Futuristic Mech Scene

Hello! I'm excited to share my first short cinematic! I am responsible for the animation, lighting, and VFX. Inspired by "The Wild Robot," I aimed to create a scene featuring two opposing elements: technology and nature.

Software

Unreal Engine 5

Autodesk Maya

Adobe Substance Painter

Microsoft Clipchamp

Assets

Hekaton rig by Tre Vital, model by Luis Perez: https://trevital.gumroad.com/l/ZyNEq

SKY T 021 model by AL3K :https://fab.com/s/125fbc5b323f

Simple Stylized Forest by Vladimir Trofimov: https://fab.com/s/d256ee0599ee

Audio - Freesound

Transform.flac by CurlyHayami -- https://freesound.org/s/45897/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

room-tone wind 02 200216_0113 wind.wav by klankbeeld -- https://freesound.org/s/512105/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

Custom_Transformers_prime_weapon_transformation_retracting_sound_1112024 by Artninja -- https://freesound.org/s/767332/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

Transformers Type SFX by hykenfreak -- https://freesound.org/s/248181/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

I used Autodesk Maya to animate the Hekaton Rig. Drawing inspiration from media like Voltron and Transformers, I wanted to create a short, dramatic animation in which the robot lands on the ground and prepares to fight or pounce. This was my second time animating, and I found that using a robot was an excellent way to practice without having to focus on facial expressions or natural human movements. I had a lot of fun fine-tuning the animation's timing in the graph editor to achieve the quick flick of the robot's arms. I remained mindful of the robot's weight and size, considering how these factors would affect its landing and the speed of its movements. After receiving feedback from my peers, I realized that my first animation pass (left gif) made the landing appear too stiff and symmetrical, lacking a dynamic feel. To improve this, I adjusted the right leg slightly backward and made sure it touched the ground slightly first, effectively breaking the symmetrical look (right gif).

I imported the Hekaton animation, model, and rig into Unreal Engine 5. From there, I was able to apply the animation to the skeletal mesh, which allowed the animation to play in the level.

The stylized environment was set in a level ready to use. The main adjustments I made was increasing the wind parameters for the leaves, trees, and foliage within their material instances. I created a small sci-fi structure using the single building model by AL3K, by duplicating and rotating it. I then duplicated the grouped structure and repositioned it according to the camera angle, resulting in two small cityscapes, one for the first shot and another for the last.

To enhance the environment, I started with adjusting the skylight and sky sphere to simulate nighttime. Most of the lighting comes from the directional light, along with a small amount of point lights and emissive materials. Additionally, I experimented with Niagara effects in UE5 and created a simple light beam to provide a focal point in the background. The most effective aspect of the lighting came from the post-process volume, where I switched the bloom method from standard to convolution. This increased the complexity and intensity of the glowing effects from Hekaton and the surrounding buildings. I also added a slight chromatic aberration for extra depth.

Light beam tutorial by UnrealCG : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FnsfLQlFLg&t=29s

The original Hekaton textures did not include any emissive materials. I decided to paint over the blue-colored textures, making them emissive to enhance the lighting visuals. This additional also helped add to the robotic appearance, giving the impression that it was powered on or being operated.

I had a great time experimenting with camera angles. Each shot featured its own camera actor, which is attached into the sequencer for rendering. I was excited to learn how to create a camera shake effect for the landing shot, as it added significant movement to the scene. Additionally, I animated a point light to descend along with Hekaton, which brightened the foreground when he landed, adding a nice touch. I used the movie scene capture feature to render the video in 1920 x 1080 resolution without any compression.

This scene was just too quiet to leave as is, so I decided to add some sound effects! I kept it simple and used Clipchamp to edit in the audio from freesound.com. I added some wind ambience, along with robotic and sci fi inspired sfx.

Overall this was a great lighting practice for me in terms of animation! I've done lighting for video game development, but have yet to apply lighting into animated scenes. I can now better see the difference between environment lighting and character lighting, where I've realized there's still much to learn. My main takeaway would be the application of bloom within UE5 and the post process adjustments, as it adds another level of visual complexity and realism in terms of lighting. This was also a great opportunity to practice animating more which I am happy I got to do!

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did putting it together!

Thank you!