How I Remade Dune in 24 Hours using VFX

Join our FREE Dune Masterclass 👉 www.unrealforvfx.com/dune
Join our Unreal 5 Crash Course 👉 www.unrealforvfx.com/crashcourse
I gave myself ONE DAY to create Dune from scratch. These are the results!
I wanted to share my entire approach to filmmaking and in Unreal Engine 5 all in one video!
Ever wanted to learn how to create sci-fi films (like Dune Part Two) from scratch?
You'll learn...
- A beginner's guide to world-building in Unreal 5
- How I create high-speed action sequences FAST
- The shortcut to modeling entire cities without leaving Unreal
- The workflow to create your own sci-fi epics starting from a cube!
Using the Modeling Tools and Material Graph to create the city, Blender to Rig the ornithopters, and UE5's Sequencer to animate and keyframe the cameras and shots, you'll get a complete grasp of YOU can become an Unreal Filmmaker in one day!
Much love to the entire team at DNEG for creating the amazing VFX in Part 1, can't wait to see the amazing work in Part 2 this weekend :D
As an added bonus, I'm sharing EVERYTHING I learned this Saturday, March 2nd at 1pm EST. Sign up to reserve your spot! 3
Sign up now 👉 www.unrealforvfx.com/dune (we're only sending out the recordings to those who register)
If you joined last week, we're covering a BRAND NEW SEQUENCE - The War on Arrakis complete with Explosions and FX. It's going to be action packed, so you won't want to miss it!
Want me to cover something specific? Leave a comment and I'll do my best to include it!
QUICK LINKS
Join our 21 Day Unreal Bootcamp - www.unrealforvfx.com/fundamentals
Unreal to Nuke Masterclass - www.unrealforvfx.com/nuke
FREE Unreal 5 Crash Course - www.unrealforvfx.com/crashcourse
www.joshuatoonen.com
www.imdb.com/name/nm7930214/
/ @joshtoonen
/ joshtoonen
/ @toonenjosh
Chapters
0:00 - Is this challenge possible?
1:04 - Modeling the City of Arrakis
1:55 - The VFX Technique I stole from Star Wars
3:06 - Create ONE MATERIAL to texture entire cities
5:06 - Why Maya and Blender are holding you back
5:57 - Creating a Landscape in UE5 with Gaea
6:40 - Building and Rigging Ornithopters
8:20 - Assembling the City with our Asset Zoo
9:35 - Creating the Cameras and Animation in Sequencer
10:48 - Rendering in Less Than ONE HOUR
11:22 - The Last Step for Hollywood-level VFX (Don't Skip This)
#dune #UnrealEngine5 #IndieFilmmaking #unrealengine #unreal #film #cgi #VFX #CGArt #animations #ue5 #vfx #vfxbreakdown #blender3d #animation #maya #cinematic #dunereview #dunetrailer
How I Recreated Dune in 24 Hours using VFX
How I Made Dune in 24 Hours using VFX
#unrealengine #vfx #cinematic

[@JoshToonen]

Thanks for watching and sharing ya'll :D If you're a filmmaker looking to take your work to the next level... Join me this weekend in the LIVE Dune Masterclass 👉www.unrealforvfx.com/dune Don't miss it!

[@MaceWindoo77]

I love what you did and really seriously think grab your Dune Masterclass but do I need a war machine ? (my actual setup : i7700HQ, 1070GTX, 32Go...)

[@vladan.Poison]

the link is missing a W in www 😂

[@JoshToonen]

That's definitely good enough to get started! :D

[@ryked333]

@Josh Toonen Nothing happens when i press the 'Watch the Free Dune Masterclass' Button :( Is it broken or am i ineligeble to watch it, if i wasn't at the Live Stream?

[@CrystalDEsprit]

If you need a film composer, hit me up. x

[@CorridorCrew]

Gotta watch this at half speed to catch all the genius tips. So GOOD! - Sam

[@evxnkndy]

damn even corridor is here. love everything you guys do! Going into video production myself and you guys give inspiration with every new video!

