Unreal Engine 5 Character Creation, Animation, and Cinematics: Create custom 3D assets and bring them to life in Unreal Engine 5 using MetaHuman, Lumen, and Nanite

Length: 608 pages
Edition: 1
Language: English
Publisher: Packt Publishing
Publication Date: 2022-06-30
ISBN-10: 1801812446
ISBN-13: 9781801812443
Sales Rank: #90930 (See Top 100 Books)

Get to grips with the base workflow and create your own cinematic scenes in UE5 by learning to develop the main elements, animate, and combine them into a complete rendered movie scene with the help of key images printed in color

Key Features

Perform your entire rigging and animation workflow inside Unreal Engine 5 using Control Rig tools
Create hand-keyed animations and clean up motion capture natively in Unreal Engine
Learn the basics of creating 3D assets and customizing a MetaHuman for your movie needs

Book Description

Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) offers beginners and seasoned professionals the ability to create detailed movie scenes with realistic human characters using MetaHuman and combine it with custom props and environments. It also comes with built-in industry standard animation tools to develop such scenes in a fraction of the time compared to old methods. This book takes you through the entire 3D movie production pipeline using free (open – source) software.

By following the step-by-step, beginner-friendly tutorials in this book, you’ll learn how to create your own custom 3D assets in Blender and texture these 3D assets in Quixel Mixer. Next, you’ll take these completed 3D assets into Unreal Engine 5 and use them to build a virtual 3D movie set for your 3D movie. You’ll also populate your 3D movie set by using Quixel MegaScans assets and create and customize your own photorealistic human character using MetaHuman Creator and UE5. As you advance, you’ll discover how to rig, skin, and animate these 3D assets and characters using Blender and UE5’s new Control Rig. Finally, you’ll explore the process of setting up your movie cameras and animation sequences and rendering your 3D movie using UE5’s Sequencer.

By the end of this Unreal Engine book, you’ll have learned how to combine different elements in UE5 to make your own movies and cinematics.

What you will learn

Create, customize, and use a MetaHuman in a cinematic scene in UE5
Model and texture custom 3D assets for your movie using Blender and Quixel Mixer
Use Nanite with Quixel Megascans assets to build 3D movie sets
Rig and animate characters and 3D assets inside UE5 using Control Rig tools
Combine your 3D assets in Sequencer, include the final effects, and render out a high-quality movie scene
Light your 3D movie set using Lumen lighting in UE5

Who this book is for

This book is for beginners to Unreal Engine or 3D animation and art in general who want to learn the entire process of creating 3D movies with Unreal Engine 5. Experienced 3D artists and animators new to UE5 will also find this book invaluable as it covers cutting-edge techniques for making real-time 3D movies using Unreal Engine, Blender, Quixel Mixer, and Quixel Bridge. Although prior experience with 3D software is not necessary, it will be helpful in understanding the concepts more easily.

