RENEGADE HARDWARE - Short Film in Unreal Engine

Hey everyone! Please enjoy my first crack at using Unreal Engine. A cyberpunk-inspired short film with music by Max Brhon. I've been teaching myself UE4 during the lockdown. After 5 days of messing around I started working on this short film using customized characters from the game Paragon. I think I spent about 7 or 8 days on this, learning as I went. I'm really impressed with how easy it was to pick up the basics of UE4. The interface was surprisingly intuitive, coming from a background with After Effects, Premiere, and real-world camera and lighting techniques. With each shot I learned a little more. I started by stringing together short animations that came with the characters (like running and jumping), then incorporated third party animations (like flipping), and then created some original animations (like writhing on the ground). Initially I approached the set like a real life production. I used the Soul City demo map from Unreal Marketplace and I found an attractive section of the map for my scene. But as the action unfolded, I started customizing the map more and more so I could let the action move in any direction. I could duplicate, modify, or shift assets in the city around to accommodate the scope of action. If the background was too plain, I could throw some extra neon signs up in the distance. If a wall was in the way of getting a cool shot, I temporarily removed the wall. Lighting-wise, the tools in UE4 behave in a pretty realistic manner. *However* they have some handy tricks like choosing the throw distance of a spot light. You can keyframe motion to the lights, which was handy in keeping a constant rim light following characters (versus using a larger static light that would spill onto other parts of the scene). Since there's no $ cost to adding more lights, I went overboard with using a ton of small lights along the path of action. The camera controls are also similar to real-world camera concepts, with a few handy differences. Changing aperture does not effect brightness, just Depth of Field. You can assign specific lenses (which is probably ideal in doing pre-vis for live action) but I really enjoy the "universal zoom" lens which basically allows you to do anything, whether it's realistic or not. There are some dolly track and jib tools in UE4 (again, probably handy for realistic pre-vis). But for this short I just free-styled the camera motion. I love dramatic and kinetic cinematography and that's the reason I started learning Unreal Engine. I wanted to express some visual ideas that would cost lots of money to achieve in real life. From a fight choreography stand-point of course no stunt performers were harmed. However, I think shooting and editing fight scenes in real life is very beneficial to creating virtual fight scenes. In real life you figure out tricks to sell "fake" hits and make practiced violence look more chaotic and dangerous. In UE4, one character can punch right through another. A character can fall 1000 feet onto concrete. But the same camera tricks used to sell live-action fights can really enhance the impact of the action in a CG fight. My initial thoughts coming out of this 1 minute short film: I can imagine creating a significant narrative film with UE4. My ideal project would be working as a director and cinematographer with a team creating original models, characters, and animations.

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