Virtual Production — Midterm project
For the midterm project, I changed the entire scene and story. Because of the powerful of UE4, I really want to rebuild my favorite scene in Howl’s Moving Castle by Miyazaki Hayao.
Scene
Therefore, I first built the landscape painted with different textures. I added three layers to the material: grass, rock, and snow. By using these I can make the mountains in the scene.
All the assets and the textures I used for the landscape, furniture, and food are from Quixel Bridge. The animals, trees, and plants in my scene, they all from the UE4 marketplace. It works very well and also free!
Story & Animation
After finished the scene, I tried to create a story that happened in this place. Somehow I want to create a mysterious story that will surprising other people. When I looked at the pig assets I got, I suddenly had an idea coming to my mind. It reminds me of another famous animation that also made by Miyazaki Hayao, called Spirited Away. So I decided to let the little boy had the same consequence as the little girl’s parents in the movie when they ate the food left at an unknown place.
Then I created a little boy in MakeHuman, and download some animation on Mixamo. I also added the facial expression on the model by using Live Link. It really makes the video more vivid!
Sequence
I used four different level sequences and added it to the main sequence to create the whole video.
I tried different ways to film different shots. The camera rig rail is convenient if you want to film a long take footage. I didn’t do the long take footage but it’s useful to focus on different targets while moving the camera for a long distance.
Finally, I converted PNG sequence to a video in After Effects. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to add the audio to the video. It will be nicer if there’s an audio effect to make the film complete. I definitely want to finish it in the future.
Anyway, here’s my video!
