ZHUBinbin(Ben)'s blog

Month: December 2025

Categories
UE5

8. Animation: Ghost effect and vampire effect in mirror

It’s the most tricky part for me.

Because in my scene, the character have different looking with the shadow in the mirror and also has interaction with it, which breaks the physic rule. I need to make sure UE5 can make these 2 effects:

  1. ghost effect: only cast shadows in the mirror but the main character are not visible.
  2. vampire effect: only see the main character but it doesn’t cast shadows.

If I have two duplicated main characters with these two effect individually, I am able to control the main character and ghost separately.

I research for lot of methods but they didn’t work, but finally I found this asset which saved my life!

By using lumen and hardware raytracing,
If I want to achieve ghost effect, I need to change this on my detail panel:
click off for visible

Click affect indirect lighting

If I want to achieve vampire effect, I need to change this on my detail panel:

click off
And finally, do this in post process volume, So that I get the effect.

Categories
UE5 Uncategorised

7. Control rig + bake animation

For my main character beluga, the asset only have skeleton mesh with simple animation. But I want to have more flexible control on my character.

So the first step I create the control rig for this skeleton mesh. Because of the straight body shape, It’s easier for sea animation to rig. So I create the controller one by one:

And I did an animation test by key framing the controller:

Then I realize I also need those preset animations like swim and idle pose which I already have in the asset to give it a sense of naturally floating in water. But I found out the control rig and animation are not fit well, if I want to apply preset animation I have to delay the control rig. So I wonder is there a way that I can use the control rig on top of my animation.

I watch a lot of online tutorial and found out there is a function called bake animation to control rig. Basically, it treats animation data like motion capture data and applies that on the control rig.

How to Modify an Animation Sequence in Unreal Engine: Bake to Control RIg – YouTube

But I found out I couldn’t find my rig inside bake animation button. I found result on Epic game community—because I only have forward solve direction when I was rigging, I also need to add a backward solve direction so that I can bake the animation back to the control rig.

Control Rig Forwards Solve and Backwards Solve in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.5 Documentation | Epic Developer Community

And I manipulate again on my control rig:

I choose and apply the animation that I want for the character first, after that I bake the animation on my control rig and get a series of keys. By adding a additive track of control rig, I got another track to control the animation on top of the original one in a non-destructive way.

Categories
UE5

6. Experiment plugin 2: Cinematographer pro

I want to improve the image quality of my work to make it looks more realistic like a real camera output. So I download this plug-in. Basically it is a tool to simulate real world camera setting, and because I have photography experience, I found it easy to use. But the problem is this camera need all the light also have the same lighting value in reality. So I adjust all the lighting in my scene based on this sheet:

And I get this effect:

Categories
Body mechanics Character animation

Week8-12: Body mechanic final shot

Progress:

I originally plan to practice walk to sit and stand to walk actions, which are basic body mechanics movements.

But Ting thought it was too much workload, so I cut it to stand and walk only.

I studied the human shape walk cycle online and made my own version. I learnt deeper about how the human body can be performed as a bouncing ball.

Then, based on Ting’s advice, I made the character more cartoonish by adding more reasonable overlapping for different parts of the body. I understand that from root to head is a pendulum or squirrel tail, the leg and arm are also tails that the upper part will drag the lower part. And I come up with the idea by using the blue pencil tool in Maya to draw the overlapping guideline, and also the line of action that I want for root control. Here is what I got:

Categories
UE5

5. Experiment plugin 1: waterline pro

Because this scene highly relies on the water effect, especially I want some underwater effect. So I downloaded this waterline asset online. But it’s not simply drag and drop, I need to make sure the water fits well in my scene. So I watch a lot of tutorials about it. And I make this effect:

Categories
25/26 1.2 Design for Animation, Narrative Structures & Film Language

Week11: ZHU Binbin visual presentation

Categories
25/26 1.2 Design for Animation, Narrative Structures & Film Language

Week10: Harvard Reference

General Writing & Formatting

  • Sources: Use peer-reviewed texts (books, scholarly articles) and recognized academic sites. Avoid personal blogs, film reviews, or YouTube unless referencing a specific animation unavailable elsewhere.
  • Formatting: Use 12-point Times New Roman or Arial font with 1.5 or 2.0 line spacing.
  • Style: Write concisely without “waffle” or colloquialisms/slang. Avoid personal language (e.g., “I,” “my,” “in my opinion”) and emotive language. Use passive verbs and impersonal subjects to maintain objectivity.
  • Titles: Italicize film, animation, and book titles. Use quotation marks for journal articles, songs, and book chapters.

In-Text Citations

  • Attribution: Brief references require the author’s surname, publication date, and page number (e.g., (Pallant, 2011, p. 35)).
  • Short Quotations: Incorporate quotes up to three lines into the sentence using double quotation marks.
  • Long Quotations: Indent quotes of approximately 40 words or more by 1cm on each side. Separate them from the body text and do not use quotation marks.

Bibliography (Harvard Style)

Arrange references alphabetically by author surname.

  • Books: Surname, Initial. (Year) Title. Edition. Place: Publisher.
  • Journal Articles: Surname, Initial. (Year) ‘Title of article’, Title of Journal, Issue info, Page reference.
  • Films: Title of film (Year) Directed by… [Film]. Place: Distribution company.
  • Websites: Surname, Initial. (Year) Title of web page. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Categories
UE5

4. Material: mirror reflection using lumen and ray tracing

The mirror effect is for the wall of the aquarium, to let the main character beluga see its shadow, which gives more sense of isolation. I downloaded the glass material asset, changed the parameter and added scratched texture which can simulate the horror effect.

To make the reflection works. the key is to set some parameters for lumen and ray tracing in the project setting.

I cut half of the sewer mesh asset and assign glass martial on it. And here is what I got: