Awaken
Feudal Japan meets cyberpunk, built in Unreal Engine 5.
I had two main inspirations for this cinematic. I had been playing Ghost of Tsushima and watching Shogun, both of which drew me into the world of feudal Japan. At the same time, I've always had a love for cyberpunk lore. So I started thinking about how to combine those two worlds into a single project, then built a short action narrative around it.
Around that time, MetaHuman released a new feature that generates a mesh from a scan of your face. I decided to use that as an opportunity to model the main character after myself, which turned out somewhat close.
After I posted the project on Reddit, it reached over 200,000 views, and on YouTube has passed 15,000. The response blew me away, and encouraged me to keep creating work that could pull people into other worlds the same way Ghost of Tsushima and Shogun had done for me.
Below I walk through my process for creating this cinematic short.
Character Animation & Mocap
- I used Move.AI on iPhone to capture the base body animation, then refined everything in Unreal's built-in Control Rig. I also built a custom hand pose library to quickly set positions.
Metahumans
- To create a MetaHuman that resembles me, I scanned my face using Polycam on my iPhone, then used that mesh for MetaHuman Identity. I then enhanced the face texture with hi-res textures from 3D Scan Store, which bring out details like pores and wrinkles.
Virtual Camera
- This was my first time using the Virtual Camera feature in Unreal Engine with my iPhone via Live Link. The natural shake it adds to the footage feels much more authentic compared to using the Camera Shake blueprint.
Cloth Simulation
- I used Marvelous Designer rather than Unreal's built-in cloth system. MD lets each piece of clothing move independently, which gives the fabric a more fluid, natural look. Same pipeline I've carried into later projects: MetaHuman FBX to Blender to alembic to Marvelous Designer to UE5.
Rope Simulation
- I use rope physics to simulate the wires dangling above the the samurai in the stasis chamber, as the chamber moves forward, the physics of the wires adds another layer of realism.
Smoke & Atmosphere (EmberGen)
- I used EmberGen to generate volumetric smoke surrounding the samurai's stasis chamber, simulating a dry ice effect in a cold atmosphere during the samurai’s reveal.
Environment
- The environments were a mix of assets from Kitbash3D's Shogun pack combined with free assets from the Unreal Marketplace (now FAB).
Post Production
- Color grading and final editorial done in DaVinci Resolve.
