ForestCode II VJ Loops

ForestCode II was created in Unreal Engine 5 using marketplace tree assets.

After releasing the original ForestCode reward, I felt I was missing a closer look into what happens inside a tree while it’s being scanned.

I started by duplicating the original level and stripping it down—first the foliage, then the pine trees and rocks, and eventually even the landscape.

Closer tree shots, however, felt static without wind. I switched to Quixel Megascans trees, the same ones I used in the Forester theme, since they had both high quality for closeups and a believable wind system (pivot painter).

I reduced the thickness of the scanning beam so it would illuminate only a part of the tree. At first the leaves appeared too dark—lit only when the beam touched them, without passing the light through. I opened the leaf material, adjusted the Translucency Controls, and increased the brightness from 0 to 20. That made the leaves transmit light, so the beam felt smoother and more natural as it spread through the tree.

Still, the upper leaves were shadowing the lower ones, making the scan less visible. I disabled Cast Shadows on the Rect Light (the beam), which allowed the light to penetrate and illuminate many more leaves, achieving the look I was aiming for.

Wind turned out to be more difficult. The built-in system didn’t loop cleanly, and keyframing the wind parameters created abrupt transitions. My workaround was dissolving between the start and end frames—timed to happen before the beam entered—making the transition nearly invisible.

From there, I searched for interesting shots beyond the frontal view. I rendered closeups, tested them in Resolume, and applied effects like mirrors to explore how symmetry and variations played out in the visuals.