Unreal 5.2 Cinematic Camera Tutorial

welcome today um today I figured we're going to talk about uh cinematic camera setup I've uh noticed that a lot of people uh you know are not are not very clear on how to set up a cinematic cameras and cinematic lighting I will not go into the lighting part today I'll do this in a separate uh video but this is going to be about setting up the the camera now I uh I I really just built this in the in the last couple of hours I I took inspiration from a mid-journey image so I figured I can probably build this in Unreal Engine relatively quickly so this is kind of it's not quite the same but um as I said this was really just done in a couple of hours and I think it's a good setup to to kind of like demonstrate uh cinematic camera setups now um to to kind of like just just uh mention a little bit where I'm coming from if you go to my other tutorials you will see that I have unreal tutorials and I have camera tutorials and the reason for that is is that cameras are kind of like my I have been my bread and butter for a long time and for this presentation I thought it might be fun to to just put in you know um you know a selection of cameras that I've used uh over the years so the oldest cameras that I've ever uh done anything we've shot anything with or about a hundred years old so this is a French sept and a DeVry you know from a company in Chicago um eclair camflix uh which is a is a French camera a uh eclair NPR there's a 16 millimeter camera this year by the way is the only camera that I'm aware of uh that can shoot 35 and 16 millimeter film um shot Super 8 dumb bull you this is a French bull you Super 8 this is a French uh bullion uh 16 millimeter very similar to the bowlex which I don't have uh in that list uh Azad with uh atan's ltrs xtrs this is an LTR this is an a Minima it's a great little camera um of course uh rflex SRS sr1 sr2sr3 rfx 416 so these are 16 millimeter cameras um rfx 35 millimeter cameras this is a 35 3 uh but all the way to the deuce 2C this is a BL um there's also several incarnation of those uh movie cam compact Austrian camera which then later on was purchased by Ari Flex uh and turned into the array cam um then uh Panavision uh yeah the G2 gold 2 uh um is is an example here uh the Aton 35 3 um I used to be a fan uh uh photosynx technician uh so I I've worked with the photo Sonic's cameras this is a 4v4er right here this is an action Master that's a 16 millimeter that's a 35 millimeter camera um a shot on the Sony f900 which is the first HD camera these are the pre the star was prequels two and three were shot with that uh and uh I used to also be a phantom technician so this was you know in the HD days when when um when Phantom built an HD camera uh then uh you know raid one uh RED Epic RED Gemini uh red Komodo um about to to uh get my hands on a Raptor uh and then of course um Alexa classic uh xst Alexa mini so um so the only the only reason I'm I'm you know I'm showing this is because I I didn't I just wanted to show you guys I didn't just pick up a DSLR and and kind of like came up with with some of the stuff I've really been dealing with uh high-end cameras all the way from um from you know uh semi like the Super 8 for example or even black magic cameras I'll put those more into the consumer grade area and all the way to to you know high-end um like you know piano vision and uh um and rfx uh and whatnot so um and I've been doing this for about 20 years so uh and and you know in since about a couple of years I'm I'm um also working inside Unreal Engine and I you know I enjoy combining the two uh very much but so without further Ado let's let's get into the into the camera setup so it's kind of like just give you an idea how this year is done so this is a very simple set up right here uh very simply put together and uh one of the first things that's already in here but I'm gonna hide it whoops maybe not uh I'm just going to show you how to set up a post process volume because that that is an important step so you're going to need to go into your volumes and when you go on to here just type in post uh and you can come up with a post-process volume so this is not a second one right here and the first thing you want to do with this post-process volume you want to make it infinite otherwise it's only going to take effect when you are when your camera is physically in it so you want to type in infinite and uh check the infinite extend checkbox right here so and now uh in in your your post process volume you want to set a few things uh to the rather important now a lot of the stuff we can set up in the cameras it is convenient doing it in the post process volume because it will affect all the cameras unless you change the set unless you highlight the setting and change it inside the camera uh it will um it will the camera will essentially take its settings from here so it makes a lot of sense to do some of the things in here but I will uh so for this to be less confusing I'll just set up you know a couple of things and then the rest will do in the camera so uh one of the the most important thing that you're gonna