Introduction to Unreal:

we had a class introduction to Unreal Engine where we looked at some basics and we managed to make a small game with obstacles at the end of the session.  Here is a screenshot of my game.  something like a labyrinth using the new skills and effects that we learned such as physics, different materials, and control of scales and movement along the unreal engine.

 

Assessment 1: obstacle video

 

Week 2: Material

We learned about the materials

They can be Material inputs and Expressions

Materials Inputs:

Base Colour – defines the overall color of the Material

Metallic – input controls how ‘metal-like’ your surface will be.

Specular – When you’re editing a non-metallic surface material, there are times when you’ll want to adjust its ability to reflect light

The Roughness input controls how rough or smooth a Material’s surface is. Rough Materials scatter reflected light in more directions than smooth Materials, which controls how blurry or sharp a reflection is (or how broad or tight a specular highlight is). A Roughness of 0 (smooth) results in a mirror reflection and a roughness of 1 (rough) results in a diffuse (or matte) surface.

The Anisotropy and Tangent – inputs enable you to control how anisotropic the roughness of the material is and its light directionality. These two inputs are important for materials to recreate the anisotropic effect of something like brushed metal. – allow to have different roughness properties in different directions

The Emissive Color – input controls which parts of your Material will appear to glow because they are emitting light. Ideally, this will receive a masked texture (mostly black except in the areas that need to glow).

Values greater than 1 are allowed as HDR lighting is supported.

Opacity

• 0.0 represents completely transparent.
• 1.0 represents fully opaque.

Here are some different materials that I have experimented creating in class and in home

 

I have experimented with different textures and materials and managed to create this cinematic moon for my weekly activity

WEEK. 3 – Landscapes

Before I can create a Landscape,  I must first open the Landscape tools by clicking on the Landscape option in the Modes dropdown menu.

When the Landscape tool is first opened, I will automatically be taken to the Manage Mode tab. If they are not any other Landscape Actors currently in your level, I need to create one. In Landscape Manage Mode, There I can create new Landscapes and modify existing Landscapes and their components.

Then I can assign a Material to your Landscape when you create it. To do so, select an appropriate Material in the Content Browser, and then assign it in the New Landscape section, next to Material, by clicking the Assign arrow icon. For more information about Landscape Materials

Here is some weekly activities

 

 

WEEK 4: Lights

There are several ways to place lights in the scene:

I can Drag one in from the Modes panel in Place Mode. Or I could also add a light directly from the Level Viewport window.

We can control the light directions scale and rotation like everything else in Unreal  (W, E, R)

There are also different types of lights

Directional , Point , Spot , and Sky . Directional lights are primarily used as your primary outdoor light or any light that needs to appear as if it is casting light from extreme or near-infinite distances. Point lights are your classic “light bulb” like light, emitting light in all directions from a single point. Spot lights emit light from a single point, but have their light limited by a set of cones. Skylights capture the background of your scene and apply it as lighting to your level’s meshes.

here is my weekly activities and playing with lights at class

Week 5: Sequencer,  Cameras & Post Processing

I found the sequencer a very interesting topic.

Post-processing effects enable artists and designers to define the overall look and feel of the scene through a combined selection of properties and features that affect coloring, tone mapping, lighting, and more. A special type of volume called a Post Process Volume, can be added to a Level to access these features. Multiple volumes can be placed to define the look of a specific area, or it can be set to affect the entire scene.

this is very useful documentation of how the sequence work :  https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/post-process-effects-in-unreal-engine?application_version=5.0

 

 

here are some weekly activities I have played with making short camera sequence renders

 

Week 6 – BluePrints

Blueprints are a visual scripting system in Unreal Engine that allow game developers to create gameplay mechanics, interactions, and logic without writing code.

In their basic form, Blueprints are visually scripted additions to your game. By connecting Nodes, Events, Functions, and Variables with Wires, it is possible to create complex gameplay elements.

