This film was sponsored by Epic Games as a requirement of the Virtual Production Fellowship Fall 2020 Class, a five-week intensive crash course learning Unreal Engine 4.25 through the use of live online courses taught by Epic's Technical Artist and Education team, dedicated mentorship, and the supportive community of 99 other fellows.
Fellows had five weeks from concept to creation to produce a short film using the tools learned in class with the theme being "Exploration."
Set creation: Prior to the fellowship, I'd designed and built a majority of the set in Maya using traditional modeling techniques combined with assets from Quixel Megascan as a personal project to assist in self-learning Unreal. When the Fellowship began, I decided to use this as a base for my short film.
Audio: License to Soundtrack purchased from audiojungle.com
Level Sequencer - Camera moves, full edit, and soundtrack editing were done 100% in Unreal using the Camera Sequencer.
Look Dev - Assets that were modeled in Maya used packed textures I'd created in Substance Painter and brought into Unreal.
Animation - Combination of Motion Capture data and hand-keyed using Additive Control Rig done 100% in Unreal
Facial Animation - Recorded facial tracking via the Live Link App and UE's Take Recorder
Fog, Dust, "Fireflies" - Niagara VFX Systems for UE
Lighting - Fully lit in Unreal 4.25
Post Processing - UE's Post Processing Volume
Rendering - UE's Movie Render Queue (in beta for UE 4.25)
Final Assembly and Output - Adobe After Effects
