Back in May 2021, I was put forth by ZOIC as a candidate for the Unreal Fellowship, I was beyond excited for the opportunity to get to know Unreal, but I’ve had my doubts as well.
I had heard that Unreal was this amazing piece of tech that allows artists to work in real time.
Cool, but really?
My first doubt was of its capabilities. I’ve not had any experience with real time technologies nor any game engines – other than StarCraft Campaign Editor. And with a background in Nuke and Houdini, both far from being real-time, and behemoths of the industry I couldn’t see how Unreal could work in real time, there must have been a cost to it … it must be low resolution blobby renders, it must be super low frame rate, it must be super light scenes. I tried to convince myself that the way I worked, the way the industry worked was the best way, and this real-time thing was a passing hype with layers of restrictions.
My second doubt was of my own abilities. I begun searching for past fellowship films and any Unreal films online, and they all involved a LOT of lighting, animation, motion capture, and cinematography and awesome assets. The only thing I was comfortable with was cinematography as I’m no stranger to working with cameras, but I had zero to almost zero experience with the other aspects of CG film making. The last time I tried to make a short film on my own was back in film school 10 years ago and I wouldn’t call it much of a success:
After my graduating short film I joined the industry as a compositor and stopped learning 3D altogether, which in hindsight was a my biggest professional regret. ( But I’ve making up for lost time in the past 3 years by teaching myself Python and Houdini! )
So going into the fellowship I had:
1) basic modelling / texturing / shading skills
2) basic animation skills
3) basic lighting / rendering skills
4) OK cinematography skills ( gotta give myself some credit )
5) Zero knowledge of Unreal or how I was going to get anything done
More doubts started piling on, how was I ever going to have believable environments, cool characters and animations, cinematic lighting and cinemato ….
Five weeks of the Unreal Fellowship went by in the blink of an eye and I came out the other end a new person with supreme power downloaded into my brain.
I laughed at my former self for ever doubting Unreal, and underestimating my abilities.
Unreal is EVERYTHING it’s hyped to be and much MORE! It’s fast, it’s beautiful and you can JAM AN ENTIRE WORLD into a scene without it complaining! There are TONS of assets for you to download and use immediately in your projects via Unreal Marketplace and Megascans. And the Metahumans, just WOW! Mocap, animation, rigging, you can do it all with ease!
As for myself, I couldn’t believe what I was able to create, first in my head, then bringing it to life as a finished film. It turns out, all this time working professionally I had been honing my eye, my vocabulary, and most importantly my taste. It makes me beam with lols comparing my new short film to my last, because I’m damn proud of how far I’ve progressed without realizing.
The Unreal Fellowship taught me a new and valuable skill, but more importantly it showed me that I have a lot more potential than I had thought. And working alongside many talented artists so intensely made me realize how much more there is to learn still!
I’ve already come up with ideas for future short films I am going to create with Unreal, and I can’t wait to get started!
Thank you EPIC for creating such an amazing tool! And thank you to the Fellowship team, teachers and TAs for holding our hand through the entire journey. And thank you to the fellows who gave me much needed critic that made the final product so much better!
And lastly, I’d like to thank ZOIC for offering me this once in a life time opportunity!
Mua!
input + output 