Author: Maria Miroslavova Mutafchieva

This week, I focused on post-processing and rendering in Unreal Engine, and I learned a lot about how important these steps are for making a scene look polished. Post-processing lets you control the overall mood of the scene, like adjusting color, contrast, bloom, and exposure. I experimented with different settings and realized that small changes can completely change how a scene feels. For example, changing the color grading or using a post-process volume in just one area can make the lighting and atmosphere much more cinematic.

Rendering also taught me a lot about planning and technical details. I learned that rendering as a sequence of images is usually safer than rendering directly to video, because if something goes wrong you can restart from the last frame. I also tried adjusting different settings like motion blur, depth of field, reflections, and Lumen global illumination. It was a bit tricky at first, but after experimenting I started to understand how all these settings work together to create a final polished look.

Overall, this week helped me see that post-processing and rendering are not just technical steps—they are part of the creative process. The way you adjust light, colour, and effects can really tell a story and make the project feel alive.

This week we focused on preparing our projects for feedback and learning how to render in Unreal Engine. Before rendering, we made sure all project files were updated and documented in the blog. The session was all about understanding how precise and technical rendering can be, and how small changes in settings can make a big difference in quality and performance.

Some of the key render settings we worked with included:

• r.ScreenPercentage (start small, like 120, then increase to 150 if needed) – controls render resolution relative to screen size.
• r.MotionBlurQuality 4 and r.MotionBlurSeparable 1 – for realistic motion blur.
• r.DepthOfFieldQuality 4 – sharpness and realism for focus effects.
• r.BloomQuality 5 – intensity of bloom for bright highlights.
• r.Tonemapper.Quality 5 – affects overall color mapping and final image tone.
• r.TemporalAA.Upsampling 0 and r.TemporalAACurrentFrameWeight 0.5 – for temporal anti-aliasing and smoothing motion.
• r.Lumen.Reflections.MaxRoughnessToTrace 1 and r.Lumen.Reflections.Temporal 0 – controls Lumen reflections and their quality on surfaces.
• r.Shadow.Virtual.ResolutionLodBiasDirectional 0 and r.Shadow.Virtual.ResolutionLodBiasLocal 0 – important for shadow resolution and accuracy.

We also learned about rendering workflows. Rendering as a sequence of images is safer than rendering directly to video. If the render crashes, you can continue from the last saved frame instead of starting over. Direct video render is faster but riskier, especially with high-quality settings. Performance depends heavily on your computer hardware, so knowing your limits is important.

Other important settings to consider:

• ReflectionCaptureResolution – controls the resolution of reflection captures for more realistic reflective surfaces.
• ShadowQuality and ShadowResolutionScale – critical for sharp and accurate shadows.
• Anti-AliasingMethod (FXAA, TAA, or MSAA) – affects how smooth edges appear.
• PostProcessSettings – exposure, color grading, bloom, and vignette can drastically change the mood.
• IES Profiles for lights – makes spotlights behave more realistically.
• Ray Tracing options (if enabled) – improves reflections, shadows, and global illumination but impacts performance.

Overall, this week showed me how technical precision and planning are just as important as creativity.

This week we focused on dynamic lighting in Unreal Engine and how lighting choices can completely change the mood and feeling of a scene. We explored different light types and experimented with how light, materials, and atmosphere work together in a 3D environment.

I learned about Lumen, Unreal Engine 5’s dynamic global illumination system. At first, I found it quite challenging to use properly. I ran into some noise issues in my renders, which turned out to be caused by pushing the global illumination settings too far. After some trial and error and dialing things back, the results became much cleaner and more manageable.

I enjoyed experimenting with different light types. Directional lights felt intuitive for sunlight, while spotlights and point lights were great for more controlled and focused lighting. Rectangular lights were especially useful for soft lighting and filling in shadows without flattening the scene too much.

Lighting and materials turned out to be closely connected. Adjusting material values before adding lights made a noticeable difference in how the scene reacted to illumination. I also experimented with post-processing volumes, which I found surprisingly powerful. Being able to tweak colour, exposure, and mood either globally or in specific areas opened up a lot of creative possibilities.

Overall, this week helped me understand that good lighting is not just about making a scene look nice, but about balance—between realism, mood, and performance. It made me more aware of how thoughtful lighting decisions can elevate both visuals and storytelling.

This week was fully focused on our projects. We spent the session testing ideas, researching, and evaluating whether our concepts were technically achievable. A big part of the process was understanding how to properly set up our projects and organise scenes in a way that would support the workflow moving forward.

I spent a lot of time browsing Fab, collecting materials, assets, and complete scenes. Building this personal library of resources gave me more flexibility, allowing me to experiment, mix elements, and assemble environments more efficiently as the project develops.

