A FILM WHERE YOU ARE THE DIRECTOR

HUMANS is an interactive film experience where the viewer decides where the story goes as it progresses. 
It's all about experimentation and story. The project is all in conceptual stages and doesn't reflect the final art style and look.

STATUS: The project is on hold due to daily work stuff, and because I've been dedicating more time to screenwriting. I hope to resume this at some point in 2022, and hire a crew to make it right together!

CORE OBJECTIVES

Make a CGI short film
Interactivity
Use UE4 game engine
Test personal skills
Film art direction on UE4
High quality real-time visuals
Visual development focused

SKILLS USED / WORK DONE

Writing
Concept art
Matte Painting
Digital cinematography
Lighting
3D modeling
Texturing
Animation
Environment art-design
User Interface / Graphic Design
Basic scripting

TOOLS

Modo
Substance
Unreal Engine 4
World Machine
Illustrator
Photoshop
After Effects
Megascans
Zbrush
Final Draft
Davinci Resolve

THE ART / THE RESULTS

ANIMATION TESTS

Some animation tests done in Modo and Unreal Engine 4, the goal is to just capture the feel of a high-quality CGI animation using a videogame engine. It's good to mention I'm neither an animator or character artist, so all things here are just conceptual.

THE WORLD ART

ENVIRONMENT ART

The creative direction for the environment is highly supportive of the narrative, there are 2 major areas where most of the story takes place: An external landscape in a volcanic island repurposed as dumping grounds for obsolete or out of commission SIMS. The island is also home to a massive secret underground base maintained by the company SIMSENSE, where the key moments of the film takes place. This underground facility no known purpose, until you watch the film.

Here you can see some pan shots captured from Unreal Engine 4, showing the overal aestethics, look and feel of the volcanic island. Parts of this environment can be explored during the story.

SET DRESSING FOR REAL-TIME FILM

The environment ultimate form is on Unreal Engine 4, so camera and light are adjusted like in a movie set, but updated live as the story progresses. Assets were made in Foundry's Modo and textured in Substance Painter.
Some 3rd party resources were used such as Quixel Megascans library of textures, materials and models; Other starter models and texture packs were bought for set decoration.

ENVIRONMENT DESIGN AND TERRAIN

The island is a large terrain initially designed in World Machine, with textures re-worked in Photoshop and substance, then exported to Unreal Engine 4 and manually refined for a month, using several assets and textures from Megascans which provided an amazing level of realism. Assets were made as needed in Modo, and others carefully crafted for specific shots, such as close-ups or panoramic views to show the massive scale where SIMSENSE built their unground facility.

HISTORY THROUGH OBJECTS

PROPS USED TO TELL BACKSTORY

Props play important narrative roles in the experience by interaction with them, they also provide hints of backstory points. Some props are strategically spread across the environment, like the manuals in the examples below, where operation manuals and guides for several of the SIMSENSE services are explained and warnings issued.

SIMSENSE AND THE WORLD

SIMSENSE CHANGED THE WORLD OF HUMANS

SIMSENSE is a company that developed synthetic biological replacements for human body parts and also a SIM-BODY experience, allowing people wanting to be someone else, to experience that. It also allows people on the brink of biological human life expiration to have a second shot at life, by transferring themselves to a SIMULIFE, but the world was not ready for it.

Massive opposition immediately started, yet SINSENSE rose to power by offering eternal life to everyone that could afford it. The issue was that shortly after the 3rd generation of SIMULIFE, unorthodox uses of Sim-people appeared everywhere, and more people volunteered themselves to become enslaved by benefactors promising SIMULIFE (eternal life); Basically, they receive the gift of eternal life, but find themselves being modern-times slaves, bound to their benefactors forever.

TO BE CONTINUED