Unreal Engine Camera Sequencer with Sam
Learning Unreal Engine 4 for the first time in a lesson was so much fun. It was extremely important for my final major project as I was sure this software is what will be used for any game or film. Learning how to use the Camera Sequencer under the cinematics options was
completely new to me. We started off placing UE4 assets into the scene and created whatever we wanted to, but I kept it really basic. We then transferred the UE4 mannequin onto Maya and created an animation using the model. Sam (tutor) suggested that we could create a loop for the animation, which will be good when its running over and over again in the game. However, I spent too long on this and was running out of time to finish, so I ended up rushing
a little towards the end, but did the best I could do. We transferred the animation onto UE4 and got a random Mixamo Animation (I used the angry pointing one) and so I put this into the scene too. The scene showed a character running to an office where another 2 characters are sat having a conversation. With these characters placed in Ue4, I then had to add the characters to the Camera Sequencer. The Camera Sequencer took me time to get used too, but I found that it was really fun to work on as I really enjoyed playing with real-time. In particular, I loved playing with the “depth of field” and I found that it was very easy to animate cameras. I even built a transition when the character goes to the office, so that there
is a cinematic showing the other 2 characters having a conversation. This was done through blueprints. There was a lot to learn and take in, but the lesson was really great and I thoroughly enjoyed learning this for the purpose of my final major project.
What My Ears Hears Workshop
We started the lesson with presenting our homework to each other and went through the sounds we composed. My one was very interesting as I created 4 different narrative spaces with the same visual, each one being 10 seconds. Although me and a lot of students really thought the first soundtrack suited to the scenario, Susi (tutor) believed that the visual was very dark. Her opinion was that it shows a lot of wind and movement, depicting a very dark
narrative. So I believed my outcome worked with the audiences exploring different worlds watching each one individually. The second half of the presentation, we explored the different ways we can make sound, like Live sound, Foley sound, Library sound, Synthesised sound and Music. We looked over a few examples through films like Goodfellas, Blazing Saddles and many short films like Hilary, Semi Conductor and Stems. We discussed the sound and styles that they show (for example Dialogue, Sync/Non-Sync track, Sound Effects and Music). This really helped me understand and think about how I will tell the narrative for my FMP. We were given homework where we had to do the exact same thing, but be more
specific focusing on using two different ways to create sound.
Decide on the format FMP
I had a tutorial with Sam (tutor), and a classmate to discuss our set ideas and what we are drawn towards for our FMP. Having told Sam before, I explained why I wanted to go for the second idea ‘Trials of The North Pole’ and how I would require a whole team to portray this piece. I need to work on Unreal Engine 4 and gather Motion Capture Artists, Environment Designers, Map Painters, Modellers and Textures Artists and UE4 game artists. For the pre- work, I would need Concept Artists, Story Input and Changes, Artists and References. The story was not finalised in the session as my tutor told me to be more open and think about what other ideas could be replaced and added to make it even better. This is a huge experiment working on Unreal Engine 4 as I haven’t learned enough. However I am hoping that by spending more time on it, I would be able to develop my skills even more. Sam was very happy with the idea, but knows there will be a lot of work to do. I have to research a lot into games and learn about motion capture.