Once the cat model was fully finished, including the joint setup and animations, it was time to bring everything into Unreal Engine. Importing the character into the engine was only the first step. After that, I spent time adjusting and refining the setup to make sure the animations worked smoothly and the character behaved as expected within the scene.
Project Summary
For this project, I created a short cinematic scene in Unreal Engine, set in a dark urban alley with a moody, nighttime atmosphere. The main goal was to explore cinematic storytelling through lighting, camera work, and character animation.
The environment consists of a narrow alley with brick walls, street lights, dumpsters, and supporting props to create a believable urban setting. Assets were sourced from Fab and arranged inside Unreal Engine. The lighting was intentionally kept low-key to enhance contrast and atmosphere, drawing inspiration from film-noir and cinematic night scenes.
The scene is built using multiple shots inside the Level Sequencer.
Each shot uses a CineCameraActor with customized lens settings such as focal length, aperture, and focus distance to achieve a cinematic look. The shots are connected using Camera Cuts, allowing them to play back as a continuous sequence.
A cat character was imported with pre-made animations created in Maya.
These animations, including tail movement and a walk cycle, were triggered and timed within the Sequencer.
The final sequence was rendered using Movie Render Queue as a PNG image sequence to preserve high image quality. The image sequence was then assembled into a video in Adobe Premiere Pro, where editing, cuts, and sound were added.
The final result is a short cinematic piece that conveys mood and narrative through visual composition, lighting, and animation rather than dialogue. The project demonstrates the use of Unreal Engine as a real-time cinematic tool and highlights skills in environment setup, camera sequencing, and animation integration.