Welcome to my behind-the-scenes look at Steel Titans, a short film I created using Unreal Engine 5. In this blog post, I’ll walk you through how I set up the environments, animated the characters, orchestrated epic destruction scenes, and tackled both technical and creative challenges. Along the way, I used a combination of free and purchased assets, leveraged Unreal’s powerful Sequencer, and conducted a final post-production pass in DaVinci Resolve and After Effects.
(Throughout this post, I’ll add screenshots to illustrate each major step.)
1. Project Overview
Steel Titans started as a personal project to learn more about:
Animating in Unreal Engine
Environment building
Cinematic rendering
Combining multiple software tools (Resolve, After Effects, etc.)
The core concept is a towering robot (from Unreal Paragon assets and other monthly free assets) navigating two different environments—a hangar and a city—with plenty of destruction along the way.
2. Assets & Tools
Unreal Paragon Assets
High-quality Paragon characters from Epic’s Marketplace formed the basis for my robot models and animations.
Other Free & Purchased Assets
Sketchfab for free building models suitable for destruction sequences.
Monthly free assets from the Unreal Engine Marketplace for props, environment details, and effects.
Smoke and explosion effects, some free and some purchased.
Additional cyborg ninja asset from Unreal Engine Fab.
Environment Kits
Hangar environment: Assembled using modular pieces (walls, floors, scaffolding).
City environment: Built with free and purchased cityscape assets. Roads were created using Unreal splines.
Additional Tools & Plugins
Volumetric Sky Plugin (Unreal Engine Fab) for dynamic skies.
Unreal Water Body for oceans and water surfaces.
AI Voice Generation from Eleven Labs for voiceovers.
Sound Effects from Artlist.io.
DaVinci Resolve for trimming and color correction.
After Effects for ground shake, HUD elements, and extra VFX such as explosions and smoke overlays in each shot.
(Screenshot: Asset library in the Unreal Content Browser.)
3. Environment Setup
3.1 Landscape & Hangar
I began by creating a landscape in Unreal Engine, experimenting with sculpting and texture painting. Then I built a hangar environment:
Dropped in the hangar walls, floor, and structural assets.
Created the road system leading to the hangar with Unreal splines.
Placed props (crates, barrels, machinery) to make the space feel lived-in.
Experimented with lighting—directional light, skylight, and interior lights for a cinematic look.
(Screenshot: Hangar scene layout with lighting details.)
3.2 City Layout
For the city sequence:
Laid down a city block using modular buildings, sidewalks, and street props.
Used the Unreal Water Body plugin to create ocean segments.
Set up dynamic lighting and post-process volumes for consistent grading.
Tested performance vs. visual fidelity, especially important with explosions and fracturing.
(Screenshot: City block overview, showing water body and background skyline.)
4. Sequencer Setup
Unreal Engine’s Sequencer was critical in planning and orchestrating cinematic shots:
Organize Shots: Separate sequences for hangar, city, and destruction shots.
Camera Angles: Multiple cameras—wide shots for scale, close-ups for action details, first-person for immersion.
Post Process Volume: Tweaked bloom, exposure, and color grading to match the desired cinematic style.
(Screenshot: Sequencer timeline with multiple camera cuts.)
5. Robot Animation & Destruction Scenes
5.1 Robot Animation
Imported the robot model (Paragon assets) with built-in animations.
Edited the animation blueprint to slow certain movements, emphasizing the robot’s scale.
Positioned the robot in the hangar, then animated turns, walks, and interactions.
(Screenshot: Robot animation blueprint in Unreal Engine.)
5.2 First Destruction Scene
Used Unreal’s Fracture Tools on a building from Sketchfab.
Created a trigger explosion in Sequencer for a timed building collapse.
Added smoke particles to accompany the fracture event for realism.
(Screenshot: Fracture Editor with chunk settings in Unreal Engine.)
https://i.imgur.com/2EaoHUa.png
6. City Sequences
Moving into the city environment:
City Layout: Larger, open spaces with taller buildings to highlight scale.
Camera Work: Low-angle shots looking up at the robot, aerial shots, and first-person ground views.
Lighting & Mood: Combined baked lightmaps and dynamic lighting for explosions.
