Reaper
Student Submission: No
Credits to sourced content:
- Quixel Megascans
- Anamorphic Plugin by Dylan Browne
- Realistic Fire Effects Pack by one.studio2
- SciFiTrooper by DenisDaraban
- CYBERPUNK Music - Sci Fi Music - Action Music by Sidearm Studios
- Ultimate SFX - by Sidearm Studios
- MW Skeleton by MAWI United GmbH
- Ships Graveyard by Volodymyr Stepaniuk
- Niagara Appearance Effect by AlexHuang
- Scifi Probe on Sketchfab by re1monsen
- Death Animations - MoCap Pack by MoCap Online
- Character Conversation - MoCap Pack by MoCap Online
- Elite Landscapes: Bundle Pack by Velarion
- Modular military character 2 by Slayver
- Junkyard Environment Kit by Denys Rutkovskyi
- Special thanks to Alec Tucker for his super helpful post about Cinematic Post Process tips on Artstation
- Special thanks to Will Faucher for his amazing youtube channel.
- Special thanks to Jordan Downey for his awesome vision and help on this project.
Hi everyone, my name is Kevin Stewart and I’m a virtual cinematographer. I have over 15 years experience as an on set DP and over the past few years I have mostly focused on virtual cinematography in Unreal.
For this challenge, I really wanted to do something with some mood and atmosphere and thought it would be interesting to tackle a foggy/overcast look.
While it’s quick and easy to get 80% of the way toward a good looking foggy environment with the exponential height fog, it’s also really hard to get it to feel truly authentic and I wanted to focus on making it as cinematic as possible.
I spent a lot of time look-dev’ing the sourceless overcast look. I didn’t want any hard light from the sky/sun, but it also couldnt’t just be a skylight or everything would feel flat. That was the meat of this lighting challenge for me.
Once I felt happy with it, I wanted to add some interest with pockets of fire and the probe that flies around. It helped break up the muddyness of the fog but also helped direct the eye to the action.
Of course, good cinematography relies heavily on good production design and set dressing, so I also spent a lot of time putting together this environment. I was aiming for a post battle desolate battlefield somewhere on another world.
Finally, for the story, I love sci-fi and horror, and movies like T2 , Prometheus and Dune are big inspirations. I’ll leave it up to your interpretation of what is going on at the end 
I will be super curious to see what people think!
The whole thing was shot, edited and sound designed with sequencer in engine. Music and SFX bought on Marketplace (Sidearm Studios)
Cheers,
Made with 5.0.2
Great job!