lighting the Astromancer for short whiles.
The last two clips were of the Niche, using assets from the Walls asset pack, and animating a pointlight to light it up interestingly.
Testing It In Resolume Arena
As always, I created test clips of each animation and tested them in Resolume Arena. Superfans get that project with the variations I created to clips and everything arranged into columns, as I demonstrated in the tutorial above.
What's next?
Will the Alienated theme turn into a whole VJ pack? Let’s see how will the next reward turn out, first ))
If you have any ideas / suggestions for future rewards, hit me up with an email to [email protected] or in a DM on Patreon / Facebook / Instagram.
