A Distant Slumber

Immersive Dreamcore Environment

Role

Technical Artist & Environment Builder

Tool

Unreal Engine, Blender, Substance Painter, Adobe Premiere Pro

Project Overview

A Distant Slumber is a real-time cinematic experience that blends dreamcore aesthetics with interactive storytelling. Built in Unreal Engine, it uses dynamic lighting, material transitions, and ambient worldbuilding to explore themes of solitude and memory. The project invites viewers into a surreal, emotionally resonant space where environment becomes narrative.

Harvard VIS 2475 Fortress of Solitude

#unreal_engine #real_time_rendering #dreamcore #interactive_environment #cinematic_design #emotional_space #memory_and_place #digital_storytelling #creative_technology #immersive_experience

Jan 2025 - May 2025

01. Narrative Direction

Dreams collapse logic, yet feel familiar. In A Distant Slumber, I blend fragments of memory, subconscious chaos, and childhood fantasies into a surreal, explorable world—where oversized furniture meets decaying architecture, and reality slips into illusion. It’s a space shaped more by emotion than reason.

Early Sketches

02. Concept Art

These early sketches shaped the emotional and spatial rhythm of the experience—quiet, surreal, and disjointed. Scenes move from intimate green-toned interiors to vast foggy landscapes and impossible architecture. Color studies emphasized faded pastels and shadowed warmth. Interaction storyboards explored proximity-based triggers and emotional pacing, using doors, light, and silence as anchors for memory and transition within a drifting, first-person dreamspace.

Unreal Blueprints

03. Technical Approach

The environment was fully built with Unreal Engine using Blueprint-based logic. Key systems include portal-based scene transitions, proximity-triggered animations, dynamic lighting and weather shifts, and time-based material transitions. All interactions are ambient and non-verbal.

Blender & Substance Painter

04. 3D Assets & Texturing

Core assets were modeled in Blender and textured in Substance Painter. Slight distortions in form and surface details were used to support the dreamlike tone. Materials emphasized softness, wear, and light diffusion, reinforcing the surreal and atmospheric quality of the environment.

05. Fortress of Solitude

A Distant Slumber is an exploration of inner landscapes shaped by memory, isolation, and emotional drift. Through spatial mood, minimal interaction, and atmospheric cues, this project reflects how solitude isn’t absence, but a space where past and present quietly echo each other.

–Special thanks to my professor and mental mentor, Eric de Broche des Combes