Unreal Engine Learning Project - Residence by Nature Film
A personal project done over a few weeks at Christmas.
The original idea was to make three or four interior scenes while learning new software and techniques, but it ended up expanding to become a whole little film as I enjoy doing the edit process including music and sound- it helps add feeling to otherwise dry animation.
Design
To save time, I chose to use an existing design but personalised it on the outside. After looking around for inspiration I came across Apollo architects based in Japan. I really liked their Ortho project and their style and came with lots of reference material. I modelled up the house myself but used free props and furniture from 3D Sky and Megascans where possible.
As initially it was to be just interiors, I hadn't planned for much, if anything, outside the house. But after choosing the music I decided it would be good to use more of the track, so started on the exteriors with not much time left. It's a combination of looking at references, my own ideas and just what I thought would work well with this particular piece of music.
Software
Unreal Engine, 3DS Max, Corona Render, Speedtree, Substance Designer & Painter. Marvellous Designer was on the list to learn too but I didn't get around to that one- at least not yet.
Corona Render was used for the initial renders and materials, and once the Unreal phase started I used a combination of materials; some straight converts via Datasmith, but most were from Quixel Megascans and Substance Source, though a few I made myself from scratch inside Unreal and Designer.
The Speedtree demo assets look good up close with light behind them, though I still need to improve the look from farther away. Wind just works though I've yet to work out how to control it consistently.
Improvements/ For next time
- There are a few glitches due to reasons I've not yet been able to figure out or ran out of time to fix, eg, compromised UVs from broken Substance master materials, some trees not moving with the wind etc.
- The initial exterior shots need more work. As I'd never planned to show much outside, I had modelled the house as is, but as I ended up going with a more natural setting and quite late in the timeline I was a bit limited. I would have liked to do proper landscaping with garden beds and rocky parts. In the end I went with time-lapse effect across the film other visual interest.
- I planned to make a custom Speedtree foliage to make a feature tree in the interior patio rather than a Megascans plant.
- More hand painted assets using Substance Painter. The live link to Unreal is excellent and I really wanted to paint more on the facade and do a close up decoration prop for the interior.
- A few extra visual effects such as a little steam from the teacups.
Interior scenes were ray-traced. Saying that, my graphics card is the minimum usable for ray-tracing to function, being a GTX1060 6GB, so some interiors were a bit slow (a few frames/minute in worst case) although still way faster than offline renderers.
Final thoughts
It was a lot of work but I managed to meet my deadline.
Overall, the mostly real-time nature has been transformative for my productivity and the speed at which I could get through iterations to improve.
It would have been impossible for me to render a whole film at home so I ended up using Unreal Engine. While it was initially a means to an end, I've enjoyed the process and learned a lot more about it, so I plan to make all my future personal work with it.
Credits
Based on original Ortho house design by
Satoshi Kurosaki Apollo Architects & Associates
https://apollo-aa.jp/
Music: Water Lily by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4609-water-lily
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Sound effects: https://freesound.org
Props & models: 3D Sky, Megascans
Software used: Unreal Engine, 3DS Max, Substance Suite, Quixel Suite, Speedtree
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The original idea was to make three or four interior scenes while learning new software and techniques, but it ended up expanding to become a whole little film as I enjoy doing the edit process including music and sound- it helps add feeling to otherwise dry animation.
Design
To save time, I chose to use an existing design but personalised it on the outside. After looking around for inspiration I came across Apollo architects based in Japan. I really liked their Ortho project and their style and came with lots of reference material. I modelled up the house myself but used free props and furniture from 3D Sky and Megascans where possible.
As initially it was to be just interiors, I hadn't planned for much, if anything, outside the house. But after choosing the music I decided it would be good to use more of the track, so started on the exteriors with not much time left. It's a combination of looking at references, my own ideas and just what I thought would work well with this particular piece of music.
Software
Unreal Engine, 3DS Max, Corona Render, Speedtree, Substance Designer & Painter. Marvellous Designer was on the list to learn too but I didn't get around to that one- at least not yet.
Corona Render was used for the initial renders and materials, and once the Unreal phase started I used a combination of materials; some straight converts via Datasmith, but most were from Quixel Megascans and Substance Source, though a few I made myself from scratch inside Unreal and Designer.
The Speedtree demo assets look good up close with light behind them, though I still need to improve the look from farther away. Wind just works though I've yet to work out how to control it consistently.
Improvements/ For next time
- There are a few glitches due to reasons I've not yet been able to figure out or ran out of time to fix, eg, compromised UVs from broken Substance master materials, some trees not moving with the wind etc.
- The initial exterior shots need more work. As I'd never planned to show much outside, I had modelled the house as is, but as I ended up going with a more natural setting and quite late in the timeline I was a bit limited. I would have liked to do proper landscaping with garden beds and rocky parts. In the end I went with time-lapse effect across the film other visual interest.
- I planned to make a custom Speedtree foliage to make a feature tree in the interior patio rather than a Megascans plant.
- More hand painted assets using Substance Painter. The live link to Unreal is excellent and I really wanted to paint more on the facade and do a close up decoration prop for the interior.
- A few extra visual effects such as a little steam from the teacups.
Interior scenes were ray-traced. Saying that, my graphics card is the minimum usable for ray-tracing to function, being a GTX1060 6GB, so some interiors were a bit slow (a few frames/minute in worst case) although still way faster than offline renderers.
Final thoughts
It was a lot of work but I managed to meet my deadline.
Overall, the mostly real-time nature has been transformative for my productivity and the speed at which I could get through iterations to improve.
It would have been impossible for me to render a whole film at home so I ended up using Unreal Engine. While it was initially a means to an end, I've enjoyed the process and learned a lot more about it, so I plan to make all my future personal work with it.
Credits
Based on original Ortho house design by
Satoshi Kurosaki Apollo Architects & Associates
https://apollo-aa.jp/
Music: Water Lily by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4609-water-lily
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Sound effects: https://freesound.org
Props & models: 3D Sky, Megascans
Software used: Unreal Engine, 3DS Max, Substance Suite, Quixel Suite, Speedtree
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