Why I'm ADDICTED To Filmmaking In Unreal Engine
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- Опубликовано: 22 май 2024
- Creating a cinematic short film in Unreal Engine from scratch and all of the tools I used along the way. Unreal Engine has changed the way I make films and I want to show you why I’m addicted to filmmaking with Unreal Engine.
Need Virtual Production help? Visit joshuamkerr.com and work with me.
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👀WHAT TO WATCH NEXT..
📺 Virtual Production Playlist
bit.ly/3HnUeDe
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📺Unreal Engine Lighting and Compositing
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Clips used in this video
The Matrix Awakens_ An Unreal Engine 5 Experience
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Unreal Engine 5 Revealed! _ Next-Gen Real-Time Demo Running on PlayStation 5
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Unreal Engine 5.3 Feature Highlights
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Hey, I scanned that skull!
This is so cool to see. Love learning all the ways people are using our scans to build cool worlds and projects. Feels like the tip of a huge iceberg!
Amazing! Great work on that scan mate, Lovely quality!
Hey is there any career opportunities in scanning materials for megascan?
wow! have you done any other megascans i use them almost daily
Couldn’t agree more. I’ve been using unreal for quite a while now and I’m so addicted. Real time tech is the future and it is only getting better. If you’re not sure about whether or not you want to start learning unreal, you totally should!!
Yes!
@@JoshuaMKerr could you please tell which degree or course you need to finish to able to do this? My wife is like drawing and she is interested in animation. THanks!
I didn't take a course. I have a film degree but you don't need one to make films. Just start learning. RUclips tutorials and the Unreal Engine documentation were super helpful.
One of the coolest things that I learned was about the Tangram Heightmapper plugin. That detail alone was well worth me clicking on this video. So thank you for that tip! And for the inspiration.
Ah good. Tangram is just a website though in case you start looking for an unreal plugin.
I hope I've helped you on your journey sir.
I needed this... this completed a journey of understanding in this vast sea of creative tools....now on to the next.
Josh, this is awesome, the hours you must have put in to learning all this is mind blowing. Well done sir, love it
You clearly love what youre doing and it's awesome to see
I do.. super glad that's coming across.
This is an awesome video. Thanks for sharing all this and looking forward to seeing what you create! 💪
Awesome, thank you!
Journey To The Center Of The Earth kind of vibe going on here. Beautiful. Great job. You are getting better and better. This video is inspirational and encouraging. Thank you.
Thanks so much. I made it to inspire others, so I guess it's working
wow really nice bro. I think your render could be 50% more realistic with 4 small additions: 1. @6:23 and @6:33 imo you should crank way up the wind effect on your foliage/tree in the background(I can hear the strong wind from the top of a mountain but everything seem static) Also maybe add a tiny touch of the free default leaf falling animation throughout your scene 2. I can see you added a ''flicking light'' from the fire on your face from the shoot which is nice but I think if you put a soft orange flicking light accross your scene it would have been nice also. i.e. @6:06 or 6:29 on the stone light beam thingy. 3. @6:56 the scene kinda seem flat i think adding 1-2 set of the free default animated flying birds over the mountains would of made it more alive and I wouldve cranked up the beam light effect also to really draw the viewer attention 4. a) a free default animated dust/small rocks effect falling from with the stone thingy when it start turning and stops. b) your turning animation of the stone seems non-linear: it seems like it slows down before stopping but the sound you put make it seem like it hit a hard stop. I think a linear rotation ending with dust flying at the end would of made it more dramatic like it hasnt been used in a long time. But it is all small things and your filmmaking is really good! I subscribed. can't wait to see more.
Thank you so much for this detailed comment. Totally agree with everything you're saying, I wish I'd had the time to do all of these things.
Funnily enough, the tree wind was stronger initially, and I'd started experimenting with dust on the statue, but the point came where I really had to move on and publish. Those are the breaks when it comes to RUclips.
If you're keen, then maybe join the discord. Would be good to chat more.
That's amazing! Thank you for sharing, totally new to Unreal Engine and so looking forward to playing around with it knowing I'll be able to create something as amazing as that.
Its nice to know when people enjoy my work. I want to inspire people to go out and make their films. But 10-1 comments tend to be negative about one thing or another. So your comment is a breath of fresh air.
Such a great video mate!! Been waiting for this for a while and it’s epic!
Hello my friend! I've been dying to get it finished. Very glad you enjoyed it.