need to do is you're gonna need to uh uh change the metering mode uh to you know which this is by by default the engine is set up to Auto exposure which is a problem so we are we're going to change this to manual and we're gonna set this to zero and what's most likely going to happen on your end right now if you set up the lighting it's probably going to go completely black and this is then when you have to just go in here and start adjusting um you know in this case my my lights uh have been adjusted to to match this so that you're gonna have to go into your lighting intensity and interest up that until it looks the way you want it uh but this now is also so this is measured in Candelas right here this is a much more realistic uh reading I think off the truck they come like at eight candles or something so um so this is a much more realistic uh uh setting right now um and and with that now once that once you have relit that scene using your post process volume in this way um you you're ready to to drop in a camera and so in this particular case what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna uh I have a whole bunch of cameras in here for demo purposes so I'll show you those later but I will um I'll now create a camera so you wanna uh place a uh cine camera actor create camera here cine camera actor don't don't not a camera actor so you just want to go please just seeing a camera actor and then in this case I am going to my placed actor number 14 so this is our cine camera actor and now let's take a look on on you know how how this comes off the truck so the first thing is um it's you know you have to you have to figure out what your film gauge is so when I when I showed a bunch of different cameras before uh you know some were Super 8 some were digital some were 35. um some were you know uh um well actually if there was no but uh some of them may have a large sensor so so the the thing is that that you want to uh you want to match this to a certain look that that you're interested in so if you you know if if you want to make it look like a certain movie that you have seen that you like then um then it makes sense to to look up uh what it was shot on and uh to to you know adjust your camera accordingly uh one of the things that's important to note is that not all you know different manufacturers make sensors slightly different so for example if I switch this here to Super 35 all right then I will get um you know 24.8 uh by 18.66 now I'm sure this is true for for uh this is probably true for film uh but then on the on the other hand if I if I now go and uh Google like let's say a red Komodo sensor size um then which is also advertised as super 35 then you can see right here we are getting a larger sensor so the the red Komodo still qualifies as super 35 so you can see this right here but it is actually slightly larger right which actually matters when it comes to lens choices on that camera but um but you know if you really want to match that red Komodo for example uh which you know is actually a very good camera to shoot on a um in Virtual production on a volume because it has a global shutter um so so then you would probably want to match uh this setting right here so but I'm Gonna Leave It uh leave it here at Super 35 now a lot of movies have been shot on on super 35 or on a regular 35 so this would be 35 Academy 35 millimeter Vista vision is uh is running the film sideways through so it's almost twice as big actually as as of 35 Academy so it's it that actually Compares a lot more to 35 millimeter DSLR um IMAX is the the biggest one that's on here so that's 65 millimeter film for 70 millimeter projection um the smallest film that's on here is super 8. uh and then there's also of course super 16 which is kind of like an in between um Super 8 is fairly pretty much never used for for uh professional motion picture production uh there may be some segments uh or music videos can be shot with this uh super 16 uh some films have been shot on that um you know Black Swan is a good example so it's not it's not very commonly shot but it has been done um super 35 and 35 are um the these are the most common even though lately uh large formats so that would be this year or this year or even this year is is essentially becoming the standard really um nowadays so more and more movies are shot in large format but I was thinking now with super 35 um and and one thing that is uh greatly misunderstood is just because this is the sensor size of a super 35 millimeter camera doesn't mean we're shooting this format um the the reality is that the vast majority of movies are cropped in one way or another and and you actually have right here a uh a crop setting right here it says no crop and if you look right here the most common um and this is actually the you know the guys from epic should update this because there is a there is a there's a couple of issues here um the the 235 is is the standard I'm sorry 239 is the standard for uh widescreen so this is correct 177 to 1 equates to 16 by nine uh and one three three um equates to roughly four by three uh now that is the silent aspect