Hey Void Fam,
So here’s the deal: we gave ourselves one month to fully animate a short film using Unreal Engine 5.6 and AI. Spoiler alert: it’s chaos.
🎥 Mocap Madness
Last week we cranked out 66 mocap shots (out of 88 total). That means 12 of our 14 scenes are technically ready to animate. The catch? No hands. Eight of those 12 scenes have characters with mannequin mitts, so now we’re deep-diving into hand animation. Secretly, I wanted this project to force us to level up in that department—wish granted.
✍️ Bigfoot, Worldbuilding & Script Dreams
On top of animating, we’re also writing the feature version of this story. The short film is just proof of concept. Amber wrote a scene where our main character meets a Sasquatch named Howie and ends up shaving and waxing him in a weird buddy montage. Yes, it’s as bizarre as it sounds. Yes, we love it.
We’re worldbuilding on the fly, writing acts at a time, and hoping the story keeps pace with the animation. Big dreams. Big risks.
🖥️ Inside the Engine
Week two was all about dropping our mocap into UE5 and testing AI passes:
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We gave Unreal shots to AI with depth + edge maps and got back insanely detailed renders.
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Used Face Builder to morph Metahumans into our custom characters (Oliver, Benny, Martin the Bouncer, and Party Girl).
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Played with the virtual camera to mimic handheld and Steadicam shots inside the engine. (Spoiler: our first handheld tests look like garbage, but the tech itself is amazing.)
We also tested our “triple ControlNet trick” again—feeding bland renders into AI and watching them transform into cinematic gold. The results made us scream, “What the WHAT!?!” more than once.
😵 Everything Hurts
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Processing face mocap is eating days off the clock.
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Our mocap gloves broke (again), repairs are costing way more than expected, and shipping to Denmark is a nightmare.
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Our computers keep crashing.
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We’re over budget. We’re behind schedule. Amber hurt her back lifting our dog.
It’s a mess.
💀 The Reality Check
We planned for 5 scenes each this week. We finished… maybe 1 or 2 each. At this rate, our “1-month film” is drifting toward a 2-month film. And honestly? That’s probably okay. We’re learning so much so fast that the real value here isn’t just the finished short—it’s leveling up.
🚧 Next Week
We’re shifting into dialogue-heavy scenes + smaller cutaways, hoping to pick up momentum. Party Girl’s big sequence is next (25 shots 🤯). We’re aiming to keep pushing forward even if the deadline is already laughing at us.
Thanks for sticking with us while we bleed for this thing. We might not hit the goal, but we’re damn sure building something bigger than we thought possible when we started.
Onward.
🖤 Amber + Jayson