That false color lut is great: awesome idea!
Nice video Joshua!
Wow! This software is amazing. Thanks for making this tutorial. Just subbed.
Awesome, thank you!
Beautiful presentation, Joshua. So informative and enjoyable, even though most of the technical info is over my head! Hope to catch up. Thanks for this.
Glad you enjoyed it!
UNREAL AWESOME!!
Thanks!
This is a beautiful video. You're good at selecting the bgm, keep it up.
Thank you very much!
Amazing, Joshua, thanks for this excellent and helpful video.
My pleasure!
Your videos getting better and better. keep it up bro!
Thanks so much. I put a lot into this one.
That was freaking amazing. The fire and human face looked so realistic.
haha...i am a real human
😂
I learned a lot from this thanks!
Same! it's insanely fun.
It really is
Now with nanite and lumen it is incredibly insane! Also megascan now has trees with great Subsurface scattering!
That idea 💡 of the lantern pointing to the destination like that. Its very creative mate! I haven't seen that in a game or movie yet, myself. But it is very effective! When I saw that little bit of a mountain light up over there from WAY over here, and you take off. I was like. LET'S GO!!!
Keep that kind of creativity flowing. ALWAYS!
Thanks mate, really glad you enjoyed it.
@JoshuaMKerr I've been a graphic artist since 2008, a bit of motion graphics in aftereffects recently. My job is about to be extinct though thanks to AI 😆
So.. I'm determined to learn how to render out scenes in Unreal. So I'll be watching a lot more videos now haha.
I'm actually excited. It looks a lot more easier to flesh out the idea now than it was 20 years ago!
I think I got this!!
Thanks a ton!
amazing work and video thanks for sharing!
Well thanks for watching!
That is so incredibly cool!
Thanks, Glad you enjoyed it.
fabulous. great energy
Glad you enjoyed it
Fantastic use!
Thank you! Cheers!
excellent work ! liked and subbed
Thanks! Good to have you on board
wow realy great, take love from Bangladesh. plz make more video like this 💓
This is awesome!!😊
Thank you! 😄
Awesome!! Thanks to share!!
Thanks for watching!
Keep creating! 🔥
You too!
Dude, that was amazing
Thanks man
Great work!
Thank you! Cheers!
love it!
Thanks!
Impressive. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for watching!
All in all well done. One can mention that the trees are pretty much static despite the blowing wind and in the last part the sun is behind you but your face is much brighter than the landscape
Yeah, I did mess up the lighting on that bit. Live and learn
When you show yourself it looks off and greenscreen vibes but you are way ahead of everyone else 😅
It didn't bother me that much. But there's more I could do with the lighting and composting.
@@JoshuaMKerr Yeah the real lighting is underrated, in order for it to appear natural you'll need to figure out how to use the Unreal content to light your face/objects properly (otherwise manual lighting for each scene will be a massive waste of time)
The thing is that everything has been done by a single person at home for a RUclips video, without extra budget. It's pretty impressive for what it is.
@thenamelessone123 Well, relighting tech isn't quite there yet but its getting there, I give it a year
@Sleezy.Design Thats very generous of you. Appreciate the kind words.
This is awesome! Who needs Maya when you have Unreal! Thanks for breaking it down so eloquently!
Glad it was helpful!
Cool. I love filmakers. Always wanted to be one but never had the chance. I admire those that can.
It's never been easier to make something. The trick to starting is not to worry about the result and enjoy the process.
Wow this is really inspiring mate. I really hope to be able to tell my stories through this one day.
You can. Just get started.
@@JoshuaMKerr getting the stories down first, thanks mate
Nice one. Thats great
@@JoshuaMKerr thanks bruv
Amazing!!!!
Thanks!!
awesome work mate inspiring as a seasoned lighter
Someone give this man an Oscar for phenomenal acting
too kind, too kind.
great job on this... the biggest challenge Ive found is compositing the greenscreen footage with the unreal tools are somewhat limited im trying a plugin solution that allows NUKE to connect directly to unreal and allow for the those fine detail adjustments... and yes the AI relighting will also be a game changer
Let me know how the Nuke plugin works out for you.
I really liked this - congrats
Thanks
Fascinating stuff, very interesting! I'd love to know what those vertical lights are on your greenscreen? It looks really evenly lit!
