Forests of Ash
Presented as part of Melbourne Fringe & Melbourne International Games Week
Created by Gabriel Bethune


About



A meditative piece focused on Victorian Forests. 
The installation utilises a depth sensing camera and skeleton tracking software to generate particle effects determined by the users movement and position.

The environment was created by creating foliage assets in Blender, and imported into Unreal Engine 5 to create the game environment.
Photographed Gum Leaves to Import Texture
Texture of Mountain Ash (LEFT) and Messmate (RIGHT) made in Blender
Four (4) Tree Variations rendered in Blender
Early Layout of Forest in Unreal Engine, with ferns, ground cover, and trees.






Iterations on Interaction

The first version of the particle system spawned all particles at set time increments, rather than a constant stream of particles.

This took several iterations to refine.
The final decision of implementation was to anchor a mesh to each hand and head, update the position of the mesh based on the Skeleton Data, and anchor the particle emitter to the static meshes.
First Particle System

2nd Particle System

Current Particle System


Sound

Final Stems

Pre-Set Audio - This Audio is playing before audience interaction

 Bird Calls - Establishes space outside of Camera View


Brown Noise - Artificial Noise Floor + Noise PollutionActivated Audio

Bird calls played in reverse

Synth Music

A drone made from the return of a frozen reverb tail

Mixed Together

Final sounds when artwork is activated
Audio I like but wasn’t used