HERALD

A quiet moment at the strandline before the world changes, where overnight something has washed ashore.

At dawn a dog walker is drawn towards it from the dunes and 'received'.

Nearby their belongings appear neatly placed down on the sand. No sign of the dog.

It is emitting a steady tone, the pitch climbing higher out of our human register. And so its connection with our realm begins.

=

Inspiration for the 'Herald' is a combination of a beached jellyfish and a shark egg case also known as a 'mermaids purse'.

The shape itself and silhouette came into my head in December and then the scene was scoped and scaled around it. Work on the scene itself started in early January.

This has been a really useful exercise in introducing myself to Unreals new Substrate material system, some Nanite Displacement and terrain bits, and some further learnings in Substance Designer too.

The shader complexity on 'the thing' isn't great but perhaps not as bad as you might think. Will share more on that in the weeks ahead when I will provide a breakdown and also do an optimisation pass.