[@JoshToonen]

Thanks Sam! Ya'll + Freddie and Brandon are why I started learning VFX :D Appreciate it!

[@sana-cm7oc]

@@JoshToonen Corridor appreciating your work. Very cool. Love those guys. Great job, Josh. Subscribed.

[@user-nt4wi3mm8o]

watch at half a speed because he a methhead with no brain

[@Fatalution]

Holy shit, Corridor? Wowee, I guess you guys also learn from someone 😅

[@vidboss]

I like what your dune here

[@JoshToonen]

😏

[@DDAYZ8]

Smooth💦

[@marcus_ohreallyus]

I approve of this pun

[@lessemo]

Yes officer, this is the comment, please arrest him

[@SLAYINGVR]

Nailed it

[@memphuk]

I was the Lidar scanning tech on the ground scanning all the surrounding landscape in Jordan for Dune part 1. This was fun to watch utilizing UE5, UE5 is crazy.

[@myamdane6895]

Yo that's sick!!! I'd kill to work on a movie like Dune

[@JamesButcher]

that's so cool!

[@matyasfazakas6642]

Dude you are on a totally different level when it comes to utilizing all the cool ue features, starting from modelling to using sequencer to perfection. Absolutely killer content. Respect.

[@JoshToonen]

Thanks Matyas :D

[@CreativePunk5555]

Worked for 9 years as a 2nd AD in the film industry and got to work on some crazy cool stuff. I did some pick up shots for IRobot and the tech feels so ancient now thinking about the process back then, especially seeing the capabilities of UE5. You're very talented - Nice work, love it.

[@JoshToonen]

That's awesome, iRobot still has a special place, but crazy how those early CG characters were so hit and miss. Instant feedback makes it a lot easier now, that's for sure!

[@tombenford227]

What shots did you work on for iRobot?

[@CreativePunk5555]

We did pick up shots on the beach when the robot walked up to the map in the sand and then did some environment lighting shots and other random B roll at the same time. With the whole mirror sphere and green suits. Nothing crazy.@@tombenford227

[@KaceyBakerFilms]

I remember back in the day wondering how iRobot vfx were done? It was a stand out for its time.

[@CreativePunk5555]

Yeah, seeing the final edit was super impressive in that day with CG. Same for when Terminator 2 came out. And now with how AI is rapidly progressing we will see insanity being made in the next year or two. Hard to imagine what the next 'big' thing will be after this tech revolution.

[@AJGameDev]

Hey guy, just wanted to say thanks for giving this information while not discrediting the time and effort it took to make that phenomenal film. 18 years of VFX experience here and moved to virtual production around ~2014, though we used unity at the time, blech). So please take it with a grain of salt that while I may be a teensy bit salty that these tools weren't around until the last 5-10 years, I'm very much appreciating you giving all the information to quickly develop this sequence, however still informing that corners were cut using the displacement technique and procedural texturing. I feel this is giving credit to the hard work, time and pain of all those involved on the development of the source material. Generally speaking, all of these would be hand modeled, curated, and pushed through something like substance painter/designer to achieve the directors final vision for the environment, and the animation, camera movement and even down to how much atmo you have in there would be meticulously iterated on over several weeks of development (in this particular sequence I imagine the camera movement would be the most picked apart and iterated since thats driving the scene). Very cool stuff man.

[@warzonekills6437]

1 minute silence for people who think it was made in 24h

[@BeastGamingHD]

This is quite possibly the most fascinating resume I have ever seen.

[@simonmackness403]

What an incredible achievement in 24 hours. I think Dune has the best VFX I've seen - most CGI looks like a high-end video game. Villeneuve managed to create something that looks real.

[@InfinitismYT]

Amazing. Dune is one of my favorite stories and your craft makes it come to life. I thank you. You need your own VFX studio!

