Robots Blossom – Project Update 014
Rendering, Video Editing
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Starting to play with lighting set up and rendering in Unreal Engine 5 for this animated short.
I wanted to get a step closer to final lighting as it will help me solidify shot blocking. It’s also a good time to start rendering still images and/or a few frames to get a feel for the Movie Render Queue output prior to post-production.
In the screenshot below, you can see I am starting to play with Volumetric Fog in a backlit scene. I am going for a heavily silhouetted look and over the top crepuscular rays (aka god rays) << I had to look that up 😉
I am trying to fully leverage ray tracing in this project. Additionally, I am using the ACES standard for color management. I won’t pretend to be the expert in ray tracing or ACES but I do know where to find an expert. Please see the tutorials noted below. I found these to be invaluable in my learning journey. Thanks again to YouTube and Unreal Engine Learning Portal!
Character Art
Iron Robots Pack – created by leshiy3d
Environment Art
Cherry Tree – Sakura – created by Naked Singularity. This artist also has environments and assets available on ArtStation. Check out Medieval Gothic Cathedral – Modular Pack.
Environment Materials and Props – created by Quixel Megascans
Props
Chinese Umbrella Paper 3D Model – created by YLYL
Animation Packs
Strike a Pose – Animation Pack – created by Infectedfury
Introduction and Overview to Ray Traced Cinematic Lighting For Exteriors
This is a fantastic tutorial for learning the ins and outs of exterior lighting in UE5. It provides a good amount of technical knowledge regarding lighting and how light behaves in the real world. Lastly, the focus here in on lighting exteriors using ray tracing and the instructor does a great job of digging deep into lighting settings, environment settings and the relationships between these settings in UE5. The instructor, William Faucher, also has a top notch YouTube channel. He puts together extremely informative tutorials and does a great job of posting fresh content that keeps pace with the changes that come with new UE5 updates.
Unreal to DaVinci Resolve Workflow – ACES & sRGB
Speaking of William Faucher, this tutorial is from his YouTube channel. The tutorial does a great job of covering ACES setup in UE5 as well as tips for Movie Render Queue settings. This tutorial is also great for learning a basic color correction workflow in DaVinci Resolve.
I have gone through both of these tutorials a couple of times. There is so much good information here, I may go back for thirds!
Rendering, Video Editing
Animating, Audio
Previsualization, Color Grading