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

£53.60£62.70 (-15%)

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.

Table of Contents

  1. An Introduction to Blender’s 3D Modeling and Sculpting Tools
  2. Modeling a Robot Drone Character
  3. Let’s Sculpt an Alien Plant!
  4. UV Maps and Texture Baking
  5. Texturing Your Models inside Quixel Mixer
  6. Exploring Unreal Engine 5
  7. Setting Up Materials in UE 5
  8. Using MetaHuman to Create a Photorealistic Human for UE5
  9. Building a Virtual 3D Movie Set in UE5
  10. Adding Lighting and Atmospheric Visual Effects in UE5
  11. Alien Plant Joint Setup in Blender
  12. Alien Plant Skinning in Blender
  13. Robot Joint Setup and Skinning in Blender
  14. Making a Custom Rig for Our Alien Plant with Control Rig
  15. Creating a Control Rig with Basic IK Controls for a Robot in UE5

(N.B. Please use the Look Inside option to see further chapters)

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EAN: 2000000136752 SKU: AB89FE88 Category:

Additional information

Publisher

Packt Publishing (30 Jun. 2022)

Language

English

Paperback

608 pages

ISBN-10

1801812446

ISBN-13

978-1801812443

Dimensions

19.05 x 3.63 x 23.5 cm

Average Rating

5.00

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2 Reviews For This Product

  1. 02

    by Rob Edyvane

    This book has been my companion for well over 2 months. Coming from an extremely low level of knowledge it patiently works through the process of creating 3d assets of different types, texturing them, rigging and animating. I massively enjoyed it as a complete newcomer although some degree of fluency with the very basic terminology is helpful. I found the step by step instructions extremely comprehensive and whenever I went astray it was because I had missed out a key step – and I learned from my mistakes. The feat is even more impressive in that some of the tools are brand new and changing. The book is supplemented further by comprehensive online materials which are of the same high standard. I would definitely recommend this book as a starting point for newcomers.

  2. 02

    by rsteptoe@virtual-recreation.co.uk

    I’m not new to the industry and like the authors, have a very similar background.
    I got this book a few days ago and I have been reading it in small doses. I find the book’s chapters very well set out and very easy to follow.
    There is a great feeling of progression and the accompanying files to work with are very useful.
    I think anyone just starting out with modeling and then animating in UE5 should read this book as it will get you up and running very quickly.

    I have used 3D software for many years and so the first few chapters were not as important for me, but even if you are a veteran in the industry it is always nice to see how other people do things. There’s always a “Ah! I did not know you could do that!” in there somewhere.

    For me, I was interested in UE5’s control rig as I had not used it before. Following the steps in this book has basically given me all the information I needed to get me going.

    I would say that for an experienced 3D artist/Animator there will only be a small amount of information gained from reading this book however, for anyone leading a team they should consider recommending this to any junior or mid level artists and animators as it is an amazing resource for them.

    I really recommend this book and appreciate all of the hard work that has gone into creating it. It’s very well done.

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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

£53.60£62.70 (-15%)

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