Realistic
Realistic Commons VFX2
GCC Academy
Hello
I am Tak Kwangwook, and I will be teaching the Unreal Graphics course
In movies, we don't just film the background with the camera
We also capture the actors' performances
In this session, we will learn how to use skeletal mesh assets
and animation sequences
and explore how to work with these assets in the Sequencer
which we've learned about earlier
Skeletal Mesh and Asset Setup
In the second shot, we will introduce the character
The character will appear in the tunnel
move forward
and create animation
I'm going to show that in this second shot
To do this, we need character data
There is a website called Mixamo
which provides free character data
Mixamo is a character modeling site offered by Adobe
It provides both character models
and animation files
including character animation movements
Since both modes are available for free
it is commonly used in development
First, log in to the site
and go to the character section
Click on "Characters" at the top
and then you can choose
the characters you want to download
I will select
the character Vampire A Lusth
A preview of the character will appear on the right
Like this
At this point, click Download at the top right
After checking the information, click Download
again for the file
Next, click the Animations tab at the top
to select the animation files that the character can perform
Here, we will download two animations
First, let's search for crouched walking
You'll find an animation called Crouched Walking
There's this action
Let's click on this one
When you click the second animation
it will be applied directly to the model we selected and acts
By clicking
In Place at the bottom
you can preview the animation without moving the character
allowing you to see the action while staying in place
Let's download this animation
Click Download at the top right
You'll see several options
and one of them is Skin
If it says With Skin
the model data you're viewing is included
Since we've already downloaded the model data earlier
we don't need it again
We only need
the animation data
so change it from With Skin to Without Skin, then download it
Similarly
let's download another animation
Search for Roar
and you'll find
an animation where
the character yells or shouts
Click on Roar
This action
Let's download it
Click Download, select Without Skin, and then download
Our plan is as follows
When the character comes out from the front
it will walk using the Crouched Walking animation
Once it reaches the front
we will trigger the Roar animation for the character to perform
You can download all the files from Mixamo
but they have also been uploaded to the Cafe
We operate a cafe called Insaeng Unreal Textbook Cafe
You can find it in this cafe
In here
under the Insaeng Unreal Textbook section
Click on the Materials Room on the left
to see something like Insaeng Unreal 5 Textbook Chapter 4
Sequencer Example Files
In this post
you'll find the three files we downloaded from Mixamo
compressed, and uploaded
You can download the files here
extract them, and use them
In this cafe, there is also a post in the materials room
that includes the GitHub link for Infinity Blade
You can find the GitHub link there
and refer to the instructions on how to use GitHub
Once you've downloaded the files
you'll find the Vampire A Lusth_fbx file
the modeling file
and the Roar and Crouched Walking animations
These three files will be imported into Unreal Engine
First, we'll import
the character modeling data
In the Content Browser
create a new folder in the content directory
and name it MyCharacter
It may overlap with other folders
Right
With Characters
So, let's use MyCharacter as the folder name
and import the modeling data here
Modeling Data
Drag and drop the Vampire A Lusth
When doing so
You can confirm information about this mesh
The important thing here is
to check if Skeletal Mesh is checked
It's essential that Skeletal Mesh is checked
Character modeling data needs to be able to move
and most moving data includes a skeleton
This is why it’s called
Skeletal Mesh in Unreal
If the model doesn’t have a skeleton
it’s called a Static Mesh in Unreal
So, Unreal Engine distinguishes between two types of meshes
Static Mesh and Skeletal Mesh
In this case, Unreal Engine recognizes that
it's a Skeletal Mesh with a skeleton
and lists all the associated information for it
Once everything looks good
go ahead and click Import All
After that
you'll see that many assets have been imported
This shows you how many files are involved in making up a character
Among them, you'll see Skeletal Mesh
which refers to the mesh data itself
Let's double-click
This will bring up a window
where you can see the Skeletal Mesh
In this window, you can view the mesh data
On the right, you can see the skeleton
which comprises hierarchical bones
Below is information about the Material
and other options
you can choose from
This is the Skeletal Mesh
Next, there are options like Physics Animation
and Skeleton
In fact, these assets
are also available as buttons at the top-right of the mesh window
The same
Clicking these buttons
is the same as double-clicking the Physics Asset file to open it
When you click it
Like this
Physics Asset
When you click it, a window will appear where you can configure the physics collision settings