[@maymager]

Very impressive, really good showcase of how effective and creative results you can get with unreal engine for film.

[@JoshToonen]

Thanks May, hope it helped spark some ideas!

[@FibrousPlanetsWorld]

Honestly just amazing work, you make it look easy. It is 100x times harder to understand unreal engine 5. Thanks for making a video. Great inspiration.

[@xenibyte5898]

When I watched Dune I had chills when I saw the ornithopter wing effects because it was so perfect, and you have managed to get a realtime effect to like 99% there purely in Unreal. Amazing work and although I've always been into building games, this has me interested in the idea of filmaking without the need for rendering hours or distributed rendering. Also for those watching, I'm not sure if someone commented it but when Josh was talking about greebles and 'bashing' stuff together, the term for the latter is commonly known as 'kitbashing' where you would take parts from different model kits (even entirely different styles and genres) to build something new, and greebles/greebling is the practise of creating detailed assets with re-usable objects.

[@jzwadlo]

Amazing work apart from the camera shake which looked way too composited!

[@aubreybeelen4818]

Indeed the camera shake is completely unnecesary

[@kunal-ko]

Wow, honestly i thought you wouldn't be able to but the final result just blew me away.

[@mtlaunder]

Really splendid! I was pretty floored by how quickly you can get large amounts of detail that helps with scale! I’d watch the specular values in the city sections. They’re a bit too localized which is hurting your scale a bit, but I honestly cannot wait to try some of this out!!

[@MrTwoFox]

I took your course and went from being unable to even place actors to filming the trailer for my upcoming web series! If you're looking to learn UE for film, Josh's training is the way to do it!!!

[@__seytan__2.479]

Bro please tell me that they are saved classes we can watch them at any time

[@MrTwoFox]

Yes, you can even search for keywords and rewatch videos later. It is 1000% worth it. I spent months flipping through random youtube videos and barely making any progress before finally pulling the trigger on Josh's training.@@__seytan__2.479

[@user-nt4wi3mm8o]

bollocks

[@chadiwack]

Guy can create Dune video in 24 hours but can't master audio sync in his KZbin vids. :(

[@GavinScrimgeour]

🙈

[@hebopavlos]

I'm not an expert in graphics or movies, but I think I have a pretty good eye for these things, and I feel the urge to say this: as you get close to perfection in terms of realism, it's increasingly hard to pull off even small steps towards it. Meaning that the difficulty gap between crappy to amazing, and amazing to Perfect, is not what you'd think. This result is not quite like the quality of the Dune movies CGI, BUT! I must say for 24 hours it is a spectacular achievement and kudos to you for being able to pull something like this off.

[@jtdabreeze2945]

this is WAY too complicated for me but i can honestly say you are a BEAST with in engine modeling.

[@digitaljustin92]

Great job Josh! Always shocks me how shallow most of the public at large has become in appreciating the talent, work ethic, creativity, skill set and sheer determination it takes to bring these virtual worlds to life. Alas, it will all be reduced to a couple of sentences in a monochromatic prompt box soon enough and what made us special will disappear like tears in rain.

[@DaEagle7]

That’s just incredible GET THIS GUY TO 1 MILLION SUBS RIGHT NOW

[@JuJu-he8ck]

This is amazing. For indie filmmakers this cuts the gap tremendously.

[@meetmistry9653]

I become a fan of your artwork and technique to create massive environments so effortlessly at first sight.💯

[@JoeKawano]

I love these clips, entered in-especially Paul screaming from the Office about the pain of working on CG graphics.😂

[@JoshuaMKerr]

I felt that when you said 'UVs'. Great video man, you're killing it.

[@Himball]

This is what I’m talking about, this is amazing…. I love sci-fi films a bit too much so much I’ve been thinking about creating some myself and this right here is all the motivation I’ll ever need. Thank you!!!!

[@twistedjourney]

Nicely done Josh! Cant wait!

