This new training course, offered by Eric Filion, focuses on understanding the basic principles of Unreal Engine 5 and its applications in film production. The goal is to learn how to use Unreal Engine 5 for both video game creation and film production, while exploring the engine's specific features and tools that are essential for creating audiovisual content.
Lesson plan
1. Getting Started with Unreal Engine
– Basic terminology for film and visual effects
– How to create a VFX plan from start to finish
– Installation and configuration of Unreal Engine
2. The basics
– Menus and basic navigation in Unreal Engine
– Work with photorealistic 3D meshes and resources
– Getting started with materials, one of the fundamental elements of any Unreal Engine scene
3. Create your first Unreal Engine scene
– Organize your project professionally with industry-standard naming conventions
– Scene creation techniques: landscape creation, lighting and atmosphere, working with cameras
– Basic animation
4. Advanced scene creation
– Create an inspiration board (mood board) and learn how professionals find and use inspiration
– Learn blocking and scene composition to create cinematic, story-driven images with strong emotional impact.
– Learn the complete process and tips for creating any scene in Unreal Engine, using professional environment creation techniques to achieve maximum detail and photorealistic landscapes.
5. Lighting
– Learn lighting theory and the science behind lighting
– Learn Hollywood's standard lighting techniques, used in the visual effects industry
– Learn how to create 3 cinematic lighting setups in Unreal Engine – Sunset, Overcast/Moody, and Night
6. Animation
– Bring your scene to life by adding cinematic movement and animation
– Add character animation using various industry-standard techniques
– Work with motion capture animations to achieve realistic and lifelike character animation.
7. Simulations
– Learn how industry professionals create fire, smoke, explosions, and fluids/water in CGI
– Use the OpenVDB framework to add cinematic-quality fluid, fire, and smoke simulations to your scene
– Create fully dynamic, real-time fluid and gas simulations natively in Unreal Engine and have them interact with your scene.
8. Composition in Unreal Engine
– Learn 3D camera tracking and how to compose live action sequences with a moving camera alongside your CGI scene in Unreal Engine.
– Learn industry-standard color management techniques so you can work effectively and efficiently in any professional pipeline.
– Work with Unreal Engine's built-in compositing tool, Composure, to combine a live-action sequence with your CGI scene.
9. Rendering
– Prepare your scene so that it is rendered with maximum efficiency and quality in deferred and path tracing rendering modes.
– Configure your rendering with cinematic quality settings to achieve maximum detail and realism.
– Export your scene with industry-standard render passes for manipulation in a compositing package such as After Effects, Nuke, or Fusion.
10. Compositing in After Effects or Fusion
– Configure the color space for your CGI scenes and live-action sequences using industry-standard workflows for compositing
– Use render passes to quickly and easily compose CGI renders with live-action footage
– Add a cinematic color tone and imperfections to put the finishing touches on your shot.
Éric Filion
Éric Filion is a producer, designer, and researcher in the field of virtual reality. The main focus of his work is the design of three-dimensional environments.
His work and performances have been seen around the world at digital festivals such as Mutek, Elektra, Live Performer Meeting (LPM), Festival Futura, AVITUK, MTL Mapping, Music Gallery, Eastern Bloc, SAT, Nuit blanche, Festival 404, SHARE, among others.
Eric holds a master's degree in virtual reality, participates in research workshops, and gives lectures at numerous events such as Festival Regard, coproduction Fr-Qc, Composite, RIDM, Vector Festival, XYZ Challenge, and Amber Platform.
In addition to teaching interactivity and virtual reality at NAD (UQAC) in Montreal, Éric produces and directs numerous immersive projects that are shown around the world.