You'll see the boundaries being created
Also, if you click Skeleton on the far left
you'll manage the Skeleton itself
This is where you can handle the bone data for the character
So, the second asset is the Mesh Data
where you can configure things like
materials and mesh-related settings
On the other hand, the Skeleton Editor window
is specifically for managing just the skeleton
Likewise, the third asset is the Skeleton file
opening this asset
is the same
The remaining assets are all Textures and Materials
These textures are combined to create the materials
This character uses two materials
one opaque
and one transparent
Two materials were created
As a result, you end up with a lot of files
All of these files are
the assets that make up this character
So far, we've only imported the Skeletal Mesh data
but we also imported the animation data
Now, let's drag and drop
Drag and drop the Crouched Walking
Scroll down
and check the details
but you likely won't need to modify anything
Once you click Import All
you'll see that
Crouched Walking has been imported successfully
Double-click on it
to see that this is an Animation Data asset
It only contains the movement data
When you open it, you'll see the character mesh
in the middle, and the animation will play
showing the character's movement
This matches exactly with the animation we saw on the Mixamo site
where the character performs the same movement
You can adjust the details related to the animation
and see how it moves along the timeline
in the animation editor
Similarly, there was another animation
I'll drag and drop the Roar and bring to Import All
Once you do that, you'll see
another animation added in the bottom-right corner of the animation editor
Double-click on it, and you can view the Roar animation
You'll see that it's playing well
Roaring
Now, we have two animations assigned to the character
and we can use them to set up the second scene
Sequencer Character Animation Direction
Let's go back
to the Sequencer Panel
and double-click
on the second scene to open it
Check the path to make sure you're in the correct second scene
As you can see, the camera is currently set to the left viewport
but the marker is missing, so it's hidden
Place the marker at the first frame
and adjust it again
This time, it will be CineCameraActor 5
Let's leave the camera as it is now
and focus on the character first
First, we need to bring the character to the level
I'll bring it in this Level
Click on the Content Browser
then drag and drop the Skeletal Mesh into the level
It’s best to place it at the starting point
So here
at the starting point, I'll put it here
I'll start here
and rotate the direction like this
Once placed
the character will start from here and walk forward during the animation
Done
With this, the setup is complete
Now, we need to add the placed character to the sequencer
In the Outliner window
find the actor named Vampire A Lusth
and this second shot
This is the second shot
drag and drop it into the second shot of the sequencer
You should see it listed in the sequence below
Next, we’ll control the character’s movement
We need to control two types of movement
First, movement
The position animation
Numbers for
its coordinates
represent the character’s location
Starting from coordinates
like -1,900
X coordinate is around -100
It's enough
First, we need to adjust the position
We need to move the location first
Let's leave it like this
In the first frame, I will click the location marker
and say, "This is where I am"
Then, you can see that the transform value of this Vampire A Lusth
is recorded like this
To be more precise, the location value of the transform is recorded
How many seconds should we make this state?
About 3 seconds
Let's make it 2.5 seconds
It will be easy to move
from here to here like this
This much
It seems like it will move faster
to move from here to here in 2.5 seconds
Let's move it to this location for now
and then put a marker at 2.5 seconds
and click Add Keyframe of the location again to mark it
Then, you can see that it is over there at frame 0
and then at the end of the tunnel
and moves like this until 2.5 seconds
That's it, the animation for the movement of the location is finished
Changes in Position Movement
Now, since the character is moving
in a T-pose with arms spread out
it doesn’t give the natural feeling of walking
The motion that moves directly
We have the walking motion
I think that if we put in this walking motion
it will feel very natural
to move while walking
Click the plus button next to Vampire A Lusth
as we’re adding an animation for this character
Then, click the character's plus button
and click on Animation
Then you can see the animation files
that this character can move
and that this character can control
You can see the Crouched Walking animation here, right?
Let’s select it
Once selected, you’ll notice a block appears on the timeline
creating an Animation Track
This block represents
the Crouched Walking
Crouced_Walking animation sequence
and controls when it plays
When the timeline marker passes through this
you’ll see the animation play
You can see that when the marker passes by like this, it animates like this
But when it leaves this block, it doesn't work
Right?
