Unreal Engine 5.3 - Short movie - Gates of Barovia

This is my first attempt at creating an animated sequence with a small narrative.
I have used unreal engine v5.3 with metahumans, in addition I have bought some ready-made assets from the unreal marketplace.
The action is set in Misty Forest from the Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms setting. The sequence tells a story about someone who is chased by werewolves in the fog and as the fog breaks up he ends up in front of the gate to Barovia.
I've had a lot of fun trying to learn animation in Unreal Engine and look forward to starting new exciting projects.
If anyone is interested in a collaboration regarding vfx or other aspects of visual storytelling, just contact: [e-mail].

[@snarekeeper8053]

Can confirm, Bavaria is a hell of a place to be in

[@svengewalt5841]

Just thinking about it makes me uneasy

[@snarekeeper8053]

just want to add besides the bs joke comment, that work is seriously impressive, i absolutely love what you did there, Score!

[@alansouter6713]

During the beer festival it's great 😂😂

[@hexkwondo]

I got kicked out of Barovia. All the goth and vampire chicks kept complaining about me after they turned me down.

[@katherinabraun245]

Oh my god, I'm playing that campaign right now as a DM and that is exactly how I envisioned it! :D That is so cool!

[@johnscore]

Thanks! Hope your and your group enjoys your time with Curse of Strahd.

[@pasmac625]

That's beautiful storytelling and well done animation

[@johnscore]

Many thanks!

[@laurensdesmet70]

Really nice work. I'm curious, considering the high quality, how long this first attempt took you?

[@teekrieger2426]

Well done, this looks incredible! Only critique from me is the posture of the character looked a bit weird in some shots. Continously half crouching like that just doesn't look quite natural to me.

[@johnscore]

I should have used the metahuman body and attached the costume to that body instead of attaching metahuman head to the other body. Gave me lots of issues when I wanted to correct the mocap animation. But next time I’ll fix it! :)

[@nemea9938]

Maybe one day we have a game of curse of strahd

[@SpencerFoustLovesYou]

The reveal shot on the gates was spectacular, and the closeups on the metahuman were so lifelike! Really great animation. How long did it take?

[@johnscore]

Thanks man! Building the gates took the longest, maybe 2 or 3 days. I think the whole short is about 40 shots, I tried to work as fast as I could, completing between 1-4 shots every day I had available ( about 3-4 hours working time ). Lets say I used a little under a month to complete it.

[@thebridge6701]

Hey dude! Awesome work. Though just wanted to know if the character is just a metahuman or something made from digital scans?

[@johnscore]

Thank you! The characters head is a metahuman. The body is a character i bought from the marketplace.

[@FeedingWolves]

Awesome work!

[@VahidSlayerOfAll]

Unreal Engine - at least it not unity

[@johnscore]

I haven't tried Unity, but I guess you can do some cool stuff there as well

[@usmanaamir2335]

Man I loved it can you please tell me how much time it took you to create this masterpiece ?

[@johnscore]

Thank you! It’s hard to say exactly how much time it took. I spent a couple of hours here and there in between working hours and some spare evenings from march to june, with a couple of months I did nothing. I guess I could do the whole thing in two working weeks with 8 hour days. Maybe even faster.

[@jacobbarlow8636]

Pretty radical! The model on the main guy was insane (metahuman tech is nuts) but his hands seemed a bit stiff! Other than that, positively spectacular!

[@johnscore]

Haha, yeah, I was very interested in making a story where the main character had a severe case of arthritis. Next time I’ll try to figure out how to animate the hands in a good way. But the detail level of the face of the Metahumans are insane!

[@leoking3495]

for animation which mocap suit are you using ?

[@johnscore]

I didn't use any. Body animations are from Mixamo, with some manual tweeking. Closeups of the face are my own face doing stuff, captured with my iPhone and using the metahuman animator for transferring it onto the metahuman.

[@LunchBreakHeroes]

Great work! I love it.

[@johnscore]

Thank you! Love your KZbin channel, great content.

[@jarvislakemaker1695]

Excellent work. I'm running Curse of Strahd now and this really sets the tone.

[@johnscore]

Great! Good to hear that you can use my short film for your own group of players 👍

[@Questdnd]

Barovia is where we all want to be...but never ever in real Life :D

[@johnscore]

So true!

[@brajuhani]

UE has long way to go still, to make it look real.

[@johnscore]

I think it depends on what type of shot you are trying to make.

[@NBASFAN]

That hair popping I still have an issue with that anyone know a fix?

[@johnscore]

I had a problem with the hair in almost all the scenes. So for the later shots with little movement on the I figured out it was just better to turn off the simulation of hair physics. Should have known that earlier…

[@alexvisuals3D]

@@johnscore the workaround for me is to set a few frames of delay in my render si the simulation can get in place. All my cameras and animations starts with a 10 to 15 frames of delay. Then when editing I can have a perfect shot without these hair popping

[@DeskToyStudios]

Great work! Just about to start DMing Curse of Strahd and I think Ill send this to the players as inspiration once they break into the mist :D

[@johnscore]

Great! I hope you have a good time in the mist! Good luck to your players :)

[@3dchick]

It's wonderful! Now I want the rest of the story!

[@WandersNowherre]

This is STUNNING work and a perfect capture of the atmosphere of Barovia. This is seriously your first animated feature??

[@johnscore]

I have worked for a number of years as a professional filmmaker in Norway. Where I've created a lot of visual effects for different projects, but have never created all-digital scenes before. I think it says something about the Unreal Engine's user interface, how easy it is to use, control light, camera angles, focal length, arrange sets, so it's almost like working on a real life set.

[@michaelanthonygutierrez]

amazing! fog is a great touch

[@skidmoda]

Nice, I just wrapped up my version of CoS a few months back love stuff like this. Been using all kinds of online assets to bring the feel to life. Wish I had this to show then, oh well for the next time.

[@johnscore]

Thank you! I will run my first session of CoS soon!

[@DMofBriseras]

Wow, this is so cool! Will there be any more COS content like this coming out from your channel?

[@johnscore]

Thank you! I have many ideas but little free time to implement them. One of the ideas is a monologue from Strahd in the dining hall of Castle Ravenloft. Now I'm working on another dnd short film set in a more generic dnd universe.

[@ChickensToo]

I am DMing Strahd right now and that fog is exactly as I imagined it. Well done!

[@johnscore]

Thank you! We have imagined the Mists of Ravenloft the same way then. Hope your campaign is going well!

[@alexvisuals3D]

Dude it looks pretty damn cool ! Great job

[@johnscore]

Thank you!

[@EndlessSummer1992]

This is the kind of vibe Gothic remake should have. :P

[@johnscore]

Thank you! I might do more! :)

[@0elivin0]

Can you do a behind the scenes explaining how you made it?

[@johnscore]

I might, or I'll start to do some speedbuilds for future projects where you can see my whole design process.

[@cook4000]

This is a great short -- love the concept and execution!

[@johnscore]

Thank you Albert!

[@juandefdezduran]

amazing work, thank you!

[@johnscore]

Thanks!

[@TheE9J]

That's amazing !

[@johnscore]

Thank you!

[@sargo1399]

Amazing!!!

[@johnscore]

Thanks!!

[@0elivin0]

Great work!

[@johnscore]

Thank you!

[@Guile2332]

Whoa

[@johnscore]

:)