I just finished “Sandikala” in UE5 – a meditative ‘Living Painting’ featuring Balinese music by Gus Teja and traditional Legong dance. My aim was to use UE to create a scenographic world that matches the vibe of the cultural music. Its meant to feel more like a painting come to life than a standard music video, blending cultural performance with immersive environments.
Its one in a series. I’ve made a Māori, Indian classical and Armenian Living Painting too. The next one in line features Native American Tony Duncan performing. Hope you like! Feedback is very welcomed. Im hoping to refine this whole Living Painting concept into something people really enjoy
** Breakdown/workflow:
On my last visit to Bali I filmed a Legong dancer and Gus Teja in front of a green screen at his house.
I took thousands of photos of places and sculptures (with permission) to create 3D assets with reality capture.
The scene was assembled in UE5. Fireflies, incense smoke were created with Niagara.
Then the tricky part… getting the performance to fit in the scene.
I filmed the performance in daylight with generic lighting. I was on a budget! So I had to relight in post. The dreaded deed itself! I first tried ebsynth which has worked in the past and gives a painterly aesthetic - manually painting highlights and shadows on the performers in Photoshop. But it failed when rendering this time.
I discovered switchlight (now Beeble) and their new PBR generation tools were great - that got me the look in the final video. I contacted them after finishing this video, showed it to them and wrangled a free subscription. Pretty proud of that ;D