It's a couple of godox tl120 tube lights
Love this kind of tech. Using these kinds of techniques would be a good way to get a project off the ground if you are an unknown indie and trying to get potential investors to understand your vision. One of the biggest challenges in getting something funded is getting people with the capital to understand what you are trying to accomplish. The more unusual the project, the harder that is to convey. Storyboards are great, but this much more impactful. Nice work!
Yes, absolutely, you can achieve a very polished previz or storyboard and the work you put into making your virtual set can still be used during production.
awesome bro. thank you.
You're welcome
Great work, Josh! I, too, am addicted to film making, though I have yet to learn UE5...it looks amazing!!! Happy New Year to you and yours, Joshua. All the best in 2024. Sub'd. :-)
Happy New Year to you too! Thanks for the nice comment.
Because... its perfectly made for both worlds of Gaming and Real Time rendering for you animation projects, I use it, and it saved me all the hours I would have spent on my home system or paying a cloud rendering service like Concierge to do it for me.
Brilliant. Subscribed.
Welcome aboard
WOW That is so great !! would love to learn your start to finish break down you so have a wonderful technique
Which part do you want more info on? A full breakdown will more likely be a course when I finally get around to it.
@@JoshuaMKerr would like i guess a way you start off creating your thoughts and ideas to making great film more towards the landscape part developing and getting a good foundation to build on then go on from there. guess youre right probably a full course can wish for it tho
@michaelb1099 You really need to just start playing around. Don't try to make something amazing. Just make something, anything. Then learn and grow from experience. That's what I did.
My first cretions were terrible and i still have lots to learn myself.
Im sure a course will happen.
@@JoshuaMKerr i understand will give it a shot i got the gpu to handle and the cpu so just gotta sit down and work it but your tutorials are so good so will keep watching im messing abit with unreal 5.4 which is a big help will be glad when its in final release
@michaelb1099 nothing to loose. Everything to gain
Well done
Thanks!
Now THIS is a level-up
Thanks
Yea I plan on deep diving into Unreal in 2024 for my independent projects!
Great stuff. good luck
So so good
Thanks
I’m not sure why RUclips recommended this video to me, but this is absolutely amazing. I may try to use this!
Thanks, It's a lot of fun.
Addiction is not good for your health unless it's about unreal engine 😂
Or flying Fpv drones 😅
Cool 😎👍
nice work man
Thank you! Cheers!
This was vey cool! And, loved the energy you convey. I’m a newbie and was wondering if Unreal is good for creating animated stories?
It is, but it takes a while to learn. I haven't even scratched the surface of animating characters.
I recommend adding a bit more "life" to the background elements (some motion on the leaves of the trees, a bit more movement on the clouds around the background mountains) to really give the shots a greater sense of realism. The typical effects element they add for scenes like this would include flocks of birds flying past to give a sense of scale, but it's a bit of a cliche now.
Great Work Joshua!
Love that you reply/heart all the commwnts as well :)
Do you offer any services to make animated videos?
Haha, no worries, trying my best to get to everyone. I dont have a service though. I'd never have time to make these videos if I did.
I do give help and feedback on my discord server and also to patrons of course.
Very nice, only one small critique - should add a bit of movement to the tress/branches for a slight wind in the air but very good.
There was a little bit, but the more I added, the less natural it looked. But I do agree. If I could get good tree animation I'd be all over it
incredible. thanks for making and sharing. Given your strong knowledge about Unreal and Virtual Production, what is your best estimate on long did it take you to put this film together from the very beginning to completion ?
That's tough to answer. Maybe a bit over a week if I worked on it solidly. But I did take a lot of extra time figuring out the best way to do the landscape and its material.
Maybe you should insert yourself into the scene with a metahuman instead of a green screen. It's more laborious at the beginning, but then you can reuse it for all the other scenes, and it looks very realistic.
I prefer humans. Metahuman is soulless.
@@JoshuaMKerr then do better keying and compositing. You're not matching at all to the unreal.+ Unreal is so recognizeable it takes skill to make it actually usable with a unique realistic look. And not look like exactly what it is... A pre rendered unreal acene with a chroma key plane of a big ol nothing going on
Just sharing what I enjoy mate.
Gahd DAYUM what a scene 6:16
your channel rules dude
Thanks man
At the end I don't even say that is even generated in UE, good work!
Thanks!
dude coooool
Glad you liked it
I've been loving the ability to create films in Unreal Engine. My current production as done entirely virtual from the actor performances on their phones, do cinematographers DPing over a discord call. It's all so exciting!