Unreal Engine 5 Character Creation, Animation, and Cinematics
Contributors
About the authors
About the reviewer
Preface
    Who this book is for
    What this book covers
    To get the most out of this book
    Download the example files
    Download the color images
    Conventions used
    Get in touch
    Share Your Thoughts
Part 1 Creating 3D Assets
Chapter 1: An Introduction to Blender's 3D Modeling and Sculpting Tools
    Technical requirements
    What is 3D modeling?
    Understanding 3D sculpting
    Introducing Blender
        The user interface
        Elements in the 3D Viewport
        Interacting with the 3D world in Blender
        Axes and transform orientations
        Manipulating objects or their components
    Exploring Blender's modeling tools
        Extrude region
        Bevel
        Loop Cut
        Inset Faces
        Merging faces, edges, and vertices
        Proportional Editing
    Using modifiers in Blender
        The Mirror modifier
        Subdivision Surface modifier
    Using Blender's sculpting tools
        Brush settings
        Remesh
        Blender's sculpting brushes
    Other sculpting tools
        Line Project tool
        Mesh Filter tool
    Summary
    Further reading
Chapter 2: Modeling a Robot Drone Character
    Technical requirements
    Preparing Blender's Units
    Modeling a Robot Drone character
        Modeling the shape of the body
        Creating eyes
        Adding a shoulder and a ball joint
        Attaching a KitBash mesh
        Modeling the arm
        Extruding the custom shape
    Summary
Chapter 3 : Let's Sculpt an Alien Plant!
    Technical requirements
    Loading the file containing the reference image
    Blocking out your model
        Extruding and duplicating mesh parts
        Subdividing the mesh
    Sculpting the primary forms
    Fixing problem areas
        Flattening an area of the mesh
        How to fix surface artifacts
    Adding secondary and tertiary forms
        Using masking in 3D sculpting
        Adding the final polish to the sculpture
    Generating the low-resolution mesh
        Decimating the mesh in Blender
        Using Instant Meshes for auto-retopology
    Summary
Chapter 4: UV Maps and Texture Baking
    Technical requirements
    What are textures and materials?
        Textures
        Materials
    Understanding UV maps
    UV unwrapping the Alien Plant model
        Fixing shading issues
        Creating UV seams
        UV unwrapping the Alien Plant model
        Triangulating the Alien Plant model
        Exporting the Alien Plant mesh
    UV unwrapping the Robot Drone model
    Understanding texture baking
    Introduction to xNormal
    Preparing the Robot Drone model for xNormal
        Preparing the low-poly mesh
        Preparing the high-poly mesh
    Baking texture maps
    Summary
Chapter 5: Texturing Your Models inside Quixel Mixer
    Technical requirements
    Introducing the basics of Quixel Mixer
        Configuring your project and Mixer file
        Quixel Mixer's UI and shortcuts
    Texturing the Robot Drone in Mixer
        Loading the Robot Drone model into Quixel Mixer
        Adding texture maps
        Adding paneling details
        Texturing the Robot Drone
        Using material ID maps and masks
    Texturing the Alien Plant in Mixer
    Exporting your materials for use in UE
    Summary
    Further reading
Part 2 Building Your Virtual Movie Set in Unreal Engine 5
Chapter 6: Exploring Unreal Engine 5
    Technical requirements
    Introducing UE5
        What can you do with UE?
        New features in UE5
        Free sample projects
        Examples of animation projects that were made in UE5
        UE terminologies
    Setting up your project
    Viewport navigation
    Most useful shortcuts
    UE's UI
        Docking the Content Browser panel
        The Viewport menu bar
    Summary
Chapter 7: Setting Up Materials in UE 5
    Technical requirements
    Importing your 3D assets
    Importing textures
        The Texture Editor
    Creating materials
        The Material Editor
        The Static Mesh Editor
    Previewing your models with lighting
    Summary
Chapter 8: Using MetaHuman to Create a Photorealistic Human for UE5
    Technical requirements
    What is MetaHuman Creator?
    Getting access to MetaHuman Creator
    Launching MetaHuman Creator
    MetaHuman's UI
    Creating a photorealistic female sci-fi character
        Customizing the shape of your character's face
        Previewing your character with animations
    Adding your MetaHuman to Unreal Engine 5
    Customizing your character's clothing
    Summary
Chapter 9: Building a Virtual 3D Movie Set in UE5
    Technical requirements
    Setting up the basic elements of your 3D movie set
        Adjusting the scene's exposure
        Adjusting the Viewport's Field of View
    Using Quixel Bridge to acquire free 3D assets
    Customizing your material instances
        The Material Instance Editor's UI
        Editing your Material Instances
        Using Albedo Tint for the Rock assets
        Using Nanite on your rock assets
        Using asset filters in the Content Browser window
    Building the 3D movie set
    Summary
Chapter 10: Adding Lighting and Atmospheric Visual Effects in UE5
    Technical requirements
    The fundamentals of lighting in 3D graphics
        Realistic and stylized lighting
        The three traditional lighting techniques
        Types of light sources in UE5
        Using Lumen in your UE5 projects
    Preparing your project
    Adding a Sky Atmosphere system
    Lighting your 3D movie set
        Adjusting your Key light (Light Source)
        Adjusting your first Fill light (SkyLight)
