Check Out This Movie-Like Soldier Scene Made With Unreal Engine 5

Introduction

Hi, I'm Alireza, a CG Artist and Cinematic Director from Iran. I started out doing architectural visualization and then moved into animated work. When real-time graphics became a big thing, I switched to using Unreal Engine for cinematic projects.

Since then, I've worked on lots of different projects, and I'm really excited about where real-time graphics are going. I've always been interested in making CG scenes look as real as possible, especially the challenges of doing it in real-time.

To make scenes realistic, I use motion capture and scanned assets. Still, a lot of the time, CG scenes can look a bit dull and lifeless, and that's why I wanted to make my project look more dynamic.

Getting Started

My inspiration came from movies like "Saving Private Ryan," which you can see in the way we use the camera and colors in our work.

I teamed up with an animator friend Navid Tanzifian and we started from scratch, using cool 3D scans I bought and a few mocaps from our previous works. We used Maya to retarget and clean up the mocaps.

For characters, I used the excellent modular soldier pack by Bogdan Zhukov from the Unreal Engine Marketplace.

The soldiers already had a skeletal hierarchy, so we simply used the AdvanceSkeleton plug-in in Maya to retarget and fine-tune mocaps and then imported the animations back using FBX files. We also utilized other useful free scripts like StudioLibrary.

For the main camera movement, we hand-keyed it in Maya. Then, in Unreal, I added a Camera Shake to introduce additional randomness and subtle jitter for a more lifelike feel.

Unreal's sequencer served as our central hub. I brought in all the individual character animations and camera movements, adjusting timing and syncing until everything felt just right. Finally, I incorporated all the visual effects into the scene.

Lightning & Post-production

The lighting setup was actually pretty straightforward. I relied on Unreal's default Directional Lights and Sky Lights, and for secondary lighting, I used Lumen, all with default settings. I also added some area light here and there to fill shadows and dark areas.

Using fewer lights and ensuring they're physically accurate in terms of direction, color, and placement is crucial for realism. I also used Niagara Flipbooks to add dust and other effects to the scene.

Another important aspect was color correction and lens characteristics, which I handled in After Effects. I was mostly using the MagicBullet suite. Things like Halation, Chromatic Aberration, Barrel distortion, and Light Leaks definitely added a lot to the scene.

Conclusion

It took over three days to finish, and the main challenge was syncing all the mocaps in Unreal's sequencer. Plus, animating the stretcher scene was particularly tricky.

The key to creating a realistic scene is getting every detail right, layer by layer. The models and lighting need to feel real, the animation should be seamless, and the camera work should mimic how a real person would film the scene, with natural shakes and movements. The final touch is simulating how a lens or film stock would behave in that situation, from exposure to highlights to colors and lens imperfections.

Alireza Fattahi, Unreal Engine Cinematic Director

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine