A short film I put together to learn some of the advantages and shortcomings of Unreal, hope you enjoy it!
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Hello @alexcfarrell, I hope youâre having a great Monday! Thank you for sharing your beautiful cinematic short film, âOBON,â with us in the forum. The realistic setting and charming music made it an incredible viewing experience! Iâm curious about the inspiration behind your work and how long it took to create. Would you mind sharing that insight? 
Hi @Zezkaii thanks for responding!
I took inspiration from the âToro Nagashiâ element of the Obon festival which commemorates the dead. I tried my best to be as culturally sensitive as possible, and didnât want to use Japanese iconography for the sake of it. For instance I didnât include cherry blossom trees because they wouldnât be in bloom at the time of year that the festival takes place.
I was also keen to re-learn some of the fundamentals of Unreal after a break of a few years! I normally work with 3DS Max and render with Corona, so I wanted to see how it compared. As it was all done with Lumen the render times were great, and itâs very satisfying to see everything update in real time.
I did encounter a few limitations. I wanted to try out the Path Tracer too, but that meant I couldnât render any water. The buoyancy system also didnât like the lanterns for whatever reason (scale maybe?). And as my lanterns were animated within their own blueprint, theyâd speed across the water if I attemped to use temporal samples in the Anti-Aliasing! In hindsight these should have been animated in the sequencer, but thatâs all part of the learning process!
Iâve been working on it on and off over the past month or so, making use of assets from Megascans and Kitbash3D. Itâs been a really enjoyable project, and Iâm looking forward to starting on another one!
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Hi there @alexcfarrell,
Hope youâre well!
The music and lighting in this project are beyond perfect. Incredibly high quality and beautifully done. My favorite part, however, is the warm golden color of the candles and the sunset matching. It feels almost dreamlike and otherwordly.
Do you happen to have an ArtStation so we can check out your other work? 
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Donât mention it, and thank you for the update and clarification! I appreciate how meticulous you were in respecting Japanese culture with this creation; excellently done, and despite the challenges you faced, the final result was nothing short of brilliant! I am definitely a new fan of your work and look forward to seeing what you create next. 
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Thanks for the kind words! No ArtStation just yet, but looking at getting set up on there or Behance at some point. Just been using YouTube to host my more recent work from the challenges that Clint Jones has been putting together (though these are 3DS Max/Corona).
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Ooh, gotcha! Hope to see more of your art soon nevertheless
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