Overall, this week helped me feel more confident about the direction of my project and the practical steps needed to bring it together.

Fracture Mode and Physics

This week, we explored physics in Unreal Engine, focusing on Fracture Mode and Chaos simulations. Fracture Mode allowed us to break objects into different types of fragments, such as uniform or radial patterns, making it easier to create believable destruction. I experimented with fracturing glass and adjusting the impact point to achieve more natural-looking cracks, which was both intuitive and satisfying.

We also worked with Chaos Physics to simulate collisions between objects. By recording the simulation using a Chaos Cache Manager, the physics could be converted into a stable sequence suitable for rendering. This helped me understand how important planning is when working with physics-based motion.

In addition, we explored physics constraints, creating pendulum-like setups and experimenting with constrained movement on meshes. Overall, this session showed me how physics can enhance realism and add a strong sense of weight and motion to a scene, while still leaving room for creative control.

Storyboard

This week, alongside exploring physics in Unreal Engine, we also focused on planning our final project. We were asked to create a storyboard and collect visual references in the form of a moodboard, including images and rough sketches to communicate the idea, atmosphere, and direction of the project.

My initial concept was slightly different from what it is now. I wanted to include a butterfly that would guide my character through portals into different worlds. As the idea developed, I realised that this would be quite complex to fully achieve within the given time frame, so the concept is still evolving and we’ll see how much of it can realistically be implemented.

This week’s session focused on physics in Unreal Engine, and we were also asked to bring in the progress of our ongoing projects. During the class, we explored how parent–child relationships work in UE, using a parent object to control and modify properties such as materials across its child objects. This helped me better understand how hierarchy and shared settings can be used efficiently inside a scene.

For my project, I already had a clear direction in mind. I knew that I wanted to create a cinematic and focus more on the character, its animation, and the composition of the shots, rather than building detailed natural environments. My idea was to create something longer and more atmospheric, and I also wanted to include original music, which I managed to do.

Overall, my main goal with this project was not to perfect every technical aspect, but to become familiar with the full process of creating a cinematic in Unreal Engine. I found a lot of inspiration in cinematics from some of my favourite video games, as I’m very interested in eventually working on similar projects in the future, such as animated or music-video-style cinematics.

This week, we continued working with Sequencer in Unreal Engine and were introduced to materials. We talked again about using master and sub-sequencers and why organisation is important when working on bigger projects. Keeping sequences in colour-coded folders helped me stay organised and understand the structure of the project better.

We also spent time setting up cameras and shots. I enjoyed experimenting with different camera angles and moving cameras independently inside the sequencer. Working in multiple viewports made it easier to check composition and transitions between shots.

On the materials side, we learned how to create master materials and material instances. This made it much clearer how materials can be reused and adjusted quickly without breaking the original setup. I found it especially helpful to see how changing values like roughness, colour, and normal strength can completely change how a surface reacts to light.

Overall, this week helped me feel more comfortable working in Unreal Engine, both creatively and technically, and gave me more confidence in using Sequencer and materials together.

This week, we focused on using Sequencer in Unreal Engine and explored how cinematics are created inside the engine. We learned how to set up a Level Sequence and how it functions as a timeline-based tool for controlling animation, cameras, and events within a scene.

The process began with creating a new Level Sequence and placing a skeletal mesh character into the scene. By adding the character to the Sequencer timeline, it became possible to assign existing animations and control when and how they play within the shot. This introduced the idea of non-linear animation, where timing, placement, and layering of motion can be adjusted without altering the original animation assets.

We also worked with basic camera setup and framing inside Sequencer, which highlighted how cinematic principles such as composition, timing, and continuity translate into a real-time engine. Adjusting transforms, animation start points, and camera movement required careful attention, as even small changes could significantly affect the readability and mood of a shot.

Overall, this session demonstrated how Sequencer acts as a bridge between animation and environment, allowing different elements—characters, cameras, and scene objects—to be coordinated in a controlled and flexible way. Understanding how to organize tracks, refine timing, and preview results in real time is essential for creating clear and effective cinematics in Unreal Engine.

This week, we focused on understanding the concept of world design in a game engine. We learned how to create and manage levels in Unreal Engine and became familiar with the main tools and interface. Although the pace of the class was fast and some terminology was new to me, the session helped me build a clearer overall understanding of how environments are constructed in UE5.

We also explored how filmmaking in Unreal Engine compares to traditional filmmaking. This highlighted both the similarities and the differences, particularly in how scenes, cameras, and animations are handled in a real-time environment. The lesson showed how UE5 can be used not only for games, but also for cinematics, promotional content, and other visual media.

In addition, we learned how to build scenes using existing assets and how to create object relationships and motion through Blueprints. By linking objects and controlling their movement through a parent–child hierarchy, we were able to simulate pendulum-like motion using basic physics logic.