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"Last Chance" Cinematic: Final Exam Project at Visual Magic VFX School

For our final exam piece at Visual Magic, we were tasked with creating our own project which we had to complete over the course of a 6 week period. During the time of my studies, I have predominantly focused on more stylized assignments and decided to take an alternative route with a photoreal cinematic trailer. 
The inspiration for this piece is heavily geared towards trying to replicate certain shots from the UE4 Re-Birth video which was made by the very talented Joe Garth and colleagues from both Quixel and Side FX. A link to Joes' ArtStation can be seen here: https://www.artstation.com/joegarth 
When I first started at this education 21 months ago, I remember watching the Re-Birth cinematic and being totally blown away by the entire experience. I still find myself revisting this video from time to time and thought it was only fitting that I tried to see how close I could get to creating something similar, within the allocated 6 week window. The 'Last Chance' voiceover script was written by me to follow a similar storyline to that of the Re-Birth script, whereby humanity now resides in megastructures to protect them from the harsh environment - acting as a form of a modern-day Noah's Arc... 
To emerse myself in how Re-Birth was made, I found various videos on YouTube by Joe Garth himself, Quixel, and Side Fx, through the Unreal Engine channel. My time was limited so building a car and the megastructure were out, therefore I bought a 3D model from CGTrader and simply used a silhouette of cubes to create the final end structure, drastically hidden by fog cards! I did, however, create the background mountain mesh using Open Topography satellite data (LiDAR) and Houdini. 
Time was against me but I'm pretty happy with how the cinematic turned out. There's always room for improvement but I've learnt a great deal by seeing this project through from start to finish. I now look forward to taking this new knowledge and applying it another cinematic project I can call my own, rather than more of a fan-made video for Re-Birth. 
All credit to those involved in the making of the original UE4 Re-Birth cinematic, you have definitely inspired countless people to delve deeper into the possibilities of using UE as a post-production tool and I hope other inspiring cinematics will follow by the same team.

This cinematic forms part of my final exam project at Visual Magic. I've tried my best to replicate shots from the UE4 Re-Birth cinematic but with my own narration. All credit to Joe Garth and team: https://www.artstation.com/joegarth

Wherever possible, I tried to be efficient with the texture resolutions, use of autolandscape materials, and the total number of mesh being used within a scene.

Wherever possible, I tried to be efficient with the texture resolutions, use of autolandscape materials, and the total number of mesh being used within a scene.

An example of how some of my scenes were laid out. This was one of the more complete builds, others were rather abstract to say the least! This was the first scene in the cinematic, also re-used and updated for the second to last overhead shot.

An example of how some of my scenes were laid out. This was one of the more complete builds, others were rather abstract to say the least! This was the first scene in the cinematic, also re-used and updated for the second to last overhead shot.

Once LiDAR data has been obtained in a .laz file from Open Topography, it is then brought into Houdini and turned into mesh...

Once LiDAR data has been obtained in a .laz file from Open Topography, it is then brought into Houdini and turned into mesh...

...using an array of masks, I used COPS to generate the base colour texture and alpha brush (to use as a moulding brush in UE5)

...using an array of masks, I used COPS to generate the base colour texture and alpha brush (to use as a moulding brush in UE5)

These are the 3 distance meshes I used, utilising LiDAR point data. These were a suffucuent quality for distantce meshes but I would have had to pay more attention to my base colour texture if more close-up shots were required, it was very basic.

These are the 3 distance meshes I used, utilising LiDAR point data. These were a suffucuent quality for distantce meshes but I would have had to pay more attention to my base colour texture if more close-up shots were required, it was very basic.

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