[@JoshToonen]

Thanks buddy!

[@gizConAsh]

Wait for what? Are we missing something?

[@gusmaiawork]

extremely misleading/clickbait title, you remade a singe shot of Dune, not Dune itself ☠☠

[@helpumuch6887]

I mean it’s def misleading but it’s not thaaaat bad and he did a good job so idrc

[@OnlyTwoShoes]

"I made Arrakis" Barely makes a single settlement

[@helpumuch6887]

@@OnlyTwoShoes to be fair 90% of it is just the sand part repeated anyway, it was still a good video

[@gusmaiawork]

@@helpumuch6887 why are trying to ride a clickbaiter's donger so hard? lmao

[@darkreaper4990]

Hate the game not the player

[@csdstudio78]

This looks incredible! Here we have 1 guy and 24 hours.

[@Planetdune]

Who says this was 24 hours? Because he says it is?

[@a77mighty666]

Easy sub! Great video man, cant wait to go check out your other content!

[@user-oy4em2ji6n]

I'm so inspired by your video, i just finished watching it fully and i honestly wanna start doing some type of work such as you! I honestly don't know where to even start from 0, i'll check the links you mentioned but if theres more than that i be so down to learn literally anything. Great god level skill dawg.

[@JoshToonen]

Thanks dude, if you're serious I put all of my best training + secrets inside unrealforvfx.com/fundamentals. It's designed for complete beginners in Unreal and will teach you how to make films in just 30 minutes a day. You can get started for just $99

[@user-oy4em2ji6n]

Dawg i have some financial struggles with my mom at the moment, since im in school and i got some tests i need to study. I would buy it if i had the money, is there possible reduction or something, i could cancel my gym membership that be like 45$ if something is possible@@JoshToonen

[@Yora21]

I just started with Blender this month, and this all looks like magic. But I feel that I could learn this magic if I stick with it long enough.

[@EdwinSchaap]

That looks amazing. Very inspiring!

[@yllbardh]

Why so many CGI creators overuse lens-flares to make it look "real" when IRL they are almost invisible?

[@josephcandraos]

this video was fantastic, thanks for making this video!

[@capslock196]

okay this title is kinda clickbait-ish, still it's way better than i expected. this looks GREAT for something done in 24 hours. AWESOME!

[@XeonX__ASMR__METAL-experiments]

I love Unreal Engine ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ And I making video games as I want. Thank You Swinney T.

[@focusmaya251]

Great work , thanks for sharing ❤

[@iamFSRL]

‘Action scene’ unless something funky is happening when they’re flying, they’re just vibing, smoking that good spice

[@jlmf6274]

One of the coolest videos I have seen !!! Great work

[@AllanGildea]

Outstanding, thank you.

[@jason.martin]

Brilliant brilliant work ! wow, I would love to see what you would do with this if you had a week or a month !

[@ako3180]

That's super-impressive! And inspiring!

[@jaybijker4741]

I know it wouldn't add to the story and might even take away from the story. But 1:26 with the 4:3 looks so cool to me would be dope if there's a version like that for the movie. Imagine the scene in the first movie where we get a good look at the sand worm for the first time, that would look amazing and would make the sand worm feel even more large and terrifying

[@celimemorbt7264]

Its the IMAX Version of the Movie. It was only shown in IMAX theatres

[@Garvinweasel]

Amazing work, inspired and signed up 🔥

[@Xavier-sp5ec]

I certainly wouldn't consider it "Hollywood level VFX", it's more akin to a video-game cut-scene, but still looks pretty damn great given that you only had 24 hours to complete it!

[@crystalblade874]

Awesome dude always happy to see your work 😊

[@JoshToonen]

Thank you so much 😀

[@officialhardnox]

Wow! Talented is an understatement! Great job!!!

[@adriandmontero5780]

man you are a monster for real, very very impressive.!!

[@MegaControltv]

impresionante !! felicitaciones Josh !

[@Wooxy117]

Great work

[@EduardKaresli]

Very nice work. UE5 is a cutting edge technology. 🔥🔥🔥 I'm currently learning Blender though, then I'll get back to UE5 once I'm capable a bit.

[@EchelonIV]

Super nice end product. This could easily be like a cinematic/cutscene of a Dune game between missions or something! I was very skeptical with how ornithopter wings will look like since they should have very smooth motion blur and still reflect sunlight, but they actually turned out really good! The only thing I didn't like about the final product was the camera shake when close to the ornithopters. Imho it doesn't fit well into wide shots like these. Tbh that's not a technical thing though, but rather a directing choice. Personally, I would have also made the ornithopters a bit smaller and also "fly slower", since it would make the scale of the city and landscape appear even larger. All in all really inspiring stuff!

[@CROMA1927]

You are the Kwisatz Haderach, Lisan al Gaib and Shai Hulud all in one. Nooice job!

[@remondobriyard1]

Sora be like - 24 Hr Unreal Engine 5? - let me Introduce me ( Sorry man I am glad you Did hard work You did Great here, If It was Me I was never be able to do it💖💖💖)

[@pedroibanez8013]

Amazing job... thanks

[@ashishbenmoncy2147]

This is sickk!! My question is did you add the lens flare in compositing or used the Unreal post process thingy

[@0xSirius]

But you actually CAN use world aligned texture with moving objects. What you have to do is: Create a Pre-skinned Local Position node -> plug in to Vertex Interpolator node -> plug in to world aligned texture nodes world position slot. ( You can put a multiply or divide node in between to adjust tiling, if you dont want tiling to scale with object scale multiply with object scale xyz node too). Now you can use this trick in most moving, non UV'd objects and skeletal meshes. It is very useful, pin this comment so everybody can see.

[@owenjenkinsofficial]

Cool video! I love seeing UE5 artists making this knowledge available to us beginners. You've truely got some next level stuff to share and I'm all for it!

[@JoshToonen]

Appreciate it Owen, hope it helps :D

[@metafuel]

Great work. What are you using for the final post process from effects you were talking about? Lens flares, etc. That looks like something I'd use regularly. Is it a plugin for unreal or something in your editing software? Cheers and thanks for the brilliant overview of your process.

[@JoshToonen]

Hey! It's a plug-in for After Effects and Nuke that I include with all of the training at unrealforvfx.com/fundamentals

[@patino851]

Incredible quality, well dune!😊

[@viewtifuljim]

I think it's a shame that you felt the need to tell your audience that one person could create a shot solely in UE5 that is comparable to what the team involved in bringing the film production of Dune to life on screen, within 24 hours. The results within this video are incomparable. I get that you are trying to encourage new people into working with Unreal Engine and film making, but don't you think its a little insulting to the intricate processes of cinematography and live action camera work combined with the use of CGI in Dune? no singular process or levels of automation can replace such amounts of work. Otherwise, I'm very impressed with what you did achieve, as some one with little to no professional experience that is highly interested in CGI, Vfx, Unreal Engine and all of their combined capabilities both in the gaming and cinema industry I can see you are very talented in your field! I imagine a lot of your audience are not so aware of these things, so I would hope in the future you would consider advertising a more grounded achievable goal.

[@nickcage3683]

Wauuw. thanks for sharing. very inspiring

[@edethridgeproductions]

Just started watching the new Avatar and IMMEDIATELY spotted the virtual production. Great work!

[@OkitaSouji-ht5co]

Hey, I already followed your DUNE master class the other day and noticed how you never mentioned how to create those essential cloud cards. I saw in your video that it was a class blueprint file named "BP_clouds". I've scoured the internet on how to make those and got no progress, really appreciate it if you drop a video tutorial on how to make those cloud careds mate. oh and good luck on growing this channel, we need more people like you on the UE5 community

[@johnnikhil.g66]

This is a different level of talent

[@mtopscriterion]

"I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. I have water, but no fish. What am I? A map... (and the Unreal Engine world of Dune)

[@heydanel]

man soo good 🔥 I needed you for my short film 🙈 Hahaha

[@nashonightmare]

Amazing work. 🤩

[@Dewoo_dsk]

creating something already seen is always easy! Creativity and Imagination is the game

[@13aker0]

This is really good! thanks!

