Why use Unreal Engine? Why not (insert other animation software)?

Compared to traditional rendering pipelines, Unreal Engine offers unparalleled feedback and speed, particularly for a team of one. With Unreal, I can preview lighting set ups, materials, and FX instantly without having to learn multiple programs or wait hours and hours for renders. And through study and practice, I can push the visual fidelity of my scenes far further than what I would be able to accomplish through a traditional renderer without an experienced team.

How many people worked on Forlorn?

Forlorn was made almost entirely by a team of two people. Alex St. Pierre (me) is the series creator, and is responsible for the lions share of the art, animation, sound, and editing. The music for the project is composed by Toft Willingham. In addition, Lindsey St. Pierre provided assistance with facial rigs for the main human characters as well as some concept and design artwork.

What does your pipeline look like?

I use Maya for modelling, rigging, and animation (including cameras). Textures were painted for the hero assets through Substance Painter. Much of the environments are textured through a combination of methods mostly utilizing Megascans materials. All of that data is then imported into Unreal, where I do lighting, FX, and render out the final image. I take the image sequences into Adobe Premiere, where I assemble them into the final edit. Sound design is created in Premiere through a few different licensed sound effects pack, combined with some foley I perform in my office. Music is then added and the sound is mixed, resulting in the finished episode.

For future shorts, I hope to move more of the process directly into Unreal, curtailing or perhaps all-together cutting out Maya from the pipeline (though it has it’s many uses, I doubt I’ll ever be able to stop using it completely).

What were your technical specs?

The initial release was created using Unreal 4.25 and rendered on an Nvidia GTX 1080ti—very weak compared to what’s available these days.

How much time did an episode take to make?

In terms of the overall timeline I began modeling the first character in October 2018, and after finishing all the assets and animation the prototype film came out almost exactly one year later, in October 2019. From there I remade the main characters and built the first set, and released the first episode proper in July 2020. Afterwards each episode took roughly 3-4 months apiece of working in my spare time to create the assets and to animate.

Did you make all the assets yourself?

All of the characters and most major props were modeled by me in Maya and then painted in Substance Painter. The majority of the environments were created by kitbashing together several asset packs, in addition to some custom modelling.

Where can I follow more about the project?

Why, several places! If you want to follow the original production, you can check out the blog on this website, as well as on my social media pages. Links to those can be found on the website header.