I'm going back to my roots, and where it all started - animations.
I started making animated movies in PowerPoint in 2005. I made my dog into a flying superhero, created complicated storylines about sentient AI robots and fairies, and so much more. I did this for a few years until I graduated into a real camera: my family's point-and-shoot camera. With this newfound power, I began experimenting with Windows Movie Maker, Sony Vegas Pro, Adobe After Effects, and Adobe Premiere Pro.
I was able to do so much more with these tools, like creating completely new worlds, giving myself the ability to bend the elements, and even racing in laundry baskets from my room (I painted my closet green to use it as a green screen).
And then I started coding - and creating videos took a break for a while. I love coding in the same way that I love making movies - I can take anything that I have in my head and make it real. But even as I modded games and created new apps, there was still something inside me that still wanted to make movies.
So I'm back, and I'm learning Unreal Engine 5 to bring my imagination to life. My brain has been overflowing with ideas lately, and I am very excited to learn and create.
Ben
For this next video, I learned how to use multiple shots in the sequencer and cut between them, plus a whole bunch of other stuff. It shows a custom character I made looking around for a hidden gem in an ice cave. I used a single phone to capture my body movement and a homemade head rig to capture my facial animation at the same time. Overall I'm happy with how this turned out, even if there are a few issues with the hair flopping around sometimes.
5/17/2025
Metahumans are a great way to create realistic humans in Unreal Engine. I've been wanting to try them out for a while to see how they work. My plan for my future movies is to use them heavily for all the characters, and I am very impressed with the results so far. The level of details is incredible and it follows the face animation really well. Next up I want to figure out how to take a motion capture performance and use that with a face animation at the same time to get a fully body performance.
5/10/2025
This is my first animation with Unreal Engine 5. I watched a couple videos on how to set things up, then found some random characters and a temple model. I added them to a simple scene, applied basic animations to them, and animated the camera to move a bit. Overall, I'm really happy with how this turned out, given that it's my first time creating an animation in UE5 and there's still so much more to learn and try!
4/26/2025