I spent a good chunk of time working on this monster mesh for that chair-trigger scare sequence. I wanted something really unsettling, so I went with this burlap texture and these exaggerated features – those wide eyes and that stretched-out grin. The teeth were particularly fun to model, making them slightly uneven and giving them that pinkish gum texture to create this uncanny contrast with the rough burlap material.
I’ve been wrestling with this mesh in Unreal after bringing it over from Cinema 4D where it looked perfect. The burlap texture and modeling work great here in C4D – I love how the material catches the light and creates these deep shadows in the creases. But when I tried implementing it in UE5, I kept running into these degenerate triangle issues that were making the cloth physics completely unusable.
I really got into experimenting with squash and stretch animations on this one. Had this whole sequence planned where it would compress as it burst through the doorway, then stretch out as it lunged toward the player. The deformation looked amazing in Cinema 4D, especially how the burlap texture would warp and ripple with the movement.
But when I tried exporting it as a DAE file, the poly count was just ridiculous. All those detailed wrinkles in the burlap and the individual teeth geometry added up fast. The file size was way too heavy for what should be a quick jumpscare moment. Plus, all those blend shapes I created for the squash and stretch animations were making the file even more bloated.
I took some time to play around with the material setup for this monster mesh after getting it into UE5. The default look from Cinema 4D was fine, but I wanted to push the creepy factor further. I created this layered material where I added these deep black voids for the eyes, then surrounded them with an emissive white ring texture. The contrast between the dark center and that glowing rim creates this really unsettling look.
I then set up a sequencer that animates the monster when the scare is triggered, I haven’t worked on the animation for the game over sequence yet (if the monster comes in and you haven’t turned the light off in time), but the fact that I got this down and learned how to set it up with the blueprints means I shouldn’t have any problems.
I made this sound effect with a combination of droning noises that I distorted and reversed and normal walking sound effects, the door open/ close I just got for free somewhere on the internet.