Natasa Natalija Ilic 

Realtime gameplay lighting study

Engine: Unreal Engine 5.4 (Lumen)

Focus: Real-time lighting control, cinematic mood, gameplay readability

The scene is built around a modular and flexible lighting system, designed to achieve cinematic control while remaining fully real-time.

A Blueprint-based HDRI Backdrop is used as the primary ambient source, allowing dynamic swapping of HDRI maps directly in the level. This enables rapid iteration of atmospheric conditions and overall scene mood without altering the core lighting setup.

The main Directional Light is enhanced using a Light Function material driven by procedural noise textures, simulating cloud coverage and introducing natural light variation across the environment. This approach adds subtle movement and breakup to the lighting, avoiding static and artificial results.

To further refine light distribution, I implemented custom light blockers with masked/translucent materials, enabling precise control over shadow shaping and contrast. This technique allows localized lighting adjustments without increasing light complexity or adding additional light sources.

The final look is achieved through an extensive Post Process Volume setup, where:

Exposure is tightly controlled using fixed EV values (Min/Max EV locked) to eliminate auto-exposure inconsistencies

Color grading (saturation, contrast, midtones) is used to drive emotional tone

Filmic response is adjusted to balance highlights and maintain readability

This stage was critical in achieving the final visual breakthrough — transforming the scene’s mood while preserving real-time performance and gameplay clarity.

A Cinematic Camera (Cine Camera Actor) was integrated directly into the playable character Blueprint via a spring arm setup, replacing the standard gameplay camera.

This allowed full use of cinematic camera parameters — including focal length, depth of field, and composition — directly during gameplay. The goal was to achieve a stronger sense of cinematic presence without breaking real-time interaction or player control.

This approach bridges the gap between gameplay and cinematics, ensuring visual consistency between player-driven moments and directed scenes.

The overall workflow focuses on maximizing visual control with minimal lighting complexity, ensuring scalability and consistency between cinematic and gameplay-driven scenarios.

Advanced Stylized MetaHuman: Vi from Riot Games' Arcane - Film & Game Ready - Fan Art

For some time now, I have been working on creating stylized MetaHuman models, and here I present Vi from Arcane, Riot Games. This fan art model is a custom-made MetaHuman with four LODs, ready for both film and games. Previously, I have transferred the fighter Vaso Bakočević for a browser game and developed Real AI chat bots for the Japanese company MechaPal. However, due to NDA, I decided to merge Vi and showcase that stylized characters with baked materials and a low number of tris can perform excellently, especially in facial expressions and mocap animations. The process of creating MetaHumans and transferring characters to them was highlighted as a high peak for advanced character creation at the Unreal Conference in Prague, representing an advanced level of character creation for both film and game.

After modeling Vi and all her assets, and calibrating the MetaHuman DNA, I imported the model into Wrap4D to match the geometry with the MetaHuman geometry. Following this, I imported the model into Maya and performed vertex matching to ensure everything was in place and the blendshapes functioned correctly. I then used the Meta plugin for Maya to quickly create new MetaHuman DNA and utilized Maya's plugin, still in the testing phase, called MetaHuman LOD Export Tool by Michal Navrátil, for fast LOD export.

This streamlined the process, significantly reducing the time previously spent manually connecting everything. A challenge was incorporating the mechanical arm, which ultimately worked with Unreal's animations. Finally, I built the blueprint for Vi's character, manually adjusted materials for the LODs and blending phases, and tested and refined certain blendshapes given the stylized nature of the character.

Unreal Engine 5.4 -Custom Metahuman character and level to Game Animation Sample Project

After I replaced my character in a new Unreal project for animations, it occurred to me to test it on my level. There are still some collisions to be done, and I need to fix the water and bouncing rain, and splashing when the character walks, as well as additional animations and dialogue. This is a first draft. For the test, I used fan art of Vi from Arcane, which I adapted to work with Metahuman technology. The LOD I used in the test is LOD3, and it has about 27,000 tris. I used Megascans assets to speed up the process. The idea was to create a cinematic atmosphere without dropping the FPS (it’s lower on the stream than in real-time, I don’t know why, but recording the desktop reduces the FPS by about 15%). I think I succeeded with an HDRI map, a noise map, and one directional light. I have to admit, I'm quite satisfied with the result. The test was run on an nVidia RTX 3060Ti 12GB.

Hybrid dystopian feature

In partnership with Mir Media, supported by Film Center Serbia and Epic Games/3Lateral, Open Studio is working on a new feature DELETED.

The ongoing production in Serbia is mixing Unreal Engine animation technology with classical live-action for a hybrid dystopian feature.

Previously project was developed by leading European ACE Animation Special and CEE Animation workshops.

The animation part will be completely done using virtual production. Director Zoran Krstic closely collaborates with 3Lateral team in Novi Sad, Serbia, and Cubic Motion in Manchester, England for the facial animation of the main characters. The pipeline will be even more improved by the newest updates of MetaHuman Animator.

The scene was built using a monochromatic global illumination approach, ensuring a cohesive atmosphere, while selectively shaping light to maintain character readability and emotional focus. The integration of cinematic camera language was essential in reinforcing the narrative tone and spatial perception.

The project began in Unreal Engine 4.27 and later transitioned into UE5.1, where I explored Lumen within a cinematic workflow. This experience shaped my approach to real-time lighting and reinforced my focus on bridging cinematic direction with interactive environments.

Working on the promotional material for the dystopian film Deleted was a complex and rewarding challenge. I worked as the Environment Art Lead, with full responsibility for environment design, lighting, and cinematic camera direction.

The entire spatial design and visual concept of the scene were authored and developed by me, including the environment layout, lighting direction, and overall cinematic composition.

My goal was to establish a strong sense of confinement and tension within a controlled, monochromatic environment, while preserving subtle elements of life and hope through carefully directed lighting and camera work.

Wednesday Adams - Fan Art Unreal 5.2

Project goal

The idea was to reconstruct a scene inspired by Tim Burton's series "Wednesday" but to avoid a complete copy-paste in Unreal Engine 5.2.The character was created using Unreal's Metahuman character creator, into which custom-made geometry for Wednesday was imported. Creating the same hairstyles, clothing, footwear, and body types and then importing them into the engine and connecting them to the Metahuman control rig was a real challenge, given that the Metahuman creator has a limited number of options in these areas. Also, a significant challenge was getting the Movie Render Sequencer to output accurate hair and clothing simulations, as well as making the engine itself react to them. This is still a work in progress :).Considering that this is still a work in progress, here's the first preview.

Custom MH character Study