[@alexogogo3431]

Looks amazing! Planning to start learn ue right now, saving money for pc. Wish me luck :)

[@laanrohs]

awesome 24H man. question, are you rendering the video in lumen or did you switch to path tracing for it (and if so did you keep the nanite or switched everything in non nanite.)? because the final result is amazing but in my mind lumen still has some limitation compared to a ultra cinematic render in PT

[@cgchoco]

Wow very good that's a load of skill. Great work for 24h only timeframe. Crazy results despite some final processing broke the realism a bit or a lot depending who is watching like vignette effect, the camera shake effects, too much specular in some materials, etc. But at the end of the day in a real production environment, I guess those final processing will be required by the management to be done by an another person would be so perfectionist that he would write a 500 pages book just for vignette effect meaning and usage, camera shake etc.

[@govindkharbade9835]

As individiual it is really good effort.Look so amazing.

[@MrDmonahan96]

Hey Josh. Where can I get the jsplacement plugin?

[@dagobb]

You did a good job there, I’d like to hear the sounds of the blades on the ornithopter.

[@ChadwickRider]

Awesome. Aside from movies Unreal Engine 5 is going to be a game changer for game creators. The amount of overhead it reduces gives small teams the ability to create AAA level games with velocity, efficiently and smaller budgets. In a way it will help level the playing field when it comes to creative content within this space.

[@fvckingtest]

Stop giving the art directors ammunition! Now they are gonna say, "This guy built this in his cave! from a box of !"

[@peterhong2359]

But I am not Tony Stark

[@to8zljghvru]

Wow - very nice - good job!

[@domofficial5642]

Love this! Great work and great tips! Do you sell the Lightning fast render presets for UE?

[@JoshToonen]

Thanks! They're bundled with both of our courses, unrealforvfx.com/nuke and unrealforvfx.com/fundamentals

[@brettreyenger7932]

Respect, nice work Josh!

[@tomasm1233]

"Hollywood level". That is a witty sense of humor.

[@adamdalbini7721]

You are right! This guy is far more superior than hollywood's usual vfx at common movies. Have you seen Aquaman 2 for example? That movie's visuals are actually non-sense and watching it was visually hurting my eyes.

[@hicham-bf2ed]

the result is stunning waw

[@Battle_One]

Very inspiring!

[@merion297]

Incredible. Do filmmakers use this method for previz?

[@thewimpo]

Thanks for this video.

[@sticky170]

Epic footage. One thing that sticks out though are the specular/glossy highlights. They are just a bit too high for my taste. Especially on the buildings.

[@harshbarondiya]

By far the best tutorials , Where can I get that J Displacement Map Plugin

[@strawberryfrogforever]

Downright inspiring bro

[@ReiRoldan]

Jaw dropping... I'm speechless

[@boris_indrikov]

WoW🤩It's great! Keep up the good work!👍

[@GsChandra]

Wow.... 😮 That was Unbelievable... Kudos bro

[@Felizap]

Amazing video, I just didn't get the part about composing, what was that? Which program did you use and what is this one-click template? Thanks for the content btw, really nice to see some quality knowledge being shared for free!

[@user-nt4wi3mm8o]

lol. no knowledge was shared. It's just a commercial for his stupid course

[@Aratxe]

Looks fantastic!!

[@MahmoudSeoudiCEO]

great job , I'm building a designing pc do you have recommendation on processor like ryzen5 or i5

[@jehonelporte2770]

Amazing you are the best!!!!💪🏽

[@Theaddekalk]

looks really good, good job