Anime 2D Remake with UE5

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I’m fans of Japanese anime since a long time ago, still beginner in UE but wanna try some projects to remake some 2D anime to 3D with Unreal Engine 5.

I was discussing about this idea with my friend and they suggest some title and also i must start from easy difficulty first before going to hardcore/pro quality. The animation will be related to samurai/katana/guns and dueling… some good title likes Rurouni Kenshin, Naruto and Also Bleach for superpower vfx animations.

The hardest part for me is the custom animation and the lipsync part. Software will be used around Blender, Unreal Engine 5, VRoid Studio for anime characters https://vroid.com/en/studio , Cascadeur for AI animation https://cascadeur.com/ , yes i know the hard part is finding the simplest/fastest workflow for final result and tackle all problem within these softwares.

Lipsync in UE manually is kinda hard, mostly tutorial in youtube for UE5 is around Metahuman using Iphone X or above and also using Audio2Face omniverse using RTX (which i dont hab these 2 hardware). I also tried lipsync with Maya using Advanced Skeleton Face Rigging but sadly its not support japanese audio. Luckily i found the simplest workflow for lipsync using built in Vroid Shape Keys, Blender then using Papagayo https://lostmarble.com/papagayo/ with semi manual keyframing, then import in Unreal, and the result is not that bad (considering its all free), eye blink and more emotion later can be added in UE. Sample with UE5 can be seen here

next step is compiling all reference, preparing 2 anime characters, animating then finally render in UE5.

If anyone have reference for good duel in anime series especially Guns/katana it will be helpful :slight_smile: let me know by replying this message.

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Hey @rikirisn and welcome back to the forums!

Reading through your post, I certainly admire the dedication that you have to find a work around with the issues that came up. I’m very curious and eager to see how the product your thinking of comes out as well.

For duel scenes I can think of a couple fun ones. My main suggestion would be the Spectre cinematics from Dungeon Fighter Online. It’s brief scenes but still good inspiration. I’m a little biased, but anything with Zoro from One Piece is always interesting in my books. The only other things I can think of to recommend are fights from Samurai Champloo, the Fate anime series, and some Gintama fights.

Sorry if that was a bit of a ramble, but I hope I was able to offer a few good ones!

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Hi Moss, yea its been a while :slight_smile: back to UE5 for cinematics, can’t render with old way coz its too long lol …

for these i already saw, especially Champloo and Gintama, will check the other reference that u said, thanks so much btw. The char i will be used will be man and woman, still struggling with some fx now but the char is ready rite now (screenshot here)

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been thinking to use cell shading but will skip that for now

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Hey @rikirisn !

I think you’re doing a great job so far. When it comes to cell shading, my experience lies in 2d areas more than 3d. However, when it comes to that type of shading I find it’s one of the easier to grasp, so don’t worry. I’m sure with all of your current talent you’ll be able to accomplish what you desire in no time!

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