Diving deeper with Unreal Engine 5
So, it happened. I took the plunge and decided this was the future. Apocalypse is YOUR future, but I’ll save that for another time…
I downloaded Unreal Engine 5.0 (later 5.1), and lets just say that you’d better commit when doing so. Epic has made Unreal the gold standard for over 20 years, and it shows with what is possible. It’s not just a large download, but being the best means you have to have the ability to do everything. If you’ve never done anything like this, you only have to look at the settings to get an idea of how massive it actually is. When I say there are upwards of 1000 settings at first glance, it’s no exaggeration.
Being that it has the ability to create the most immersive games and create photorealistic cinema (look at The Mandalorian), you can probably expect the massiveness and intimidation (giggity). But arguably even more impressive is that it is amazingly intuitive. Back in the 90’s, I made levels for Doom… and I was pretty good at it. It was a very different process that involved basically inputting a bunch of numbers, compiling, and running the game to see what worked, what didn’t, and what needed to be changed. After a gap of many years, I hopped into the Unreal editor and I’ll just say that it was way more complex. This put me off until now… over 20 years later.
Even if not creating games or cinema quality videos, it’s a skill you might want to invest in. It can be used for other complex things like architecture to car design. But the approachability is what sold me. Epic Games has documentation and videos on how to do stuff, but it is not very beginner friendly. But it doesn’t need to be because the community is equally massive as the engine, and they know that there will be plenty to handle that while they can focus on continually improving their technology… and they do.
I’d watched plenty of videos that happened to be more advanced, but I stumbled upon a video by a YouTuber named Unreal Sensei that is targeted to the absolute beginner. It is not short, and clocks in at FIVE hours. It may seem like a lot, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. Most YouTubers would’ve broken that up into many videos, but I applaud him for making into one video and creating chapters within it that you can reference. This was a ton of work, and he should be commended for it (his suffering shall be lessened). He doesn’t do something as have you create a 3D version of “hello world”, but actually create a beautiful scene you could believe was lifted from a game. He doesn’t just go through the motions either, but rather explains the nuances and parameters that can be tweaked. Going through this will make you feel that you can create anything.
It’s at that point you start to realize you’ve really just poked your head into the rabbit hole only to realize that dwarves have dug it so deep there is a pissed off Balrog lurking inside. Not frightening, just giving an idea of the scale and wonder. Aside from the immense scale of Unreal, is all the stuff that is made for it. From the countless add-ons to the insane amount of assets available on their marketplace. I have already used up over 200GB just getting the engine and some stuff to use with it. There is a lot that has a price, but there is also a ton of quality stuff you can get for free. I’ll get to what I paid for in a bit.
Before I get to what I purchased, I have to mention what I found yesterday. In looking up mere information into motion capture, I came across a video from Feeding_Wolves. This is not what I will be able to achieve initially, but where I would like to be. To say it is mind blowing is an understatement. Put aside the amazing photorealistic 3D model, and you will see how dialed in the motion capture is. You can check out the video here. In the video, she said that she’d just started her journey a year prior, having been a bartender up until that point. This is truly inspirational, and showcases what is possible. The caveat is that she does have better hardware to achieve this, and it’s not cheap.
I can’t afford the hardware that Feeding_Wolves has yet (think upwards of $50,000), but I’ve already made some needed purchases. I’ve commissioned someone to make the 3D models for the characters, and let’s just say it’s not cheap (over $800 on Fiverr)… certainly not at the detail FW has. Good news is that the models are nearly complete, and while I have been waiting I realized another purchase that I needed while playing with Unreal… a new video card. I ended up getting a RTX 3060 ($420), as it appeared to be the best thing I could get that would work with my current computer without having to upgrade everything inside my case. And I still may be getting iClone 8, which is $550… plus the associated iphone profile… which is another $300.
Speaking of purchases, I wanted to round back to what I said I got from the Unreal marketplace. Thankfully, I didn’t go nuts and only paid for two things. One is set of skies that are doom themed (because of course…) that was on sale for $8, and a late night talk show set that was $30. The later is intriguing to me because that is something I’ve wanted to do for some time. Building a set and doing skits/interviews would be fun and funny. How about “Hate Night with Satan and Carl”?
There are still a lot of challenges ahead, many hurdles to cross, and a lot of learning to be done. Despite this, the ability to have the door to caged in creativity kicked down is worth it.