        Adding a second Fill light (DirectionalLight)
    Adding atmospheric visual effects
        Adding Fog
        Light Shafts
        Lens Flare and Light Bloom
    Summary
    Further reading
Part 3 Character Rigging for Animation in UE5 with Control Rig
Chapter 11: Alien Plant Joint Setup in Blender
    Technical requirements
    Preparing our 3D model for the skeleton
        Importing the Alien Plant into Blender
        Best practice when importing your model
        Positioning and scaling the Alien Plant
    Parent/child hierarchies in 3D software
    Creating a skeleton for the Alien Plant
        Creating the skeleton
        Creating a parent/child relationship
        Making a long joint chain for the main stem
        Making the skeleton for the branches
    Summary
Chapter 12: Alien Plant Skinning in Blender
    Technical requirements
    Introduction to skinning in Blender
        Painting skin weights
    Skinning the Alien Plant mesh to the skeleton
        Skinning the Alien Plant
    Summary
Chapter 13: Robot Joint Setup and Skinning in Blender
    Technical requirements
    Creating a skeleton for the robot
        Opening, positioning, and scaling the robot
        Body and left arm bones
        Renaming and parenting the bones
        Using the Symmetrize tool 
    Checking and editing the local joint orientations of the joints
        What is the local orientation of a bone?
        Editing local bone orientations
    Skinning the robot to the skeleton in a rigid way
        Preparing the model and collapsing modifiers
        Skinning the robot body parts
        Assigning exact skin weights to vertices
    Summary
Chapter 14: Making a Custom Rig for Our Alien Plant with Control Rig
    Technical requirements
    Introduction to the Control Rig Editor
        Loading the Control Rig tools in UE
        Getting the Alien Plant and its skeleton into UE
        Creating the Control Rig node on the Alien Plant
        Understanding the Control Rig Editor interface layout
    Creating basic Control Rig controllers
        Creating two simple control shapes
        Deciding on the controllers we need
        Creating all the controllers
        Organizing the controllers in a hierarchy
        Positioning the controllers on the joints
    Controlling the Alien Plant skeleton with the controllers
        Practical setup for three basic nodes
        Completing the animation rig
    Summary
Chapter 15: Creating a Control Rig with Basic IK Controls for the Robot in UE5
    Technical requirements
    What is IK?
        Understanding IK
    Creating the controllers for the robot character
        Exporting the robot and its skeleton from Blender
        Importing the robot into a UE project
        Creating the Control Rig controllers
    Ordering the control objects in the correct hierarchy and linking them to joints
        Controller hierarchy
        Positioning the controllers to line up with the bones
        Linking bones to controllers in Rig Graph
    Creating an IK controller and testing the whole rig
        Getting bone orientations of our arm bones
        Setting up an IK controller
        Testing the IK setup
    Summary
Part 4 Animation in UE5 Using Control Rig and Sequencer
Chapter 16: Creating a Simple Swaying Animation Cycle in UE5 Sequencer
    Technical requirements
    Overview of the Sequencer interface
        Opening the Sequencer and adding the Alien Plant animation rig
        Sequencer interface overview
    Setting keyframes for animation
        What are keyframes and curves in computer animation?
        Setting keyframes for the Alien Plant Control Rig
    Editing keyframes and animation curves
    Summary
Chapter 17: Creating Three Simple Animations for the Robot in UE5 Sequencer
    Technical requirements
    Animation A: idle cycle
        Using the Poses tool in UE5
        Animating the idle cycle
    Animation B: movement cycle
    Animation C: action animation
    Summary
Chapter 18: Importing Motion Capture onto the MetaHuman Control Rig 
    Technical requirements
    Getting MoCap animations from Mixamo
    Getting MoCap animations from the UE Marketplace
    Retargeting MoCap animations to a MetaHuman skeleton
        Importing Maximo MoCap into UE
        Setting up retargeting on the Mixamo skeleton
        Setting up retargeting on the MetaHuman skeleton
        Retargeting Mixamo MoCap animation to the MetaHuman
    Summary
Chapter 19: Motion Capture Editing and Cleanup Using Control Rig and Sequencer
    Technical requirements
    Planning Your MoCap edit
    Baking the Stand_Up MoCap to the Control Rig
    Overview of the MetaHuman Control Rig
    Editing and cleaning up the Stand_Up MoCap
        Changing the clipping plane in UE 
        Lining up the MoCap with the ground plane and the root 
        Fixing floaty feet
        Improving the standing pose
        Cleaning up Sitting Pose
        Fixing the hands with the Snapper tool
    Summary
Chapter 20: Using Sequencer to Construct Your Final Scene
    Technical requirements
    Importing all the scene assets and positioning them in the scene
        Migrating UE content between projects
        Attaching the body armor to the MetaHuman Rig
        Preparing character and Level Assets
    Importing animations onto our characters
        Importing Mocap animations onto the MetaHuman
        Importing Mocap animations onto the Robot Drone
        Importing animations onto the Alien Plant
    Creating cameras and animating them
        Using multiple cameras and cutting between them
    Rendering our final scene
    Summary
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