I had 3 quiet days at work before Christmas and we'd just upgraded our machines so I thought it was a perfect chance to make a short video with Unreal Engine and take advantage of the new unreal engine 5 features.
1. I used the landscape tools to sculpt some hills and applied a landscape material to blend between a few different snow textures ❄
1. I used the landscape tools to sculpt some hills and applied a landscape material to blend between a few different snow textures ❄
2. I used the foliage tool to paint on some Spruce trees 🌲 before (3) picking my spot in the trees, adjusting the landscape slightly and (4) adding in some props for more detail. Some of the props had a more yellow/brown colour to them 💩 so I tweaked the materials to match the cool tones of the landscape snow.
5. I found free models of Santa and a snowman ⛄ on CGTrader and plopped them into the scene.
6. Cranked up the fog in my Ultra Dynamic Sky setup 🌫 then (7) added in some snow 🌨 with Ultra Dynamic Weather and (8) adjusted the Post Process volume to give a slightly softer look.
9. I uploaded the Santa 🎅 model to Mixamo and applied one of their animations, brought that back into Unreal and animated 2 📹 camera moves in the level sequencer. Rendered out the 2 shots & some other still frames with Lumen (10,11,12,13) before bringing the sequences into After Effects (14,15,16,17) to add a dreamy colour grade to give it more of a Christmas advert vibe 🎄
