Desert Response Unit

The Process

I wanted to create a conflict zone, part desert and part historic city, with a visual nod to the oil field scene in Jarhead.

I started by using the Rural Australia environment as a base which I stripped back to road, dirt and grass elements. I built up the environment with buildings, rubble, debris, vehicles, fire and smoke (all assets where sourced from Epic Games Marketplace, free category). I added Fog, adjusted Sky Light and Directional Light to suit my scene. I used the Paragon: Wraith as the subject and adjusted his colours to fit with the colour scheme of the scene. After getting the characters into position I lit the scene and adjusted visual elements in PostProcessVolume to achieve the final look. That’s a basic run down anyway and below is a brief visual look at the build.

Exploration Facility

I created this cinematic to practise my lighting of an internal environment. I used the Polar Sci-fi Facility environment by 3DBrushwork. I stripped out the original lighting and fully re-lit the environment with my own take on the look and style for the cinematic. I added additional light fixtures so that the light in the environment was motivated. The majority of lighting is fixed but I did need to use spawnable lights for certain angles during the characters animation for consistency.

Content Used:
Environment: Pola Sci-Fi Facility
Character: Paragon Lt Belica

Original Environment

I used the original environment with the lighting stripped out so I could build up my own lighting and look.

Abandoned Ship

This’ my full re-light in Unreal Engine 5 of the Spaceship Interior Environment by Denys Rutkovskyi (free in Epic Games Marketplace). I stripped out all the lighting and lighting fixtures and re-lit the environment with my own visual look. I incorporated a second ship to provide some dynamic lighting source and a bit of mystery to our POV characters situation.

I’ve provided screenshots of the original environment with original fixtures in-place but with the lighting stripped out so you can see my starting point before re-light.

For the video element of the project I created a POV shot from an unconcious crew member who wakes up and finds the ship abandoned.

Content Used:
Environment: Spaceship Interior Environment by Denys Rutkovskyi

Original Environment

Original fixtures still in place with lighting stripped out. From this bare bones starting point, I lit the environment and added light fixture where needed to ensure my lighting was motived by real sources.

Standoff in Northwood

This is the second cinematic I’ve created in Unreal Engine utilising some of the amazing free assets Epic Games provides. I’ve learnt more about key framing, lighting and camera in sequencer. I’ve also been working on getting the transitions between animations as smooth as possible when it’s possible.

Content used:
Environment: Old West Learning from Epic
Characters: Paragon Sparrow & Revenant

Action in the Alps

After a lot of tutorials and learning I’ve created my first mini scene in Unreal Engine. A few of my main learning points have been; using character animation, camera movement and lighting movement in sequencer. Setting up lighting and atmosphere for an external scene. Getting the muzzle flashes to work in sequencer proved tricky but once I found the right instruction it was straight forward. Screengrabs and video below – Enjoy.

Content used:
Epic Games Environment: Automotive Winter Scene
Characters: Paragon Murdock & Paragon Twinblast