Hey Everyone,
I'm new to Unreal engine, so please feel free to throw any of your ideas, thoughts, or knowledge at me in regards to my questions below. I love learning so be as detailed/long as you'd like.
This is a bit of a two-part question. For one, if you haven’t already, I highly recommend checking out the cinematic trailers for Batman Arkham Knight (2015), produced by Blur Studios out in California. I’ll post the links below, but in case you don’t see them I’ll post three screenshots below as well:
https://forums.unrealengine.com/filedata/fetch?filedataid=120152&type=thumb
https://forums.unrealengine.com/filedata/fetch?filedataid=120153&type=thumb
https://forums.unrealengine.com/filedata/fetch?filedataid=120156&type=thumb
What I’m really curious about is how do you all think these cinematics were produced? The game itself was made in Unreal Engine, but is it even possible to create this type of cinematic film in Unreal as well? It was my understanding for the longest time you could only make games with Unreal and not films, but if this is possible then I am blown away because it rivals Maya.
Is it possible that the entire workflow of these cinematics was entirely in Unreal, like animations, modeling, and rendering? I am so fascinated by the quality that I just wanna break it down and understand all the aspects that went into making those cinematics for myself.
And two, is anyone familiar with the types of ways that Unreal engine can be used in film animation or even live action filmmaking? Is it possible to create animated films like this in Unreal just as one would in Maya or 3ds Max? Is there any compositing software to combine live action plates with CGI material? And is there a GPU or CPU based rendering system that can render out cinematic scenes?
And of course if there is any other interesting tools you feel that Unreal has that rival Maya or After Effects (any established filmmaking tools) feel free to elaborate all you want.
Thank you for all the help and answers in helping me understand the production of those masterpieces and Unreal as a filmmaking tool!