This week we opened a sample project so we could use existing assets to learn about sequencers in UE5.
Sequencers are essentially timelines, and are a key aspect of making a film in UE5. It’s best to have different sequencers for different types of assets, and then a master sequencer from which the film will be rendered out from.
We also looked into cameras, and how we can use prexitising settings to replicate different brands/models of physical cameras.
Project Progression:
I found a rig I would love to use for my project (the Zio rig by Hernan Ares), but despite many of the creators social media pages saying it was available to download, I couldn’t find a page to actually download it. I contact the creator via email in hopes he might be able to provide a link to a purchase/download page or even provide direct access to the rig for a fee. In the meantime, I can focus on making a rough storyboard and looking for alternative rigs to use.
Serra also was able to find the city subway train project from the Unreal Marketplace again and its actually on sale for free at the moment, so I was able to add that to my vault for future use. I’m also planning on exporting the model to use in the previs. Serra also sent me a link to some documentation on 2D Materials in UE5, which I will be referring to when I start experimenting with materials myself.
For this week, Serra showed us how to set up our UE5 project and the importance of project structure.
From the start we should be keeping our outliner and project files neat and organised so we and any collaborators never have trouble finding specific assets.
For the Content Browser tabs:
Favourites: assets used a lot I want quick access to
Project name (SerraClass_02102024 in this case): current project assets
Collections: I can make collections of assets here. Good for collaborative projects where each person can have their own collections that can be viewed and accessed by everyone else.
Serra recommended we have multiple content browser tabs open at the same time, so we can have different types of assets on each tab and speed up our workflow. She also recommended we have a folder for in class work so we can have it stored separately from out of class work we do in the same project.
For lighting, we made an emissive material to use on one of the cubes we loaded into our scenes. We shouldn’t use emissive materials as a main light source, especially when we have many better lighting options to use, but they can have a nice visual effect elsewhere (neon lights for example wouldn’t be used to light an entire street, but should still give off light to look accurate).
We also added in the starter content pack to our project, which can also be added when setting up the project, from ‘Add Feature or Content Pack…’. The same menu can be used to change the format of the project. For example if we are working on a film but want to turn it into a first person game, this can be done from here.
Using a few assets from the starter content pack, we learnt how to merge them if we like the arrangement and want to repeat that several times in a level. Merging is different to grouping, because when merging objects they essentially all become one mesh and material and cannot be separately edited after merging.
Going back to materials, we were shown how to make a metallic/shiny material. Serra explained the reason we turned roughness to zero and metallic to one for this example is because a fully shiny material has no roughness and is fully metallic. For more realistic metals, we would want some roughness in there, how much depends on how worn/imperfect the material might be.
Next, we looked at levels. Sublevels can be used to make changes to master levels for different circumstances. For example, when making a film I might have a forest that has some day shots, but I also want some night shots later in the film. Rather than having two different levels where only the lighting and a few other assets change, I can make the forest on a master level, and have two sublevels for night and day. If we forget to make a new level and are currently working on a master level, we can change levels by selecting the assets, right clicking, and clicking Move Selected Actors to Level.
To finish up, Serra recommended we open sample projects and explore them, especially with how the project is structured so we can see more examples of that in relation to this week’s lecture.
Project Development
I’m currently torn between two similar ideas. I was still set on my previous idea with someone on an underground train thinking about their day and those thoughts being visualised and animated out the window of the train, integrating with the blurred shapes of the passing tunnel.
But when I was doing some visual research (particularly for aesthetics/colours for the project) I found an artist I’ve been a fan of for a while again, James Fenner.
The heavy use of bold eyes on silhouetted faces and heads brought to mind the anxiety I sometimes feel on busy trains, where I sometimes start to feel like everyone is looking at me. I had the idea of someone being on a train, and there being other passengers that slowly start staring at them. The colours and shapes get more bold and distorted to represent the main character’s growing anxiety. The film ends with them stumbling off the train onto the platform breathing deep gasping breaths, and the people in the background either not looking at all or just looking concerned.
I think I like this idea more as, while very similar to my first idea, I can focus more on the animation and interesting visuals (something I wanted to experiment with a lot during my studies). The previous idea could potentially take up a lot of my time with figuring out how to integrate the thoughts of the person’s day visually into the blurred tunnel, whereas this idea already has some ground work for the visuals.
I continued to build a Pinterest board for this idea to help me when it comes to experimenting and developing materials in UE5. I think before I start doing that though, I want to mock up a rough previs/storyboard as I don’t want to get too attached to an idea that isn’t feasible to complete in the time we have. For myself, nailing down the length of this project is going to help a lot in the long run, and once I have that I can also make myself a project schedule.
Next tasks:
Make a previs/storyboard/mix of the two to give an idea of how long the project will be and what elements will be involved.
Plan out a schedule, including allocated time for different stages. Give some overlap for things that end up not taking as long/take longer.
Start doing look development, particularly with materials in UE5, exploring potentially animated elements so I can have the materials distort more and more throughout.
Ask Serra if she has the subway pack in her Unreal Engine vault (during our talk about my idea she mentioned she might already have one of the subway packs I showed her, and asked me to remind her to check during the next lecture).
We spent most of our first lecture introducing ourselves to each other, and being introduced to the unit and Unreal Engine 5. Serra showed us how to download UE5, and showed us some examples of past student work for the unit.
For the unit, we will be taking a familiar physical space of our choice and deconstruct it so we can approach the technical task with an experiential attitude. We were advised to start thinking and researching what sort of physical space we want to work with. We should pick environments that will help utilise the work we want to put into them.
The first thing that came to my mind was the London Underground trains, and how I often space out thinking about my day while on the train there while looking out the windows at the tunnel streaking past, made up of blurred lines and blocks of colours. I think I want to start my project with someone thinking about their day, and then pan over to the window were things they are thinking about are animated into the blurred shapes of the tunnel. We were shown a student example were someone used block colour shaders that I think could potentially work well for this, but I want to later do some visual experiments to find the best look to match my ideas.
I made an account with Epic Games with my UAL email, and downloaded UE5. I also browsed the store for potential assets, and found a few cool looking subway trains I could use, but Serra also mentioned UE5 will be getting an update in the next couple of weeks so the store will change up a bit, so I haven’t downloaded anything just yet to account for that.
I also asked how we can use assets from outside the Unreal store, and Serra told me we can use any music as long as it is copyright free, and other assets are fine as long as they work in the version of Unreal we will be using. She recommended TurboSquid as an example of websites to find good assets on. For music, I definitely want to find something that gives off similar vibes to the urban landscape of London. My initial thoughts are either British punk music, or hiphop music that originated from London.
