Unreal Engine - Automotive project

In order to get properly introduced to Unreal Engine and its capabilities every year students commits to a 2-3 weeks project. The goal for me this time was to just absorb as much information and knowledge as I could from the teachers and my own studies and make me feel comfortable using UE.

As the project started I quickly found a song I had on my mind and and crafted a story based on that. Since the music and story was created first it was incredibly motivating and easy to actually build in Unreal Engine because I had the vision in my head at all times and therefore I knew roughly what I wanted to achieve.

As for the project itself I wanted to focus more on the story and getting all the elements in place that could signal to myself and others how much I know and understand in Unreal Engine.

The story itself is about “bringing out the old” dustying it off and ride out into the sunset, It was for me a way to convey the somewhat outdated and old cars still have function and purpose as both me and my teacher agreed that the car model itself would not work in a more modern approach to automotive commercials.

Car model first - Everyting else: secondary

In order to make sure I would finish the project in time I made sure to prioritize the car model first, get it good enough to showcase and add all the features I desired. Then I could scale the world building element to how much time was remaining.

Once I had the model finished and rigged in blender, I started working on the actual idea and putting it on paper.

I first looked at the actual car model, corvette and deep dived into what is the selling points about the car and what kind of commercials have they done in the past.

Alot of research landed in car engine, speed and desert like countryside roads where all that horsepower could come to use.

I used various clips and pictures to formulate the idea into pictures with cuts to render out a mp4 to showcase my teacher and ask for feedback. I felt it was alot more impactful showing pictures with the music playing than a typical moodboard for this project.

Motionguide video

The audio mix was poorly made but i still got some valueable feedback on the car engine sound and the general look and feel i should go for. Most importantly the old Ford showroom was a good fit for a Corvette so getting that right could really help me set the tone.

Overall the general feel and story seemed to click so I went ahead and got to work.

References

Using pictures from my storyboard and inspiration material I could reverse search on google and find the exact locations to simply the process of gathering reference photos. It helped my understand the landscape, and not to overdo it with foliage and guesswork.

Feedback

I had been away on a 5-day ski trip in the middle of the project, so I had to cut some corners with render settings and polish in order to have something ready for feedback. While I was aware that there were many aspects that needed improvement, I still felt confident in the challenge. I had practiced while away and knew I could pull everything together at the end.

A lot of the feedback focused on how to end the piece, with suggestions to shorten it. We also had some deeper discussions about whether to animate on splines or not.

While I addressed all the feedback and made the necessary adjustments, I just couldn’t bring myself to shorten it further. The music and story felt solid, and I experimented with different edits and cuts in the music to make it work, but that’s where I got stuck. Normally, I can find ways to trim it down, but this time I didn’t feel any particular drag or slow moments in the shots. They felt straightforward with enough breathing room, so I trusted my intuition to maintain the length and focus on the presentation.

Result:

128 hours total

8 hours Editing

20 hours - car prep (modelling, rigging, blockout, aligning, normals)

8 hours showroom modelling

20 hours troubleshoot

18 hours world building

12 hours animating

86 hours total exluding lunch breaks, research etc…

Result