This is the relationship
We want
the character to walk from frame 0 to frame 2.5
so we need the animation to play during that time
So, drag the block
and stretch it
until
2.5 seconds
Done
Now, when you play from the first frame
you'll see the character walking to the designated point
Good
Next
We want the character to stop at that position
and perform the Roar animation
So, for this, we'll add the Roar animation to the animation track
Click the plus button
Then select the Roar animation
Once added, you'll see it attached right after
Sometimes, when you look under
the tracks might appear stacked vertically
but if you drag them up, they will align horizontally
Then, if you go like this
and start from 2.5 seconds
you can see that the Roar motion is executed
But if you play it, it's cut off like this
It doesn't feel natural
Rather than walking and then suddenly roaring
it would look much better if there was continuous motion in the middle
and then the roar
So, there's a way to blend
and mix these two animations
So you can move the Roar behind it like this
Just push this Roar forward
If you push it, it'll overlap like this
When the animations overlap
the walking animation gradually fades out
and the roar animation gradually fades in
This creates a smooth transition
between the two animations
Let's play it
and see how it works
As you can see, the character walks and seamlessly transitions
Right?
Since the character seems to slide a bit forward
we'll need to adjust the timing slightly
Adjusting the timing slightly
allows you to create the effect of the character
moving and then suddenly roaring
It's simple, right?
Now
Move
Roar
Done?
Now, the character's movement is complete
Next, we need to set up the camera
The camera movement will be similar to what we originally planned
with no change in its position
About here
The camera will stay somewhere around the center
It will focus on the character
looking at the character
and quickly rotate
I'll try to make it so that it looks like
a monster pops out
and turns around in surprise
First, let's go to the first frame
Now, camera
It's camera
The current camera is
Cine Camera Actor 5
If you double-click the camera
you'll see it's right here
It's looking at this point now
so on the left, you can see what the camera is looking at
From here, I'll move it up slightly
I'll adjust the camera position
and move it back a bit
on the pillar
Let's set it up so it looks like this from this pillar
Let's set it up like this so that
you can see it from near the pillar
Position it like this
Here, I'll look like this
like this
and do this
The position is roughly set
so moving it further is unnecessary
We probably don't need to add keyframes for position changes
Initially, setting this camera
to face the Player Start asset
would be good
So, with the camera selected
select the Cine Camera Actor
and in the Details
check Enable Look at Tracking Settings
under Enable Look at Tracking
Since it's not set yet
clikc the picker
and select the Player Start
to make the camera look at it
At this point
set a keyframe for
the Look at Tracking target to align it
Next
the character appears from the beginning
The character starts to appear from the very beginning
and at the moment they emerge
around this tunnel
over here
it's about
1.5 seconds
Around 1.5 seconds in
make the camera look at the character
Click picker again
and select the character
Then, at this point
you set another keyframe with a solid click
In the first frame
it focuses on the Player Start
In the first frame, it looks at Player Start
and moves
and after about 1.5 seconds
the mark moves continuously
and after 1.5 seconds
we can see this character
And keeps following it
Capturing even the "Ah!" moment
Done
But it's here
Look at the player for up to 1.5 seconds
But from 1.5 seconds on, it looks the character
but it suddenly cuts off
We'll need to create
a smoother transition where the camera
naturally pans toward the character
To achieve this, within the Look at function of the camera
go to the Details panel and find the Look at Tracking Interp Speed
There's Look at Tracking Interp Speed
Currently, it's set to 0
Let me put a number in here
Let's put 1
So, what happens now?
As the marker moves
instead of the camera snapping abruptly
you can see it smoothly rotating like this
Let's test it with a proper playthrough
When you hit play
you'll notice that the camera transitions smoothly as it moves
The Interp Speed setting
determines how naturally the camera transitions
from the first target to the second
controlling the speed of that movement
Let's try a higher value
say 3
Then the transition becomes faster
It should be faster like this
If you increase the value to 5, the transition becomes even faster
You'll see the camera snap
more sharply
From the first frame, as you hit play
the camera quickly shifts
If you play it
it looks back in sudden
"Argh"
Now, let's add more detail
At around 1.5 seconds
the camera focuses on the character
and as the character yells "Ah!"
the current wide shot feels less impactful
So, between 1.5 and 2 seconds, we'll zoom in at this point
We zoom in and go in at this point
When you look closer
you do this
among the camera's settings, there's Current Focal Length
If you increase the Current Focal Length
you'll notice the camera zooming in
This is how you use it
The setting for the direction that zooms in on the camera
is Current Focal Length
Let's see, up to here
Until about 1.5
or 1.6 seconds
About 1.6 seconds
the Current Focal Length value
currently set to 35, needs to remain unchanged
So, let's add a keyframe here
And around this time
in between these 2 seconds
I'm going to just go to 2 seconds
In between these 2 seconds
should I zoom in to 100?