Multiple Destruction Shots: Timed explosions with triggers in Sequencer, complemented by particle effects and camera cuts.
(Screenshot: City block destruction moment in Sequencer.)
7. Rendering & Post-Production
7.1 Render Passes
Rendered the actor (robot) and background separately in Apple ProRes with alpha for easy compositing.
Rendered the cyborg ninja asset similarly, then combined these in DaVinci Resolve.
(Screenshot: Render Movie Settings in Unreal Engine.)
7.2 DaVinci Resolve & After Effects
Initial Cut in Resolve: Trimming footage, arranging shots, basic color pass.
Import into After Effects: Added ground shake, extra explosion and smoke effects in each shot, and a HUD display for cockpit scenes.
Final Color Correction: Returned to Resolve for final grading—adjusted contrast, highlights, and added a subtle vignette.
(Screenshot: DaVinci Resolve timeline with color correction nodes.)
8. Sound & Voice Work
Voiceover: Created via Eleven Labs AI text-to-speech for narration.
Sound Effects: Acquired from Artlist.io—explosions, mechanical noises, ambient city hustle.
Mixed voice and SFX in Resolve for balanced audio matching on-screen action.
(Screenshot: Audio track mixing in DaVinci Resolve.)
9. Final Output
After integrating destruction shots, robot animations, city vistas, hangar sequences, and well-synced audio, I exported from DaVinci Resolve. A final outro animation wrapped everything up, and with that, Steel Titans was complete!
10. Conclusion & Lessons Learned
Creating Steel Titans proved an excellent way to explore:
Environment Building: Combining free/purchased assets with custom landscapes.
Cinematic Sequencing: Multiple cameras and thoughtful lighting for storytelling.
Fracture & VFX: Explosions, smoke, and triggers for believable destruction.
Post-Production Workflow: Flexible compositing by splitting render passes, plus final touches in After Effects and Resolve.
Audio Integration: AI-driven voiceovers and professional SFX for a polished experience.
I hope this inspires you to dive into Unreal Engine cinematics, experiment with Marketplace assets, and push your creative boundaries.
(Final Screenshot: A still frame from the Steel Titans short film, robot towering in the city environment.)
11. Key Takeaways & Issues
Despite the excitement, Steel Titans wasn’t without challenges:
Scene Setup Visualization: Translating the script into visual elements was harder than expected. Blocking out scenes took multiple revisions to get the pacing right.
Camera Angles & Timing: Finding the perfect camera angles and syncing them with the robot’s animation required trial-and-error. Sequencer’s dope sheet and timeline helped, but it was still time-consuming.
Animation Timing: Slowing down or speeding up animations to convey the correct scale or energy often disrupted existing keyframes, leading to repeated retargeting and fine-tuning.
Overall Rendering & VFX Workflow: Balancing real-time playback performance with high-quality final renders meant frequent toggling of settings (dynamic shadows, volumetric fog, etc.).
After Effects for Explosions & Smoke: Although I used Unreal’s native VFX for many shots, layering additional explosions and smoke in After Effects gave more control—yet keeping track of each shot’s timing was tedious.
Lighting Consistency: Switching between day/night or adjusting exposure for destruction scenes sometimes caused mismatched lighting or color grading across sequences.
Asset Management: Using free monthly assets plus purchased ones added complexity—organizing folders and ensuring everything was referenced properly was crucial.
Fracture Simulations: Setting up the fracture triggers and ensuring the chunks behaved realistically required multiple tests; small changes in mass or collision settings often caused big differences in final results.
Cockpit Scenes: Designing a convincing cockpit/HUD overlay demanded both Unreal environment setup and After Effects compositing. Getting the angles right so it felt cohesive was a challenge.
Voice & Audio Timing: Generating AI voice tracks on the fly was quick, but matching the exact timecodes of the visuals and re-exporting for final took more effort than expected.
Color Consistency Across Tools: Moving between Unreal Engine, DaVinci Resolve, and After Effects introduced color-space nuances. Keeping the final image consistent required LUTs and color checks.
Despite these hurdles, each challenge was an opportunity to learn. Overcoming them gave me a more thorough understanding of the entire pipeline—from pre-visualization to final color grading.