This term, I prioritized the group project over my Personal Project, resulting in a smaller scope for the latter. Despite this, I had the opportunity to experiment with Houdini and photobashing techniques, which I found to be very useful and plan to incorporate into my Final Major Project (FMP). I successfully achieved my main project goals, including creating a UE5 scene, adding weather effects, and lighting it. While I am satisfied with the overall lighting, I regret not including prop lights, bounce lights, and animations.
After learning about the general setting, I realized how simple it is to use Lumen and how setting up new scenes will be quicker and easier in the future. However, I need to improve my render settings since the final product lacks the effects that made the lighting look great in UE5.
As I was working on the scene, I also attempted to optimize it. However, I am aware that my efforts were insufficient, so that will be my primary goal when I work on the new project in UE5. Additionally, I would like to customize the weather settings more and experiment with water settings, which I was unable to do due to time constraints.
I believe I’ve established a strong foundation for my project, but there are still missing elements that I plan to address over the summer before adding it to my final showreel. Additionally, I would like to conduct further postproduction by testing the Nuke plug-in. To aid me in this process, I have included some tutorials that I will reference in the future.
Further research:
Boundless Entertainment (2021) Unreal Engine for Filmmakers – Cinematic Camera Settings & Setting up Virtual Camera. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFO0qhdLKec (Accessed: 22 June 2023).
Karim abou shousha (2022) How To Create Light Props in Unreal Engine5. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSe7QHU6QJk (Accessed: 26 June 2023).
pinkpocket (2021) Unreal Engine 5 Beginner Tutorial | Cinematic Renders in UE5. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHFq4Dj7sVs (Accessed: 22 June 2023).
Quixel (2021) Lights & Shadows: Medieval Game Environment extended tutorial. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkztcwD9UJE (Accessed: 26 June 2023).