That's too close
I'm going to set around 80
I'm going to really increase the Focal Length to around 80
After that, we'll add another keyframe
Now, the animation is in place
Up until 1.5 seconds
the Focal Length remains at 35
but starting from there, it gradually zooms in
and at 2 seconds
it zooms in like this
If you look at the character
it appears too high in the frame
So, while maintaining the current position up to this point
it would be better to adjust the camera
so that the character is centered when zoomed in
Let's align this at 6 seconds
In the Details panel of the Cine Camera Actor
you'll find the Look At Tracking Setting
Instead of selecting the inner component
choose the outer component to access its options
Under the Look At Tracking Setting
We decided here
what kind of actors
we were going to look at
Right below, there's an option called Relative Offset
This setting determines
how much the camera shifts
relative to the target it's looking at
If it's set to 0, 0, 0
It's now vampire
the camera focuses on the target's origin
It is
at the very bottom, right at its feet
Under the feet
Up until 0.16 seconds, focusing on the feet seems fine
So, let's add a keyframe
to Relative Offset here
So, until 1.16 seconds, the Relative Offset value remains at
0, 0, 0
However, around 2 seconds
we'll adjust the Relative Offset
then you'll see the X, Y, Z axes
and since we're adjusting upwards, it's the Z axis
Using the gizmo
raise the Z value
while checking the camera view
It should see the camera view
All the way up, about here
Let's set it to about 60
or 70 for better alignment
As you raise it, the character comes into the center
This looks good
Add a keyframe here
Now, until 1.16 seconds, the Relative Offset stays at 0
but gradually increases
and by 2 seconds, the character is properly centered
You can see how well the camera captures the character this way
Alright, let's review it again
Starting from the first frame, Play
The camera moves and zooms in
Looks good
But when zoomed in, something seems a bit off
The focus is slightly off
I think we need to do focus
It looks blurry
Looking to the right
This is a scene where everything comes out clear anyway
since there is nothing to focus on
but there is a comparison between something clear and some
So, for this camera
we need to adjust the focus on the character to make it appear sharp
To adjust the focus on the character
look for the Focus Settings option in the Details
It's located just below Lens Settings
If you expand Focus Settings
you'll see an option called Manual Focus Distance
The current value is set to a distance far away
essentially not intended to focus on anything specific
For the first part
up to 1.6 seconds
leave the Manual Focus Distance
at its default value
When it's about 2 seconds, you can do it that way
so that you can focus on the character
So, at 1.6 seconds
set the Manual Focus Distance and add a keyframe
This means the default value will remain unchanged
from the start to this point
Then, at 2 seconds, you'll need to adjust the focus distance value
but you don't know the exact number yet
To set it, click the picker on the right
and select the character
This will automatically adjust the focus
If it's not visually obvious
there's an option below called Draw Debug Focus Plane
Enable this option
and a purple plane will appear
The purple plane represents the focus distance
Focused distance
If you look at it
the focus is on the arm that is slightly forward
By adjusting this distance slightly backward
toward the face
you can visually confirm that the focus
aligns here
This is how I've set up the auxiliary device
If you've checked it, now uncheck it
Then, you'll be able to see that
the focus is set exactly around the face
In this state, add a keyframe for the Focal Distance
Now, Manual Focus Distance
An animation track has been created
Up until 1.5 seconds
the focus remains at its default value without any specific adjustments
At 2 seconds
the camera focuses directly
on the character
Let's review it again
When you play it back
you can see the zoom-in
It's done
With all the details completed
this shot is now finished
Let's return to MySequenceRoot to view the entire sequence
To check the overall sequence
you can play it back in the timeline
but for now, we cannot view them
We can't see it because
each shot was previously set
to view the specific camera spawned for that shot
When the marker moves elsewhere, the camera loses
and nothing is displayed
This makes it impossible to check
Similarly, the right side doesn't display it because it's in the middle of editing
To view it properly
look at the track
with the film strip
In the center, there's a camera button
When you click this button
the viewport switches to show exactly what the camera is seeing
So you can't move here
In this mode, the viewport is no longer for editing
but is dedicated solely to viewing the sequence on the track
In this state, you can only watch the played-back footage
Let's start from the beginning
Go to the first frame and hit play
You'll see the sequence play
with the camera panning
and perfectly capturing the "Ah!" moment
Done
With that, the overall camera angles and character actions
we aimed for are complete
To exit the view mode, click this button again
and it will return
Now, let's export the video
we created into a video file
such as an AVI or MP4 file
This process is called rendering in video production
The process of editing a video and finally converting it into a file
