Approach

Impact

Particpants of the MacInnes Studios’ Real-time Shorts Challenge were provided with a digital human and previous UE project. We were then allowed to take any assets and recyle them into a new project of our own design and story.  In Nemosyne, the only asset we didn’t create or kit-bash was Grace, the digital human herself.  All the environment / lighting / cinematic work was done on our end and proprietary to the short. We even applied new animations (simple ones albiet).

Nemosyne was filmed in real-time in Unreal Engine 4.25 using Virtual Production techniques that included live-operating a handheld virtual camera and lighting with raytraced light & grip in real-time. Co-DP Kevin Stewart and I were able to seamlessly translate our knowledge of live action cinematography to the engine and light as we would on a real set. Flags, bounces, special eye-lights, negative fills, big soft sources, heck even just blocking the scene in Unreal Engine made us feel like we were back on set.

A short film demonstrating the potential for cinematic photo-realism in Unreal Engine, and how Virtual Production Cinematographers with Live Action backgrounds are able to work more efficiently in the virtual production space.

RTX Lighting Breakdown

Real-Time Cinematic Photorealism

In this short breakdown, I’ve visualized the approach I took to lighting an interior close up in Nemosyne.  Bringing the lighting theory I use in my Live Action career  into Unreal Engine is incredibly freeing and the results are intuitive, real-time, and increasingly photorealistic.