Blueprints work by using graphs of Nodes for various purposes – object construction, individual functions, and general gameplay events – that are specific to each instance of the Blueprint in order to implement behavior and other functionality.

Week7  Advanced Materials & Shaders

Week 8 Niagara Particles

 

week9 : we created a health bar and damage

 

week10:  Animation, State Machines, Blend Spaces (BP), Animation nodes

 

 

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Final Assessment:   INTERIOR-EXTERIOR (I decided to make them in one trailer)

Love Story

It’s a cinematic trailer for a love story (animation – game) — the story is about love, a man and a lady fall in love on the beach, witch doesn’t like the idea and wants the man, she casts a spell and destroys the love, the girl fly away and became a girlfriend for a big boss when the man saw this he jumped from the top of the church building.

1. It starts with a whale shadow, cast on the ocean water, I have added the whale on top of the camera so that when the camera looks at the water we can see the reflection of the big whale moving with a sequence animation, also we can see the rotation from the sky and reflection of the sun.  ( I have used, cinematic ocean, day and night system from unreal and asset of whale)

2. on this screenshot we can see how the island was created, I started with a landscape, created the dunes with the brush, added a sand texture from the quixel bridge, and added assets of rocks, status , plane, ocean)

2.1 Lovely beach scene – created with two different camera angles and lens flairs, characters from mixamo with animation rumba dance, rocks from quixel and sand , also cinematic ocean and dynamic sky

 

3. Here we can see the wich and the statue, I have also added a foliage of grass , and Niagara particle systems , as smoke and fire)

4. The night scene was created with animation keyframes on the sequencer and two different animations (thank you for the help here), in the late stage I added the same man dancing from the beginning and walking mysteriously behind her within the first few seconds of the shot so it can support the dance scene as a continuation. , also I have used Niagarra fire and smoke, so it looks like the witch cast a spell for rain and made magic to destroy love, (used assets of witch, statue , rocks ) and two 3 animations from mixamo

5. In this scene I changed the weather to rain, and used two different systems and dynamic clouds, dynamic weather, dynamic sky, when the night changes to the day we can also see that the fire disappears.  also made an animation on the sequencer with a plane flying thru the rocks , the plane with the lady inside 🙂 (assets used – statue , rocks , plane) niagarra systems smoke and fire, animations , and mixamo

6. to create this scene it is a part of my Interior, it is the girl dancing in the boss’s apartment, mixamo animation of the girl , cigar room assets, physical sky, and fog, I have also added a huge plane out of the room with the engine turned on so we can see something like an air conditioner fan outside the curtain. purposely fast transition of the camera to make the cut smooth

7. Interior room with a boss sitting on the sofa smoking a cigar, different spotlights, camera shake,  ( assets from cigar room) different camera angles. (two different animations of the boss one shot with clapping hands and one talking (mixamo) and animated on the sequencer, fog is actin as  a smoke inside the room so we have like smoke from the cigars. and atmosphere.

7. The last shot (assets of a night town) dynamic sky night time, dynamic weather (snow) animated cameras to catch the man falling from the church, and two animations blended as the guy slip and falls , I have also used a camera lens flair to make the shoot more cinematic and dramatic.

 

For this project I also used, different types of camera lenses and apertures, I have used 85mm, 12mm, and 30mm also different video framerates (24fps, 60fps, 120fps)

color graded in Davinci Resolve edited

 

 

For the final result, is used render queue, rendered the sequences in 4k EXR, with anti-analyzing, which takes about 11 hours, and used the power of 3 computers at school :), I made proxies in Davinci and edited the extra with cuts and transitions, and rendered them with back to 4k, I have used a music track and sound effects to make it even more cinematic.

 

PLEASE ACCEPT THIS FOR  MY FINAL RESULT :

please accept this version as my last attempt  (personal preference and recommendation is if you watch it from YouTube with the 4K on) also if you have a chance watch it with sound please.

 

here is also an HD version of it

 

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Thank you, Assad!