Thanks! Cinematography is what I enjoy the most in Unreal Engine, and directing scenes. All the other aspects, I just have to learn so I can set up scenes and then do what I love: Cinematography and also directing.
As far as things I struggle with or haven’t tackled yet…
Modular characters.
I’ve used some but I feel like I’m just getting lucky if I get them to a useable state. I don’t really know what I’m doing. I know there’s game-like interfaces for players to assemble modular characters…but if there’s anything intuitive like that on this (filmmaking) side of Unreal, I haven’t found it. I’m up in the Blueprints, and watching tutorials, but there’s something I’m not getting.
Hair and cloth physics.
To be honest…when I see other peoples’ animations that have some fluttering cloth and responsive hair…I really just don’t understand how those pieces are defined/organized/separated and activated on the mesh…or blueprint? I see the results, but I have no idea how it’s made. And any interaction between physical things on a character…like if a coat can react and not clip through other parts of a character, I don’t understand how it all works. Capes for instance, I’d have no idea how to add a cape to a character, get it to move with physics, and not clip through the character. These sort of things, I’ve watched tutorials, but still haven’t gotten it.
Retargeting.
Most of the time I get this right and it’s not a big deal. But when there are occasional overt issues between characters, I don’t know the system deeply enough to overcome anything greater than making small adjustments.
Facial animation and facial capture.
These are things I need to learn so I can tell real stories with some emotion. I’m guessing the facial morph targets are something I can pick up (is it basically another layer of keyframe-able animation I can add to the sequencer?). I bought an iphone 12 pro mostly so I could do facial capture…however I didn’t watch any tutorials till after I bought it. I do plan on learning it…but it is more intimidating than I expected.