Daniyal Aslam - Unreal + Nuke

Lost In Space - Unreal + Nuke

This project was filmed in my living room.

Using a Blackmagic 4K Production Camera I bought on eBay, I shot this short in my flat. I used a 50mm photography lens to get the shot I needed with the right depth behind the actor to get a soft focus on the green screen for an easy key.

Post-Production Pipeline

For post-production, I created the virtual environment by kit-bashing marketplace assets in Unreal Engine. I then lit the environment to suit the shot and animated a camera to create a pan effect. Using the Nuke 'Unrealreader' plugin (newly released at the time), I was able to iterate post-vis slap-comps very quickly in Nuke.

I was also able to generate render passes easily and control the render settings. This meant for great practice compositing in Nuke - which is what I wanted to achieve from this project. It also meant I could import the camera animation from Unreal into Nuke with the click of a button, to make for an easy matchmove.

Composting & Editing

I wanted to get an anamorphic look on the shot, so I ensured I gave it a crop, used the appropriate lens distortion, defocus and added a transform to emulate lens breathing. I also used a transform node to incorporate lens breathing. I added some free assets from ActionVFX and graded the shot in Nuke.

In Resolve I added some stock sound fx and a royalty-free score.

'Rayner' - Unreal

Pre-Vis

The idea of this project was to demonstrate a straightforward example of pre-vis (or even concept art) that an indie filmmaker could produce before spending any costs towards shooting. As it's been produced solely in a game engine, it could also be used for VR Scouting.

Using the Metahuman creator and kit-bashed marketplace assets, this scene allowed me to demonstrate a concept shot for a short film idea I had.

Skyline

This project was my first attempt at a full CG scene, and was the first project I worked on since completing my MSc.

Most post-processing FX and comp was done in Unreal for this project (including the custom flare). Only lens distortion and colour grading were added in Resolve.

Everything Else!

In all my practice I've found it useful to learn things by working on small projects. Below are some WIP bits and pieces from a few of them.

I'm not a 3D modeller or character animator so a big thanks goes out to the people who have put this content out there for free on asset libraries (megascans, cg trader, turboquid, unrealmarkeplace! Generally speaking, I will have only done the lighting, camera and vehicle animation and any compositing (if applicable). Also a shoutout to ActionVFX and PremiumBeat as I used some of their stock FX in these projects.