Sorry, it's taken a while for me to get round to responding. It really is a new frontier in filmmaking. So many of the tools for vfx are not just available to indy fimmmakers but also useable on a prety normal pc. Then add in real time rendering for visualisation on top and it's really magic.
@JoshuaMKerr man, I had far too many typos in that initial comment 😅
Almost certain I typed it at 3am.
New Frontiers perfectly encapsulates it! So well in fact, that's the name of my project 😆
I love your energy and vibe. Wish we were neighbors.
Wow, it still has an unreal element (no pun intended) to it but wow, to be able to do this with just you, a small studio set up and a computer… how powerful is your computer setup? What specs do you need to have? I can see this giving indie filmmakers the ability to give scope to their worlds. Great video
It's a pretty good computer with 64GB ram and a 3080 GPU. But you can do this with lower specs.
I felt a bit of an unreal vibe was okay given the fantasy(esque) adventure genre. I think chasing photorealism is a waste of time if it distracts you from telling the story. There are great films, and there are great tech demos, but rarely do they both occur at once.
have you looked into using resolves new relight features? You can relight your comp in resolve or even export the normal maps to relight in unreal engine. It would be cool to see how it compares to beeble
I had thought about it but it would be a very short video, davincis normal map is nowhere near as detailed. Also beeble do roughness and specular maps. They are lightyears ahead.
I might include a comparison in a future video.
Great work! Love it. One tiny note: @6:54 you cross the axis and it’s a bit jarring.
Oh man final scene quality is just super👌
Just a question, how would you do it if you want to show your breath/vapour/steam from mouth & nose (to sell that this is cold environment/winter season etc)? 🥶
Id probably do that type of effect in After Effects before bringing the footage to unreal.
I'm reminded of the VFX work Ian Hubert did/is doing on Dynamo Dream
High praise, but Ian is light years ahead of me haha
that sequence is way better than anything ive saw from disney hero movies from the last 3 years.
Haha thanks
Have you ever considered using metahumans and mocap to better integrate the characters into the scene (rather than using compositing and needing to get the lighting and everything else just right to make it look half decent)?
Nah not really. Maybe as background
nice result! the only thing why i dont use pathtracer everytime in my renders - sometimes some grass materials disapear with PT (not from quixel) and i have no idea how it works
Not the first time I've heard this one. Think I'll have to take a look into it. what grass are you using?
I love a Brushify - Smart brush system for UE, their brushes let you set up any landscape you want just in a couple of minutes and also there are procedural materials like grass and it also looks nice and works fast but for me it disapears with PT. Honestly I learnt everything about virtual production from your tutorials and they helped so much. It would be great to have a tutorial from you about grass and foliage issues not for games but for video production, because sometimes we need more stability in our scenes. One more question about this could be - why sometimes a whole patch of grass can disapear for a few frames and then come back. Comands about LODs didn't help, looks like it's not a LOD issue.
r.Raytracing.Geometry.InstancedStaticMeshes.Culling 0
r.forceLOD 0
foliage.forceLOD 0
foliage.LODDistanceScale 100
This did not work and sometimes patches of grass can just switch off and come back on a moving scene.
@@JoshuaMKerr
Dude! Insane! Love it.
Once more if this gets out - using green screen instead of an LED volume; Unreal Engine will EXPLODE!
Oh yeah. green screen has miles more potential than LED.
Well, it’s definitely much more accessible to indie filmmakers and students!
Great stuff! Sticking around to see what’s next! 🤙🏻
What computer specs do you use to run the unreal engine? Love your work!
GPU is a 3080. 64gb ram
Idea is amazing, it totally works, the only weakness I found it's you have to find a way to make yourself more fit inside, I kept having the feeling you weren't actually there(and we all know you weren't), but I couldn't understand why it felt a bit off, maybe it just need a fix during the composition?
If anyone has ideas on how make the real person fit in there, probably a filter that makes you colored like the unreal *realism"
Just requires a bit more practice doing the colour matching and lighting. I'm getting there.
@@JoshuaMKerr This is why I'm shocked, because it really looks like you are close to make it, proud of it
You convinced me to subscribe 😅
Im glad to have you here.
that was perfect👏 . Do you think there is a tutorial resource for octane material in Enrail Engine?
Oh I wish. Are you using the octane plugin for Unreal?
