Why I'm ADDICTED To Filmmaking In Unreal Engine
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.
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👀WHAT TO WATCH NEXT..
📺 Virtual Production Playlist
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📺Unreal Engine Lighting and Compositing
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Clips used in this video
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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. KZhead 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.
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 KZhead 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.
I needed this... this completed a journey of understanding in this vast sea of creative tools....now on to the next.
You clearly love what youre doing and it's awesome to see
I do.. super glad that's coming across.
Josh, this is awesome, the hours you must have put in to learning all this is mind blowing. Well done sir, love it
This is an awesome video. Thanks for sharing all this and looking forward to seeing what you create! 💪
Awesome, thank you!
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.
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
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!
Wow! This software is amazing. Thanks for making this tutorial. Just subbed.
Awesome, thank you!
That was freaking amazing. The fire and human face looked so realistic.
haha...i am a real human
😂
Your videos getting better and better. keep it up bro!
Thanks so much. I put a lot into this one.
This is a beautiful video. You're good at selecting the bgm, keep it up.
Thank you very much!
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.
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.
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 KZhead. If you're keen, then maybe join the discord. Would be good to chat more.
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!
fabulous. great energy
Glad you enjoyed it
I learned a lot from this thanks!
Amazing, Joshua, thanks for this excellent and helpful video.
My pleasure!
This is awesome! Who needs Maya when you have Unreal! Thanks for breaking it down so eloquently!
Glad it was helpful!
amazing work and video thanks for sharing!
Well thanks for watching!
Same! it's insanely fun.
It really is
Fantastic use!
Thank you! Cheers!
awesome bro. thank you.
You're welcome
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.
UNREAL AWESOME!!
Thanks!
Impressive. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for watching!
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.
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 😆
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.
That false color lut is great: awesome idea!
Nice video Joshua!
Keep creating! 🔥
You too!
That is so incredibly cool!
Thanks, Glad you enjoyed 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.
Addiction is not good for your health unless it's about unreal engine 😂
Or flying Fpv drones 😅
I’m not sure why KZhead recommended this video to me, but this is absolutely amazing. I may try to use this!
Thanks, It's a lot of fun.
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
Yea I plan on deep diving into Unreal in 2024 for my independent projects!
Great stuff. good luck
wow realy great, take love from Bangladesh. plz make more video like this 💓
Dude, that was amazing
Thanks man
This is awesome!!😊
Thank you! 😄
Great work!
Thank you! Cheers!
Awesome!! Thanks to share!!
Thanks for watching!
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
Now THIS is a level-up
Thanks
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.
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
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.
awesome work mate inspiring as a seasoned lighter
Amazing!!!!
Thanks!!
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! 🤙🏻
I really liked this - congrats
Thanks
love it!
Thanks!
I love your energy and vibe. Wish we were neighbors.
What computer specs do you use to run the unreal engine? Love your work!
GPU is a 3080. 64gb ram
nice work man
Thank you! Cheers!
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.
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.
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
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
excellent work ! liked and subbed
Thanks! Good to have you on board
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.
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
Well done
Thanks!
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
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
Brilliant. Subscribed.
Welcome aboard
Great work! Love it. One tiny note: @6:54 you cross the axis and it’s a bit jarring.
your channel rules dude
Thanks man
Im a budding photographic art film maker thank you for inspiring me
Im glad you're inspired!
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.
that sequence is way better than anything ive saw from disney hero movies from the last 3 years.
Haha thanks
How do I get a 1-2-1 session with you to go through Unreal and the set up I need for my PC? Been dabbling on and off for a while, but excited for the possibilities!
Hi there, sorry I don't currently do consultancy like this. Maybe join my discord and post about it there?
At the end I don't even say that is even generated in UE, good work!
Thanks!
I'm crazy frustrated. Screenwriter learning UE for filmmakers and there's so much to learn!
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 KZhead series using Unreal Engine. Ever since I started I've been designing music videos and more.....
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.
What kind of computer is needed including video cards?
Here's the page from Unreal Engine's website about it. docs.unrealengine.com/5.0/en-US/hardware-and-software-specifications-for-unreal-engine/
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
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
Did you use switchlight studio for this?
No, not on this video.
Can you say what spec computer is needed to work in UE and do this?
It's best to take a look at unreal engine's hardware requirements as a starting point. My PC is quite powerful, but I think you could still do this with lower specs.
dude coooool
Glad you liked it
was the shakey cam effect added in post? or was the footage motion tracked via live link virtual camera ?
I prerecorded some camera moves with livelink and then applied it to the cine camera. I added the recorded camera moves to patreon in case people found them useful.
wheres that video ?
It's on my patreon
Cool 😎👍
I love it and hate it in equal measures. I'm just really confused working with levels, level sequences etc. If I build an environment and animate something in that environment, save that and then want to reuse everything in a new animation, I find it really confusing how to re-save everything in a way that I don't overwrite or mess up the original stuff. A video about that would be useful.
Interesting question. Do you mean re-using an animation in a new level or project?
@@JoshuaMKerr In a new Level (within the same project).
@bensimon821 I would imagine you could copy the animation keyframes from one level sequence and then paste them into a new level sequence in a new level. There's probably other ways too, but I haven't tried.
Yeah the mental gymnastics are quite tricky - basically Unreal allows the transforms that are within one level to be edited while it’s in another level as a sub level - if you wanted to have it be temporary, you’d need to potentially use a sequence to “own” the transforms and move the objects around just for that shot. By having the transforms in a sequence, they won’t affect the original level transforms
are then not going to pay wall it soon ? or was that some randomness off the back of the Unity situation
Here's my video on that. kzhead.info/sun/aMufo6qfaod3hWw/bejne.html
Next :: Mega scans + 3d gausaian +. Ur albedo relighting technique combined.. its sooo close.. Only thing tht broke illusion was when its pure 3d unreal it have a different feel n than with comp shots.. Static feels real enough.. on movement though it hinders a bit.
Possibly something about the perfect animated camera movement, maybe a little bit of judder or micro shake would help. I feel that sometimes if mood or storytelling is strong enough that most cgi will be overlooked, but that's a real challenge.
I find it hard to march my green screen keyed footage with the 3D environment, how can I do it help please
You should join my discord community and post in there for help :) Alternatively, I post tutorials about this on my patreon.
Gahd DAYUM what a scene 6:16
You convinced me to subscribe 😅
Im glad to have you here.
It's awesome bro but you could also move the clouds a little bit to make it look more realistic
Thanks for the tip
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