Epic MegaGrant - Big hART
Throughout 2022 I was involved in series of projects with Big hART, supported by MegaGrant funding from Epic Games.
Acoustic Life of Boatsheds
Working in the cavernous Queen’s Magazine, in the middle of Sydney Harbour, I collaborated with two fantastic jazz musicians to bring the characterful space to life. I used many new features of Unreal Engine, from dynamically lit volumetric clouds, to eclectic Niagara particles, exploring the feelings of being above and below the ocean. Using Unreal Engine allowed me to create an instrument of my own, with which I could respond to the improvising musicians to create an expressive performance. Excerpt can be seen below at 2mins.
Performance for Acoustic Life of Boatsheds, in the Queen’s Magazine on Me-Mel
My small set up in the corner, running UE5 and a custom interface built in TouchDesigner
I also explored using the new Chaos system, to create a never ending stream of fracturing timber and tools (video)
‘Fracture’ for Acoustic Life of Boatsheds
Acoustic Life of Farmsheds / Kelp, Pollen, Rain, Soil
An extension of my work on Boatsheds, Acoustic Life of Farmsheds explored new themes and involved new collaborating artists. The flexibility of Unreal Engine allowed me to quickly adapt to the new space and to new ideas..
Performance for Acoustic Life of Farmsheds, alongside Keia (dance) Jay (keys/vocals) and Maggie (vibes/percussion)
Accompanying this work in a near-by farm shed was an ambient projection featuring flowing kelp fields – a nod to another Big hART project, Kelp, Pollen, Rain, Soil. (video)
Kelp fields for Kelp, Pollen Rain, Soil
New Roebourne Project
As part of the New Roebourne Project I used Unreal Engine to bring to life illustrations done by some of the young participants of the Digital Lab workshops in Roebourne, WA.
One of these workshops, run by artist April Phillips taught Procreate, which resulted in these awesome symmetrical birds.
Bids created by young participants in the Digital Lab, Roebourne, WA.
I animated these in Blender, and created a flocking system in Niagara, as well as controllable player. We had great fun in the digital lab trying out the demo! The kids were super impressed by the high res scans in the MegaScans ‘Rural Australia’ pack and loved exploring some of the demo scenes. We also had a go at photogrammetry ourselves using Polycam.
Sean having a go at the Birds game demo
A couple of the Polycam scans, including the Digitial Lab, a bench in the nearby medicine trail, an artefact created by Dougie in a woodworking workshop, and Dougie himself
I also showed off the Lyra demo, which was a big hit as the kids were big fans of FPS games! They really enjoyed seeing how a game like that was put together, in particular the weapon VFX and the different animations for the characters. Minds were blown when I replaced every texture in the level with Malachi’s face!
Malachi playing the Lyra demo, and his face tiled through all the materials!
Squid Theory
Squid Theory was performed at the Squid Festival, held in a small fishing town in Tasmania called Triabunna. It was great to collaborate with the musicians to create a journey through the abstract worlds of squid, and Unreal Engine was a great tool to create vivid, hyper-real imagery.
I had great fun experimenting with combining Unreal Engine output with drawings from the local school kids, and blending it all together using Stable Diffusion, an open-source and cutting edge AI tool. This lead to some amazing textural discoveries! Here’s an excerpt of the performance.
The work was projected on the sail of the ‘Juliene’
I used Unreal Engine to create a hyper-real ocean scene, including a swarm of squids created in Niagara.
Stable Diffusion was used to effect the Unreal Engine footage as well as illustrations of squid made by local school kids.
Unreal Engine has been an amazing tool for animating, performing and experimenting in new spaces.
It’s flexibility and speed has really opened up possibilities, particularly in a diverse company like Big hART - enabling me to iterate quickly, respond to the hands-on situations that arise in such unique projects, and collaborate interactively with other artists.