Here is the final project I created in Unreal Engine for my Real Time Animation & VFX virtual production class.
I was provided with green screen footage of a character and told to think of a story that would fit the footage realistically and create a scene to place the footage in. I looked closely at the clothes, props, and actions of the character to develop my story. The clothing reminded me of an old whaler man on a fishing boat, especially since he was holding a compass. It appears he is shielding his eyes from a bright light source, given the shadow data contained in the green screen footage. But, I figured he could also be trying hard to see something. So, I thought it would be cool if the fog dissipates as the sun comes out. To increase the realism of the scene, I animated the boat to match the waves of the water asset, added lens flare to give the impression of the sun's intensity, and added just a touch of noise and chromatic abrasion to mimic a real camera.
Even though I know how to remove the green screen in Foundry hashtag#nuke, I followed the assignment instructions to learn how to remove the green screen in Unreal Engine and Adobe After Effects. This way I would learn the pros and cons of using each software. Plus, it's good to know how to do the same thing in multiple programs. Because, if you don't have to leave the program, you're in, it's more efficient to do it in the same program. However, I can see many reasons why you would need to go outside or Unreal Engine to key green screen footage. I still prefer Nuke's tools over After Effects but if the future company I work for doesn't have a Nuke license, I know how to do it in After Effects to.
The goal was to build a scene utilizing free existing assets (BFA). However, there is room for improvement. Things I can do to improve the quality of the scene is to take the boat asset into Substance Painter and do some texture painting to roughen it up a little to give it a more used look to match the character more. Reduce the saturation of the colors on the boat. Since the majority of the lighting is on the other side of the boat the shadow side looks a little too dark due to saturation, I could add more lighting as well. I should create some opacity maps for the windows too. Lighting the inside of the boat to shine through the windows. That would make the boat look more realistic. Making the camera zoom in on the character would add more of a dynamic cinematic look to the scene too.
Future learning goals:
🤩 Ask The Box Media if I can put the scene into their volume (LED panel wall) with their live link tracked camera and see what it looks like with live actors. This is a studio with a great group of people who host many events for INDIANA FILMMAKERS NETWORK INC
⭐ Learn USD (Universal Scene Description) and MaterialX, recreating the scene using those workflows.
💫 Practice baking textures and export to games/Unreal Engine workflows in Maya for optimization in Unreal Engine.