From The Ashes of The Victory

This was one of those examples where you start thinking small, and end up going deep across many complex things. With no doubt, this is the project that has taught me the most. More than anything I've worked on before, it pushed me to go deep across the whole pipeline to be as much of a generalist as I could, from start to finish. That said, none of it comes together without the right people around you. Every discipline the team touched was handled with real craft, and that made all the difference....show more

This was one of those examples where you start thinking small, and end up going deep across many complex things.

With no doubt, this is the project that has taught me the most. More than anything I've worked on before, it pushed me to go deep across the whole pipeline to be as much of a generalist as I could, from start to finish. That said, none of it comes together without the right people around you. Every discipline the team touched was handled with real craft, and that made all the difference.

Pretty proud of what we built together. Hopefully you will have as much fun watching this BTS as I had editing it.

We already had the character created by Lead Character Artist Matt Corcoran for other cinematics and projects at Parallel. However, the challenge was to integrate her into Unreal Engine 5 pipeline using MetaHumans, which are a great tool, but when they're left at their defaults, you can spot easily the "MetaHuman look". Having someone like Matt involved really helps with the distinctiveness of the project....show more

We already had the character created by Lead Character Artist Matt Corcoran for other cinematics and projects at Parallel. However, the challenge was to integrate her into Unreal Engine 5 pipeline using MetaHumans, which are a great tool, but when they're left at their defaults, you can spot easily the "MetaHuman look". Having someone like Matt involved really helps with the distinctiveness of the project.

Since we only needed a few animations, we looked for a simple solution that would allow us to quickly record motion capture data and refine it later. We chose ROKOKO for this — it really provided us with a solid foundation to build upon. For the facial animation, MetaHuman Animator gave us a very decent quality, while still being controllable and making it easy to implement both subtle and strong tweaks when needed....show more

Since we only needed a few animations, we looked for a simple solution that would allow us to quickly record motion capture data and refine it later. We chose ROKOKO for this — it really provided us with a solid foundation to build upon.

For the facial animation, MetaHuman Animator gave us a very decent quality, while still being controllable and making it easy to implement both subtle and strong tweaks when needed.

The idea was to treat this like a kitbash workflow. We built some debris assets that we could scatter across the Unreal Engine Map. For that, I ran some simple simulations in Houdini that we could reuse in different static keyframes for the spacecraft graveyard. It was intended to be the kind of place where a whole battalion of ships came down in recent events.

The assets design was done by Cristiano Rinaldi, and I helped by adapting them more to cinematic needs. I used Blender and Substance 3D Painter for that purpose....show more

The idea was to treat this like a kitbash workflow. We built some debris assets that we could scatter across the Unreal Engine Map. For that, I ran some simple simulations in Houdini that we could reuse in different static keyframes for

the spacecraft graveyard. It was intended to be the kind of place where a whole battalion of ships came down in recent events.

The assets design was done by Cristiano Rinaldi, and I

helped by adapting them more to cinematic needs. I used Blender and Substance 3D Painter for that purpose.

The VFX here carried a lot of weight. We were dealing with some complex close-ups and simulations, so it really had to hold up. I used Houdini for the mud, the hair and the cloth. Having a proper pipeline between Houdini and Unreal was key for the stability of the shots, which is when the Houdini to UE5 pipeline really shines.

The realtime fire was done using Niagara Fluids directly in Unreal Engine....show more

The VFX here carried a lot of weight. We were dealing with some complex close-ups and simulations, so it really had to hold up. I used Houdini for the mud, the hair and the cloth. Having a proper pipeline between Houdini and Unreal was

key for the stability of the shots, which is when the Houdini to UE5 pipeline really shines.

The realtime fire was done using Niagara Fluids directly in Unreal Engine.

Unreal Engine's biggest benefit for cinematic projects is its versatility. Being able to place assets and see exactly how they will behave in the final shot, in real time, combined with the fast render speed (when using Lumen) allows for an incredibly flexible pipeline....show more

Unreal Engine's biggest benefit for cinematic projects is its versatility. Being able to place assets and see exactly how they will behave in the final shot, in real time, combined with the fast render speed (when using Lumen) allows for an incredibly flexible pipeline.