I use it, but it doesn't always work. The main problem is the materials, which must be made based on octane again. Unfortunately, I did not find any educational resources about octane material. I found no way to learn this@@JoshuaMKerr
That's cool. I'm learning blender but this might be easier. My goal is to create music videos but in cartoon/ anime. I need to research this program more because I'm not sure of it will do what I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to create a movie. I guess I can download characters and then modify them. Not sure.
Learn both. I find they go hand in hand nicely
This was a very fun idea. How time consuming was it for you to get it dialed in?
Probably about a week
Same here, I believe I've been using Unreal since! 2020
It's a load of fun
@@JoshuaMKerr when I first started using Unreal Engine I was using Unreal Engine 4.26. I designed my first interactive RUclips series using Unreal Engine. Ever since I started I've been designing music videos and more.....
It's awesome bro but you could also move the clouds a little bit to make it look more realistic
Thanks for the tip
I like the little Lord of the rings easter egg you dropped into the beginning
I'd love to know what you're seeing. As a massive LOTR fan, I probably just did it by accident.
@@JoshuaMKerr you said " you can if you want use a mountain range from New Zealand, I wonder why you'd do that?*rhetorical question*" and how you said you where making a "fantasy scene" and being that I'm a huge lotr fan myself Instantly linked that to the filming of lord of the rings as it kinda gave fame to New Zealand's Incredible landscapes/ it's almost unreal fantasy scenery.
@JaxonBeckett Ah yes! You're right that was a Lord Of The Rings reference, haha. I thought you meant within the short film itself.
Those movies changed my life
@@JoshuaMKerr only true lotr fans would catch that ❤️ brother and same here greatest movies ever to grace the screen.
I've decided to put concerning hobbits on right now. This will be a night to remember.
With big production value back in the hands of the people, maybe we can now get some movies without all the social engineering forced in to the stories.
6:50
From directing point, the angle of your shot when you stand up looks very "wrong".
The "right" way to move to the other side of you is that you would take "close up" a shot of the "lamp" and move from left to right with you in the back ground, then slowly coming back to you from the other side. From there, the shot of you standing up would be right.
Yes, it's just an oversight. The good thing is it's easily fixed jf you're making previz.
Good effort, have started a film using unreal myself recently... uploading tests to my channel...
Feel free to drop a link down here.
Wow that was "EPIC".
I had fun making this one.
@@JoshuaMKerr It was obvious.
Any suggestions for combating the blinking spots on reflective surfaces? For me, it's one of the biggest disadvantages of using Unreal Engine because you expect to get a perfect render, but instead, you're getting artifacts all over the place.
what are your render settings?
@@JoshuaMKerr Thanks for your reply. I use UE 5.3 with the following settings for the Movie Render Queue:
Exports:
- Apple ProRes [12bit] Codec Apple ProRess 4444 XQ
Rendering:
- Deferred Rendering (default)
Settings:
- Anti-aliasing:
- Spatial 8
- Temporal 8
- Override Anti Aliasing checked
- Anti Aliasing Method None
- Console Variables:
- r.MotionBlurQuality 4.0
- r.MotionBlurSeparable 1.0
- r.DepthOfFieldQuality 4.0
- r.BloomQuality 5.0
- r.Tonemapper.Quality 5.0
- Game Overrides:
- Cinematic Quality Settings checked
- Other settings set by default
In addition, the following console command was executed: r.Lumen.ScreenProbeGather.ScreenTraces.HZBTraversal 0, which provided some improvement. However, in the overall context, it didn't fix the issue significantly.
Great!
Few small issues… The resolution of your footage doesn’t match the resolution of the scene perfectly. So you’re a little more pixelated than the trees etc.
And also the lighting color and angle/direction doesn’t match either… So it looks like the lighting comes from one side, and then hits you a little differently than everything else.
Also these assets look like video game assets. Especially the tree.
But yes the potential seems good. I didn’t know about a lot of those tools in unreal.
Thanks for the feedback. I didnt thinknthe assets looked too gamey, the quixel library is generally very good. But the tree definitely doesn't move realistically.
Im not sue what you're seeing in the resolution mismatch you mentioned. The footage is 4k inside unreal, then im exporting to 1080p. So the footage is far from pixelated. However, it might be due to cg assets always being much sharper in renders than footage. Something to consider for sure.
Just Have had unreal for about a week hoping this is my way to get into film making wish me luck!
You can do it!
You put your keyed footage inside unreal?
Or you render the scenario only and then composite in another software?
I put it into Unreal