Serra Lesson
The final render came out successfully in terms of animation and effects, with the ship movements, environmental particles, and overall composition translating well from the sequencer to the output. However, a clear discrepancy emerged between what was visible in the viewport and the final rendered result, particularly with the lighting and post-processing.
Despite setting up the post process volume and fog to enhance mood and depth, these visual elements appeared either muted or altered in the render. This suggests potential issues with render pipeline settings or post-process volume not being fully used by the Movie Render Queue.
The side-by-side comparison reveals a noticeable contrast between the viewport (left) and the final render (right). While motion blur was successfully implemented to convey speed and the chaos of the storm, the render appears to suffer from a significant loss of detail, particularly in the fog layers and overall colour depth.
This issue may stem from how post processing effects, colour grading, or fog parameters are being interpreted (or potentially overridden) during render export, especially when using formats like EXR. The presence of motion blur, though effective, could also be amplifying these losses in visual fidelity. It’s an area that warrants further investigation and experimentation, particularly when fine-tuning cinematic sequences.
Overall, this project was enjoyable, from developing the initial concept to assembling the environment in Gaea. The workflow allowed for creative exploration, blending procedural landscape generation with cinematic storytelling. Building the terrain in Gaea provided a unique foundation, especially with its node-based approach, which gave the project a sense of realism and depth that worked well once integrated into Unreal Engine 5.