Hello, everyone!
We’d like to share Dani, an animated short film currently in its final stage of post-production, made entirely in Unreal Engine.
About the film
Araripe Plateau, northeastern Brazil, 1980. Dani, a curious girl, finds a fossilized fish on her way to school. Her mother is resigned, her father carves prehistoric animals in wood, and her teacher Rosalva brings the region’s ancient past into the classroom. Between them, Dani discovers that the ground beneath her feet holds one of the richest fossil records on the planet, and she begins to dream of becoming a scientist.
The film blends a realistic depiction of rural life in the Cariri region with a dreamlike, magical-realist register. In that register, prehistoric creatures from the Araripe Basin come to life, including the pterosaur Tupandactylus imperator.
How we made it
Dani was developed at LABVIS (Interactive Visualizations and Simulations Laboratory), part of the Digital Systems and Media program at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC). It is a small-team, publicly funded production, and Unreal Engine was central to making it viable:
- Unreal Engine 5.8, with all final frames rendered in real time using Lumen (no path tracing)
- MetaHuman characters, animated with MetaHuman Animator
- Simultaneous body and facial performance capture with a professional head rig, using UE 5.8’s video-based motion capture for the body and Live Link Face for the face
- IK Retargeter for batch retargeting from Mannequin to MetaHuman
- Prehistoric creatures and environments partly built on assets from earlier LABVIS projects on the paleontology of the Araripe region
Current status
We are polishing the final version, working on cloth simulation, sound design and the revised score. The premiere is planned for November 2026, in screenings with the Araripe UNESCO Global Geopark in Ceará. After that, the film will circulate in festivals, schools and science outreach venues.
We’ll update this thread with a trailer and a technical breakdown of our capture pipeline. We’d be glad to hear from anyone working with MetaHumans and performance capture in linear animation.
Credits
Written and directed by Adriano A. Oliveira
Produced by Lunart Estúdio de Animação, in partnership with LABVIS/UFC
Funded by the Paulo Gustavo Law, through the Ceará State Department of Culture
Thanks for reading!