Search Unity

  1. Megacity Metro Demo now available. Download now.
    Dismiss Notice
  2. Unity support for visionOS is now available. Learn more in our blog post.
    Dismiss Notice

New animated feature film made in Unity "M Doll"

Discussion in 'Virtual Production' started by imaginationrabbit, Nov 17, 2020.

  1. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349


    Hello- I'm an experienced professional animation filmmaker- One of my feature films did Sundance and won awards and all that so I'm in no way new to film making.

    I also make games and know Unity very well. Here's a recent game I made that makes animations.

    Anyhow, I'm making a new feature film in Unity called "M Doll" that will be completed in a few months.

    Here's a test clip to get an idea on what it will look/sound/feel like.

    Here's the making of site if you want to follow along. I do my best to share the process to help others make their own films with Unity.

    I'm making the film alone so you'll get the perspective of the smallest studio possible making a full length animated film in Unity with a budget of under $1000 usd.

    Here's my three other animated feature films so you can see that I've done this before :) I must say that through leveraging the power of Unity and what is available on the asset store, this will be my best looking and best animated film yet.

    If you have any questions about how I'm making this film in Unity etc please feel free to post your questions here. Thanks!
     
    kevinwheel and newguy123 like this.
  2. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349
    Another reason to use Slate as your cutscene editor is that the source is included-



    I extended the CameraShot class so now I can control the Depth Of Field, Bloom, Color Grading, lens distortion on a SHOT BY SHOT basis inside Slate without messing with Overrides or multiple Post effect volumes etc-

    I also extended the Depth of field controls so I can use a gameObject as a target to always be in focus like a super camera man :)

    By using it like this inside of Unity its like I have my professional 3d animation program(Cinema 4d), my video editor(Premiere Pro) and my effects program(After effects) all inside Unity and its all realtime o_O

    If you want to make your movie with Unity there has never been a better time than now.
     
    Blarp and BennyTan like this.
  3. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349

    The film is now in production and about 9 minutes of the film has been finished. You can read the latest making of entry here
     
  4. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349


    Working on heavy scenes has really slowed my pc down as I only have a 1070ti-

    I'm rendering at 4k and all the models have 4k textures-

    By working with a lower preview resolution in the game view (2048 x 858) and by switching to a quality setting with lower res textures (1/4 res) I'm able to now work really fast. The viewport literally flies now.

    Unity Recorder will allow you to automatically render at a custom res so that will auto toggle itself up to 4k at render time.

    I made this simple script so the Quality settings will also auto-toggle when Recording in Unity recorder- it will switch back to low res when recording has stopped.
     
  5. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349
    The first teaser trailer for the film has been released- check it out in 4k here on youtube.
     
  6. Age_Of_Ultra

    Age_Of_Ultra

    Joined:
    Jan 3, 2021
    Posts:
    8
    Music is similar to the one used in the curious case of benjamin button teaser :)
     
  7. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349
    Second teaser trailer for the film- be careful, its a bit nightmarish ;)
     
  8. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349
    A note to people wanting to make films with Unity-

    Unity cannot make your film for you- it doesn't matter what assets you buy, they cannot create a story for you.

    Cinemachine is great but it cannot teach you cinematography or how to direct.

    If you do not learn storytelling and filmmaking you will just be making demo reels or music videos with Unity.

    Unity is amazing tech, tech helps you make films faster, easier and cheaper but it cannot make a film for you.

    So if you are trying to make a film with Unity but have not learned the basics of storytelling, cinematography, or directing you need to learn those things before you can make a "film" with Unity IF you expect it to not be complete garbage that no one else but you is willing to watch for longer than 15 seconds ;)

     
  9. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349
    Here is a silent scene from the film- no sound fx/design yet



    73 minutes of the film have been completed in about 2.5 months of production by a single artist.

    Here are the workflow stats through 73 minutes of the film.

    Number of completed storyboard pages per day: 1.2 pages/day
    Number of completed shots per day: 15.2 shots/day
    Number of completed film minutes per day: 1.5 minutes/day

    By looking at the numbers the finished film will be about 105 minutes in length and take one more month to complete.

    This is with a SINGLE artist, if this was scaled up to 3-4 artists a studio could realistically create 3-4 animated feature films a year this way.

    For our next film we will hire additional artists and most likely use HDRP, though we are going to give Unreal Engine a good hard look to see if that would be better suited to making films the way we are now.
     
    Last edited: Mar 6, 2021
    fablemaker likes this.
  10. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349
    82 minutes of the film is complete now.

    Here is the third teaser trailer
     
  11. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349
    Official trailer for the first animated feature film made %100 in Unity- it was also %100 funded/produced with cryptocurrency-

     
    BenniKo likes this.
  12. Bobbeast

    Bobbeast

    Joined:
    Jul 17, 2018
    Posts:
    3
    Some haunting music there
     
  13. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349
    The film is finished- just waiting on the musicians working on the soundtracks(doing 4 soundtracks)

    Here's another trailer


    In the meantime we are updating our game that makes animations "Nightmare Puppeteer" and started on our next animated feature film we will also make in Unity. We tested Unreal 5 but found it too buggy for our use, also the lack of C# script is a big minus for us.
     
  14. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349
    Final trailer for our new animated feature film made in Unity to be released in a few months


    For fun we used our game that makes animations "Nightmare Puppeteer" to make a crazy animated feature film in a single week recently- you can watch it here


    You can get Nightmare Puppeteer on steam here
     
  15. lalefi

    lalefi

    Joined:
    Apr 27, 2021
    Posts:
    14
    this is so insanely fantastic, good job!
     
  16. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349
    Hey glad you like it- here's a little glimpse into how it was made


    We will be doing full video tutorials into our style of filmmaking with Unity in the near future-

    Also here is the list of assets we used to make the film https://assetstore.unity.com/lists/idgaf-filmmaking-tools-233554
     
    Starpaq2 and hunz like this.
  17. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349
    We turned M doll into the first interactive animated feature film ever made :)

    We're releasing it an an executable made in Unity. So a film made in Unity released in Unity.

    Check it out next week @ https://mdollmovie.com/
     
  18. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349
    mgear likes this.
  19. Enigma229

    Enigma229

    Joined:
    Aug 6, 2019
    Posts:
    135
    I’d be interested to know more about your pipeline in Unity.

    How does Slate compare to Timeline, Sequencer?

    How do you get your footage to an offline editor (Recorder? output as an image sequence?)

    What pipeline are you using (HDRP)?
     
  20. imaginationrabbit

    imaginationrabbit

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2013
    Posts:
    349
    As a filmmaker I find Slate superior to Timeline. It just works in a way that makes more sense to a filmmaker + its open source and easily extendable.

    Recorder, yes- as a ProRes 422 video.

    I made some custom scripts like this for it

    Built in render pipeline- I tested HDRP before starting this film and found it too buggy, cumbersome and slow for our uses.