Show Reel:
Design Proposal Presentation:
Category Archives: Unreal Engine 5
WEEK 11: Render & Composition
Step 7: Render in UE5
After setting up the scene and lighting, the next step is rendering. For detailed rendering parameter Settings, I refer to the following video.
(Compared to Maya’s Arnold renderer, UE5’s rendering speed and image quality are much faster XD)
Step 8: Composition & Sound effects
According to my personal habits, I edited the video in AfterEffects, restored and calibrated the color space, and then add sound effects in PR, thus completing the entire film production.
WEEK 8 – 10: Rigging, Animation & Scene design
Step 3: Rigging
Once I finished texture painting, the next step is the rigging my model. I usually use the ADV plug-in in Maya for rigging, although in the course we introduced the Control Rig system in UE5, but I really need more practice on it, so I still choose to use the ADV plug-in to complete the robot rigging in this project.
Rigging in Maya with the plug Advanced Skeleton
Step 4: Scene design
I chose a UE5 factory scene asset, selected the model needed, and redesigned the texture in substance painter to match the visual style I had envisioned.
Once the components redesign is complete, the models are imported into Maya and ready for character animation.
Step 5: Animation
After integrating the model and building the scene, the next step is to do character animation and add camera animation.
Step 6: Import scene from Maya to UE5
Once the scene was built in Maya, the next step was to import the scene to UE5 for lighting and other rendering Settings, and in this step, especially the transfer of animation files, I encountered technical difficulties that took a lot of time to resolve. First I tried to export the FBX sequence of the character animation, but after doing so, the following problem occurred:
The animated sequences were strangely stretched, and the models were wildly split.
Unfortunately, even when I finally asked the technician for help, it didn’t resolve the problem, so I had to use another export solution: the alembic cache file.
way to export alembic cache file in Maya
Before exporting, follow the following Settings:
- Merge all meshes
- Optimize the model, especially the non-standard mesh
- Select the options shown in the following figure in the alembic cache export window
Once the abc file has been successfully imported into UE, you can open the animation cache file, which should have the same number of material slots as in Maya, and paste the corresponding material in to get the correct animation sequence.
WEEK7: Project initiation: Character design
For the final assignment of this semester, my idea is to make an animated short film that depicts the robot escaping from the assembly line to pursue freedom after awakening its self-consciousness, focusing on action performance.
Step 1: Reference collection
I wanted to make a cute robot character, a humanoid robot with science fiction characteristics, so I started to refer to some cute Q version of the robot image. Transformers, as a classic robot IP image, inspired me in character design. I extracted some design languages from the classic characters Optimus Prime and Bumblebee respectively to design the following role.
mood board for character design
Step 2: Modeling & Texture painting
Based on the above inspiration, I designed this robot character (which looks like a combination of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee XD).
Three Views
The next step is UV unwrapping, I finished this step in Rizom UV. Then, I drew the material of the robot in substance painter. In this selection, I referred to the yellow color of Bumblebee. At the same time, the UDIM workflow allowed me to design some details on the texture, such as LOGO painted on the surface and scratches on the metal painted material.
UV unwrapping in Rizom UV
Texture painting in Substance Painter
In the next chapter, I’ll cover the process of rigging model with the advanced skeleton plug-in in Maya, and introduce the workflow I used for environment design.
WEEK6 —- Control Rig
The new Modular Control Rig system in UE 5.4 makes the rigging process much more easier that the traditional 3D workflow. This revolutionary tool steamlines the rigging process, allowing UE user to quickly set up a robust animation rig for ant character or skeleton.
With the Modular Control Rig, artists no longer need to spend days or weeks building complex rigs from scratch. Instead, they can quickly assemble a fully functional rig using pre-built components, each designed to handle a specific part of the character’s anatomy. This modular approach not only speeds up the rigging process but also ensures consistency across multiple characters or projects.
To get started with the Modular Control Rig, follow these steps:
- Create a new Modular Control Rig asset
- Assign the character skeleton to the rig
- Drag and drop modular components onto the character’s sockets
Create Control Rig Asset
1. right-click on your Skeletal Mesh Asset and select Create > Control Rig. This creates a Control Rig Asset in the same directory with the postfix _CtrlRig. Double click the Asset to open it.
Remember to manually assign the Skeletal Mesh to your Control Rig Asset after opening. This is done by clicking Import Hierarchy in the Rig Hierarchy tab, then specifying your Skeletal Mesh.
Rig Hierarchy
The Rig Hierarchy panel is used to view and select your control hierarchy in an outliner-type view. This is also the primary area to create new Controls, Bones, and Nulls.
Create these elements by right-clicking in the panel and selecting New > Control, Bone, or Null. Your selection determines the location where these elements are created. If nothing is selected, then new elements will be created at the origin (0,0,0).
WEEK5 — UE physics
Chaos Physics is a light-weight physics simulation solution available in Unreal Engine, built from the ground up to meet the needs of next-generation games. The system includes the following major features(Unreal Engine Community, 2024):
- Destruction
- Networked Physics
- Chaos Visual Debugger
- Rigid Body Dynamics
- Rigid Body Animation Nodes and Physical Animation
- Cloth Physics and Machine Learning Cloth Simulation
- Ragdoll Physics
- Vehicles
- Physics Fields
- Fluid Simulation
- Hair Physics
- Flesh Simulation
The class mainly introduced the collision, Destruction and Rigid Body Animation system in UE 5.4.
Rigid-body dynamics
Chaos Physics provides many features for rigid-body dynamics. This includes collision responses, physics constraints, and damping and friction. In addition, it provides asynchronous physics simulation and networked physics.
Physics Fields
The Physics Field System provides a tool to directly affect Chaos Physics simulations at runtime on a specified region of space. These fields can be configured to influence the physics simulation in a variety of ways, such as exerting force on rigid bodies, breaking Geometry Collection Clusters, and anchoring or disabling fractured rigid bodies.
Similar to the concept of “domain” in C4D and Houdini, Physics Fields make a large number of objects interact with the mechanical environment in the scene by simulating force fields, so as to make regular movements that simulate real physical laws.
Fields are set up by creating a Field System Component Blueprint and specifying which systems are allowed to query your field. You can configure a field as a World Field to allow Materials and Niagara systems to sample the Field. You can also configure it as a Chaos Field to allow Geometry Collections and other physics objects to interact with it(Unreal Engine Community, 2024).
Reference
Epic Developer Community. (2024). Physics In Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.4 Documentation. [online] Available at: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/physics-in-unreal-engine.
WEEK4 — UE 5 Material System Introduction
Like the material systems of other major 3D software, UE’s material system uses nodes to connect different textures to adjust different effects. For example, the common basecolor, roughness, metalness, normal and other maps control different properties of the material.
Creating a New Material
1.Right-click in the Content Browser
2.Select Material in the Create Basic Asset setion of the context menu.
3.A Material is created in the Content Browser. Give it a unique and descriptive name.
After the complete material to create, can join each node to the node editor, and into the map, normally need three UE5 workflow texture maps, namely basecolor, normal and OculusionRoughnessMetalic three-channel one map.
This is a model map from my course work
Float Values
Floating-point values reflect the data stored by a node or used by an operation performed by a material expression. These values can be values defined in constant material expressions, or arithmetic operators in mathematical material expressions. You can set these values in the node’s detail panel, directly on the node itself, or by passing data to the node’s input pins.
In the Material node editor, various numerical nodes are often used to finely adjust the properties of the material by means of multiply, add, etc.
- The Multiply node on the left performs the operation 1 * 2 and outputs a value of 2.
- When Constants are plugged into that same Multiply node, the values connected to inputs A and B supercede the values in the Details Panel. This node performs the operation 2 * 3 and outputs a value of 6.
The links to UE’s official material section is attached below, and more details can be queried
https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/unreal-engine-materials
WEEK3: Unreal Engine 5_Sequencer
Sequencer gives users the ability to create in-game cinematics through its specialized multi-track editor. By creating Level Sequences, adding tracks, and creating keyframes you can manipulate objects, characters, and cameras(Unreal Engine Community, 2022).
The concept of the sequencer in UE is basically equivalent to the combination of camera and character animation, which coordinates the planning of shot and timeline.
The above link is a detailed explanation from EPIC officials about the concept of sequencer.
Unreal Engine 5 : Deep Dive Into UE5 Sequencer | Epic Developer Community
For more details, answers can be found in the 2 UE community posts links attached above.