Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Creating 3D Assets

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Blender's 3D Modeling and Sculpting Tools

Technical requirements

What is 3D modeling?

Understanding 3D sculpting

Introducing Blender

The user interface

Elements in the 3D Viewport

Interacting with the 3D world in Blender

Axes and transform orientations

Manipulating objects or their components

Exploring Blender's modeling tools

Extrude region

Bevel

Loop Cut

Inset Faces

Merging faces, edges, and vertices

Proportional Editing

Using modifiers in Blender

The Mirror modifier

Subdivision Surface modifier

Using Blender's sculpting tools

Brush settings

Remesh

Blender's sculpting brushes

Other sculpting tools

Line Project tool

Mesh Filter tool

Summary

Further reading

Chapter 2: Modeling a Robot Drone Character

Technical requirements

Preparing Blender's Units

Modeling a Robot Drone character

Modeling the shape of the body

Creating eyes

Adding a shoulder and a ball joint

Attaching a KitBash mesh

Modeling the arm

Extruding the custom shape

Summary

Chapter 3 : Let's Sculpt an Alien Plant!

Technical requirements

Loading the file containing the reference image

Blocking out your model

Extruding and duplicating mesh parts

Subdividing the mesh

Sculpting the primary forms

Fixing problem areas

Flattening an area of the mesh

How to fix surface artifacts

Adding secondary and tertiary forms

Using masking in 3D sculpting

Adding the final polish to the sculpture

Generating the low-resolution mesh

Decimating the mesh in Blender

Using Instant Meshes for auto-retopology

Summary

Chapter 4: UV Maps and Texture Baking

Technical requirements

What are textures and materials?

Textures

Materials

Understanding UV maps

UV unwrapping the Alien Plant model

Fixing shading issues

Creating UV seams

UV unwrapping the Alien Plant model

Triangulating the Alien Plant model

Exporting the Alien Plant mesh

UV unwrapping the Robot Drone model

Understanding texture baking

Introduction to xNormal

Preparing the Robot Drone model for xNormal

Preparing the low-poly mesh

Preparing the high-poly mesh

Baking texture maps

Summary

Chapter 5: Texturing Your Models inside Quixel Mixer

Technical requirements

Introducing the basics of Quixel Mixer

Configuring your project and Mixer file

Quixel Mixer's UI and shortcuts

Texturing the Robot Drone in Mixer

Loading the Robot Drone model into Quixel Mixer

Adding texture maps

Adding paneling details

Texturing the Robot Drone

Using material ID maps and masks

Texturing the Alien Plant in Mixer

Exporting your materials for use in UE

Summary

Further reading

Part 2: Building Your Virtual Movie Set in Unreal Engine 5

Chapter 6: Exploring Unreal Engine 5

Technical requirements

Introducing UE5

What can you do with UE?

New features in UE5

Free sample projects

Examples of animation projects that were made in UE5

UE terminologies

Setting up your project

Viewport navigation

Most useful shortcuts

UE's UI

Docking the Content Browser panel

The Viewport menu bar

Summary

Chapter 7: Setting Up Materials in UE 5

Technical requirements

Importing your 3D assets

Importing textures

The Texture Editor

Creating materials

The Material Editor

The Static Mesh Editor

Previewing your models with lighting

Summary

Chapter 8: Using MetaHuman to Create a Photorealistic Human for UE5

Technical requirements

What is MetaHuman Creator?

Getting access to MetaHuman Creator

Launching MetaHuman Creator

MetaHuman's UI

Creating a photorealistic female sci-fi character

Customizing the shape of your character's face

Previewing your character with animations

Adding your MetaHuman to Unreal Engine 5

Customizing your character's clothing

Summary

Chapter 9: Building a Virtual 3D Movie Set in UE5

Technical requirements

Setting up the basic elements of your 3D movie set

Adjusting the scene's exposure

Adjusting the Viewport's Field of View

Using Quixel Bridge to acquire free 3D assets

Customizing your material instances

The Material Instance Editor's UI

Editing your Material Instances

Using Albedo Tint for the Rock assets

Using Nanite on your rock assets

Using asset filters in the Content Browser window

Building the 3D movie set

Summary

Chapter 10: Adding Lighting and Atmospheric Visual Effects in UE5

Technical requirements

The fundamentals of lighting in 3D graphics

Realistic and stylized lighting

The three traditional lighting techniques

Types of light sources in UE5

Using Lumen in your UE5 projects

Preparing your project

Adding a Sky Atmosphere system

Lighting your 3D movie set

Adjusting your Key light (Light Source)

Adjusting your first Fill light (SkyLight)

Adding a second Fill light (DirectionalLight)

