Döner 20XX Short Film [UE4]

vonpixel

Hi!

I recently got laid off as an art lead / art director at a small studio and decided that for a new portfolio piece I would create a short film from an idea that I have kicking around in my head for a little while now. I don't want to give away the whole story but its a pretty short idea- about 3-4 minutes and Its going to have a mech that serves Döner in the near future. Im a big fan of that 80's / cassette punk kinda look so Im going to be doing my best dirty future impression I can.

Im using this as an opportunity to learn Unreal further mostly. Ive spent the last 6 years working mostly in Unity and only recently started playing around more with Unreal and Im loving it. Previous to that I was a vfx artist so Im excited to blend my love of real time rendering and film making.

So to start sharing here are a handfull of props Ive made over the past 2 weeks since I started developing this project. They are mostly medium range things made from simple photos and projection kind of techniques.

vonpixel

I made these 3 background buildings last week. They are intended to be medium and far distances from the camera and never too close. Im gonna need at least another 6 or more to really fill out what Im after. Each of these took me a day to make so Im still feeling pretty good at what Im trying to chew off. I try to take no longer than 1 day on most of my props for this other than hero / closer up stuff which I will be getting into later.

This last one here I need to re-do as I kind of didnt realize that the poly count was pushed up way too high for what I want which is between 1-10k. This guy was sitting at 180k which Id rather be a bit more light weight. Was thinking of recording a time lapse style tutorial on creating one of these guys and would probably be me re-doing this last building.

vonpixel

Saw this abandoned Travel Craft in a parking lot last week and grabbed a few photos. Turned it into a sci fi hover camper using Modo / Substance Painter and just kinda photo bashing pieces together of some other random things onto polygons. The back is a little low detail but it will be pretty quick moving in the scene and probably wont really be seen at all but I think its ok for now detail wise. Gotta clean up the texture too a bit still (like the side view mirrors).

vonpixel

Made a simple low res highway for medium and far shots but also couldn't resist putting together a little scene with some look dev and lighting. Also started to do some animation which Ill post tomorrow probably. Got a few more things Id like to try for my first attempt at rendering an animation in UE4. Im still kinda pouring over the UE4 documentation and figuring this out as I go but Im having a load of fun. Im not baking any light and using what ever RTX features you can with a 1070 (one of these days ill find a 3080!).

I know my UVs are messed up for light baking rn. I have to go back and repack a 2nd uv channel for almost everything Ive made for this project so far.

vonpixel

Spent most of the day working on this little test sequence animation render. Was made with RTX on and rendered on my 1070. Was hitting about 40fps which was surprising!

Theres some issues with the shadows and normal biasing that Im going to have to figure out but as a proof of concept Im really happy with how this is turning out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39pkGebj9ZQ

vonpixel

Been busy this week taking loads of photos and finding cool reference to turn into pieces to work with for more closer range stuff. I will layout a nice shot soon with all the pieces Ive made so far (its a lot!). I took a break this afternoon to play with all the pieces and feel out some more composition and vibe. Unreal is so much fun to play with. Got a few details and corner pieces to build.

This is probably not a final set- but just an exersize in figuring out what else im gonna need to make for all the sets I have in mind

Olingova

Lot of super cool ideas there i love it but i really think the overall composition is too orange, it makes sense that the directional get that orange late day vibe but i think the scene would greatly benefit from the skylight being blue-ish, the shadow-parts being that orange make it look a bit artificial.

vonpixel

Thanks! I actually fully agree with you. I made changes reflecting that already before I closed up the project for the day. I actually have a very specific lighting in mind for the short film its self when I start putting it together and its much more darker / blue with the orange city lights as more of an accent to everything.

Right now Im just exploring some looks and trying out some brighter vibes. Got a bit carried away going for that golden hour vibe with this one right now.

This is probably closer to what Im going to be after for the film its self but with maybe a bit more volume to the haze and a darker sky (but not black because the city is huge and would be glowing the sky). Ill be going for that 4 or 5am kind of feeling.

vonpixel

Kitbash library shot:

Still got about 300 more photos in my field texture photo library that I want to get through. Its all kinds of stuff Ive seen around the neighborhood. Excited to see how far I can get in another month or two.

vonpixel

Update! Got a little busy there with some keep-the-lights-on work but Ive been chipping away at a few things. The stuff here is all made for my short film but also something that I will be using in a short thing for a client who basically asked for what I was already in the process of doing.

Sage

Awesome work. The rendered sequence reminded me of Akira.

slosh

This really in incredibly work.  Using photos seems like such an old school method but you are doing a great job of incorporating them.  Do you plan to use photos on hero assets or put it through a more current technique?  

vonpixel

slosh said:

This really in incredibly work.  Using photos seems like such an old school method but you are doing a great job of incorporating them.  Do you plan to use photos on hero assets or put it through a more current technique?  

Hey- thanks! I started in 3d doing vfx a long time ago and recently been inspired by Ian Hubert to revisit those vfx skills I had but in a modern game engine. Feels like cheating sometimes!

I do plan on using some of this photo bashing technique on a few hero pieces but for the main stuff I will be doing mostly traditional stuff with high poly modelling / tiling textures etc.. Ill be sharing some of that stuff soon as Im getting to the point where I need to start working on it if I want that to not take *forever*.

Ill probably use a bit of photogrammetry on some stuff too.

I revamped the look of the taxi a bit to have one open up and there being a hint of stuff inside. It doesnt look too bad IMO considering that the source photos were pretty blurry low res shots of a yellow van toy being sold on ebay!

vonpixel

Blocked out another hover truck today- will run it through substance tomorrow to make the rest of the texture.to

vonpixel

Quick pass in Substance painter this morning. Didn't want to spend too long getting carried away in the details here as this guy will be mostly a mid ground / background asset but I think its lookin' good enough!

vonpixel

Lunch break in engine renders!

Temppe

This is cool. One thing that stands out to me is that the renders are very high contrast. Maybe this is how you want it, but I thought I'd mention it because I find it a bit hard on the eyes.

I love how you're churning these non-hero assets out using photo textures. If you have the time at some point it would be great to see more details regarding this workflow.

vonpixel

Temppe said:

This is cool. One thing that stands out to me is that the renders are very high contrast. Maybe this is how you want it, but I thought I'd mention it because I find it a bit hard on the eyes.

I love how you're churning these non-hero assets out using photo textures. If you have the time at some point it would be great to see more details regarding this workflow.

Thanks! I do agree on the high contrast. Im still wrapping my head around the way UE4 lights stuff and all that entails. For the renders of the truck above I actually had adjusted the post volume contrast up just a tiny bit but its quite crushing. I am however after a very dark "3am" vibe so id like to avoid getting too bright. I spent the last 5 years working on an overly bright - veerrrryyy evenly lit project so I feel like this is me going the other way lol.

I do plan on recording a tutorial at some point about my process for these assets. I found a really fantastic mini school bus thats been painted red and converted into... well i dunno- something- in a parking lot the other day and Im thinking it will be a perfect thing to record a tutorial on.

vonpixel

So I actually started recording a tutorial today!

I have no idea how long its going to take me- or what the format will be like (I imagine timelapse with narration). Ill be running through the process of making a hover truck with a few photos. Ill be using Modo and Substance but really this technique can work with any program.

vonpixel

So I have finished recording a tutorial on this guy now. I just need to edit and do the voice over + a fun little thing to book end it with. Im going to edit it as a timelapse mostly and talk about the process. It can work in any 3d program. Im using Modo and Substance Painter but you could use Quixel mixer or even just the tools inside Blender / Max / Maya for material building.