EVA UNREAL

In this section, you will find all the tutorials that I am creating while working on my EVA series.

All the options for creating characters, animating them, and the workflow between different software, and everything you need to know to create the scenes of your movie.

Discover the world of Unreal with its powerful real-time rendering engine and the convenience of Reallusion for creating and animating characters

Now that we have our scenarios created... it's time to think about how we're going to create our characters. The options are diverse.

We can use pre-made characters from the Marketplace. Or we can create our own if we know how to use a character designer on any of the 3D platforms (Blender, Maya, 3D Studio) or if our team has one. These can always be imported as FBX files.

We also have software for creating characters more automatically, in case you don't have this resource. This can be done through Daz3d or Character Creator.

Both programs allow us to easily create a character.

Let's look at the different paths, and the one I used for my EVA series.

CHARACTERS

CREATE TERRAINS AND LIGHT THEM

In this section you will find everything related to creating terrains, scenarios, and how to properly light them.

ANIMATION

We now come to the animation part. Here, we obviously also have several paths, depending on our skills or our production (if we have the budget for it).

We have a capture system using suits, such as the Rokoko or the X-Sens.

The method through traditional animation.

Or this other option which is the one I am using: Mocap through video with PLASK and mocap libraries (Mixamo and Actore Core).

In many cases, once we have the character in Unreal, we must do a RETARGET for the skeleton.

You can easily take your character created in Daz 3D and import it into Reallusion's Character Creator 3. Then you can not only morph it, but also apply final textures with the SkinGen plugin. At last, your character is ready to be exported into Iclone 7 (where you'll add the animations) and Unreal.

Animación

In previous videos, I showed you how to create a landscape using the Brushyfy asset. But in this one: how to do it with Quixel's free materials!

PCG - UNREAL 5.2

MOCAP

In addition to motion capture libraries, we have other systems that can capture animation from video. These are currently evolving to improve their accuracy, making them a more economical option than motion capture suits.

Currently there are several: Meshcapade, Rokoko, Radical, DeepMotion...
Here are some that I tried.

INSIDE

Motorica develops technologies and tools for advanced character animation. It utilizes the latest advances in generative deep learning to provide high-level, controllable motion synthesis.
MoGen allows users to quickly generate a high-quality locomotion mix from over 150 styles. They can also modify our preset movement paths or create their own in any fbx-compatible software.

Download this project (in the video info) and use any of these 9 Paragon characters with Motorica animations, without retargeting or Ik Rigging.

CLOTH ... VDB

TEXTURES

EVA part 2 Copy 01.00_01_59_28.Still007.png

FACIAL ANIMATION

We also have some options for animation:

The traditional animation option is obviously the best, but also the most expensive if you don't have someone on your team who is skilled in this area.

We can then use facial capture systems via iPhone.

Or, as in my case, facial animation with Iclone.

Cámaras

CAMERAS

Cameras offer us the greatest creative freedom, as we can position them on set and explore different shots.

Taking into account things like lighting and reflections, which in other 3D software we wouldn't be able to see until we had the render.

Of all the options I tried, outside of Unreal's native cameras, the one that gave me the best results was a plugin called Black Eye. It simulates very realistic movement.