Adding atmospheric visual effects

Adding Fog

Light Shafts

Lens Flare and Light Bloom

Summary

Further reading

Part 3: Character Rigging for Animation in UE5 with Control Rig

Chapter 11: Alien Plant Joint Setup in Blender

Technical requirements

Preparing our 3D model for the skeleton

Importing the Alien Plant into Blender

Best practice when importing your model

Positioning and scaling the Alien Plant

Parent/child hierarchies in 3D software

Creating a skeleton for the Alien Plant

Creating the skeleton

Creating a parent/child relationship

Making a long joint chain for the main stem

Making the skeleton for the branches

Summary

Chapter 12: Alien Plant Skinning in Blender

Technical requirements

Introduction to skinning in Blender

Painting skin weights

Skinning the Alien Plant mesh to the skeleton

Skinning the Alien Plant

Summary

Chapter 13: Robot Joint Setup and Skinning in Blender

Technical requirements

Creating a skeleton for the robot

Opening, positioning, and scaling the robot

Body and left arm bones

Renaming and parenting the bones

Using the Symmetrize tool

Checking and editing the local joint orientations of the joints

What is the local orientation of a bone?

Editing local bone orientations

Skinning the robot to the skeleton in a rigid way

Preparing the model and collapsing modifiers

Skinning the robot body parts

Assigning exact skin weights to vertices

Summary

Chapter 14: Making a Custom Rig for Our Alien Plant with Control Rig

Technical requirements

Introduction to the Control Rig Editor

Loading the Control Rig tools in UE

Getting the Alien Plant and its skeleton into UE

Creating the Control Rig node on the Alien Plant

Understanding the Control Rig Editor interface layout

Creating basic Control Rig controllers

Creating two simple control shapes

Deciding on the controllers we need

Creating all the controllers

Organizing the controllers in a hierarchy

Positioning the controllers on the joints

Controlling the Alien Plant skeleton with the controllers

Practical setup for three basic nodes

Completing the animation rig

Summary

Chapter 15: Creating a Control Rig with Basic IK Controls for the Robot in UE5

Technical requirements

What is IK?

Understanding IK

Creating the controllers for the robot character

Exporting the robot and its skeleton from Blender

Importing the robot into a UE project

Creating the Control Rig controllers

Ordering the control objects in the correct hierarchy and linking them to joints

Controller hierarchy

Positioning the controllers to line up with the bones

Linking bones to controllers in Rig Graph

Creating an IK controller and testing the whole rig

Getting bone orientations of our arm bones

Setting up an IK controller

Testing the IK setup

Summary

Part 4: Animation in UE5 Using Control Rig and Sequencer

Chapter 16: Creating a Simple Swaying Animation Cycle in UE5 Sequencer

Technical requirements

Overview of the Sequencer interface

Opening the Sequencer and adding the Alien Plant animation rig

Sequencer interface overview

Setting keyframes for animation

What are keyframes and curves in computer animation?

Setting keyframes for the Alien Plant Control Rig

Editing keyframes and animation curves

Summary

Chapter 17: Creating Three Simple Animations for the Robot in UE5 Sequencer

Technical requirements

Animation A: idle cycle

Using the Poses tool in UE5

Animating the idle cycle

Animation B: movement cycle

Animation C: action animation

Summary

Chapter 18: Importing Motion Capture onto the MetaHuman Control Rig

Technical requirements

Getting MoCap animations from Mixamo

Getting MoCap animations from the UE Marketplace

Retargeting MoCap animations to a MetaHuman skeleton

Importing Maximo MoCap into UE

Setting up retargeting on the Mixamo skeleton

Setting up retargeting on the MetaHuman skeleton

Retargeting Mixamo MoCap animation to the MetaHuman

Summary

Chapter 19: Motion Capture Editing and Cleanup Using Control Rig and Sequencer

Technical requirements

Planning Your MoCap edit

Baking the Stand_Up MoCap to the Control Rig

Overview of the MetaHuman Control Rig

Editing and cleaning up the Stand_Up MoCap

Changing the clipping plane in UE

Lining up the MoCap with the ground plane and the root

Fixing floaty feet

Improving the standing pose

Cleaning up Sitting Pose

Fixing the hands with the Snapper tool

Summary

Chapter 20: Using Sequencer to Construct Your Final Scene

Technical requirements

Importing all the scene assets and positioning them in the scene

Migrating UE content between projects

Attaching the body armor to the MetaHuman Rig

Preparing character and Level Assets

Importing animations onto our characters

Importing Mocap animations onto the MetaHuman

Importing Mocap animations onto the Robot Drone

Importing animations onto the Alien Plant

Creating cameras and animating them

Using multiple cameras and cutting between them

Rendering our final scene

Summary

Other Books You May Enjoy