is called Rendering
Let's render this video and save it as a video file
First, move the marker back to the beginning
Then, at the top of the sequencer
you'll see a slate icon
Click on it
and the rendering panel provided by Unreal Engine will appear
In the rendering panel, you'll see the Render Movie Settings
These settings allow you to convert
our created sequence into a video file
You'll notice various options here
including the Image Output Format
currently set to AVI
By clicking on it, you can choose from several other formats
Unreal Engine supports the AVI format
Those of you who work with videos probably know this
When working on videos in After Effects or Premiere
you've probably done a lot of work like this
where you merge images
each frame in a PNG, JPG, or EXR file
into a single video
This is why there's an option to export
the content as an image sequence
You can export the sequence as individual image files
which can then be imported into tools like
After Effects or Premiere
for further editing, rendering
and video creation
You can think of it as this kind of option
Since we only have a single video sequence
AVI is our only format option here
Let's select AVI for our settings
As for the audio format
since there's no audio in our sequence, we'll set it to No Audio
Next, there's the Resolution
The default resolution is 1280x720
but you can increase it to 1920x1080
FHD if desired
However, for quicker rendering
we'll stick with 720p for now
I recommend not starting with
high resolutions initially
especially when testing to see
if the video turns out well
For initial tests, using a lower resolution
or 16:9 aspect ratio
such as 640x360
It's good to work with a ratio like this
So, I recommend first rendering a lower-resolution thumbnail
to check how it looks and then switching to a higher quality for rendering
For now, we'll stick with 1280x720
and proceed with rendering
Increase the quality
At the bottom, you'll see the Output Directory
The output directory is a path
Where should I save it
Clicking the "..." button allows you to choose the desired folder
Let's set it to save on the desktop
We've selected the desktop
and chosen a folder named Movie
as the save location
This should work for now
Next, we'll proceed with Capture Movie
I didn't save it
You save it using Save Select and then play it
During recording, the process may slow down significantly
because it renders each frame individually
There's an issue with the rendering results
In the previous section, we focused on player start
Thinking about it
the Player Start is an actor located within
the Demo4 level instance, not the current level
So, when recording
and running the rendering function of this sequencer
we can't find the actors in this level instance called Demo Map
This makes sense because
if you check the actor within the level instance, it's entirely disabled
Since the engine cannot detect disabled actors
issues occur where the camera doesn't know where to focus
leading to
the errors we encountered
So, I placed a cylinder at the center
For example, in the first shot
here's the focus of the camera actor
I changed the Actor2 Track target
from Player Start
to the newly created cylinder
I did the same for the second shot
For the second shot
the target track that the camera is looking at
the actor 2 track corresponding to the marker
in the first frame of the actor 2 track
I changed the target to a cylinder in this part
When I did that, it was output normally
The final result now looks as intended
We've explored how to use
the sequencer for camera directing
Now, let's summarize what we've learned in this session
Skeletal Mesh and Asset Setup Preparing Character Resources Mixamo: Free Character and 3D Motion Capture Website Resources from Adobe
Download: Vampire A Lusth Character, Crouched Walking and Roar animation
Import Character Create a My Character folder in the Content folder and import the Vampire A Lusth file Check the settings window and select the Import All button
Import Crouched ㅉalking and Roar files in the same way
Directing the Sequencer Character Animation Controlling the Skeletal Mesh Drag and drop the Skeletalmesh asset of Vampire A Lusth to the Shot 0200_01 sequence track
Place the skeletal mesh at the start point and add a keyframe for the Location item Place a marker at the 2.5 second mark and move the character, then add a keyframe for the Location
Select the Vampire A Lusth track + animation Crouched walking Press the + on the Animation track to select the Roar animation sequence
Move the Roar animation sequence forward so that it overlaps the Crouched walking sequence
Camera Direction Control Activate Enable Lookat Tracking in Cine Camera Actor 5 Lookat Tracking Settings
Place the marker at 1.5 seconds, select the character with the picker of Actor to Track, and add a keyframe Set Lookat Tracking Interp Speed
Set Current Focal Length to create a camera zoom effect Set the Realistic Offset item value and add a keyframe
Select Vampire A Lusth with the Manual Focus Distance picker Set the Manual Focus Distance item value and add a keyframe
Directing Sequencer Character Animation Rendering Sequencer Animation Click the Slate icon in the Sequencer window Select Video Sequence AVI in the Image Output Format
Set Resolution to 1280x720 (16:9) Set Compression Quality to 100
Click the Output Directory path, create a new folder on the desktop, name it Movie, and select it