ratio so if I click on that nothing is really much Gonna Change so that was uh uh silent for sounds the uh the old aspect ratio was actually 137 to one and the most common movie aspect ratio besides um besides 239 is actually 185 to 1 and not 177. so if um you know in this in this case we would we would want to do this custom all right uh but we're gonna we're gonna stick with two three nine uh widescreen um that's a nice format it's very cinematic one of the things that um you do want to consider when you make these choices is that you know there should be a reason I believe why you make some some Choice um you shouldn't just pick 133 or 137 just because just because it's vintage um one of the things that you need to be aware of is that this is associated with television by a lot of people at least those people who are used to still have had a 4x3 television and television was before this before the streaming boom started um movies that were done for television were associated with being cheaper made so so uh there certainly is a subconscious um a relation between this aspect ratio and it not being as valuable or expensively made a movie as this aspect ratio this is probably going to change now that essentially streaming has has you know started playing around with aspect ratios and uh you know streaming shows are essentially getting you know more funding than some movies so there's certainly some changes that that will be made but um you know where a way that this is gonna feel different in the future uh to to Future Generations but at this point you know Generations that have grown up with um with the older style televisions will probably still have subconsciousness of this Association so it's just you know it's your call I'm just making you aware of it okay so now we um have set up this in the manual exposure on our post process volume and the rest I'm gonna do in camera even though most of this you can also do in the post process volume I'm going to delete my second post process volume now because I've already set this up and I um you know don't wanna conflict this okay so um we are going so we have our cine camera actor here which I forgot how already did that so yeah so we're already in the camera so it's uh uh um super 35 and we are at um in a 239 crop all right so the first thing we're gonna set up here is our focal length and for a reason that I don't quite know um 11.88 is the go-to choice of uh epic games and uh this is really not a focal lymph that that you know I'm aware of is existing maybe it does I don't know uh but usually you know uh Focus are in millimeters and um there are 11 millimeter lenses for sure um so this this would be on the wide end uh a standard uh focal length that you know you would see is a 16 millimeter for example let's actually go to our camera so we can see the changes everywhere on it kill him it just okay yeah all right so just to see that so here is an 11 that would be a fairly standard you know well already on the wide set of end of the lens set a 16 is still a very wide lens and for super 35 then um so well you would then probably having to set a 25 whoopsie 25 mil so that's kind of like this you would then uh have a 35 which is kind of like your normal lens in super 30 well super 35 is a little bigger bigger than normal 35 so that would be probably more like a 45 is your normal lens so in between 35 and 50 is normal and when I say normal or standard we're talking about um the way your eyes kind of like see the world so this would be in between 35 and 50 millimeter if this is a DSLR then it would you know with a full size sensor then this would be more of a 50 millimeter and then we um then we go into the telephoto range so we would probably in a set maybe have a 75 millimeter and potentially a 90 millimeter and maybe 100 millimeter or 125 and you know uh so so obviously camera position has never changed you can see as I'm upping this focal length um you you can um you can you can essentially um you know uh you can see how the higher number brings us closer or at least in in um makes it look like it's closer uh one thing that is important to notice is that the longer lens so a 100 millimeter would be called a long lens um is you know the longer the lenses the more it compresses space so look at the elevator door behind our character on a hundred millimeter lens and look how close it looks she actually is through that door if I go now to let's say a 25 millimeter it will look like she is farther away or even you know going to back to an 11 whoopsie 11. yeah so it it looks like there is more space between her and the door The Wider focal length uh I'm going at I'm going to right so let me do another extreme here 200 so you see it it looks like she's standing right in front of it now or it might be you know it's right the door is right behind um so it's this is really the way that this the the lens uh crops out the the image you know so this is we're technically zooming in and out um so in in a on a movie set you would not um you would you know well some similar photographers do you use zooms um but most of the time um primes are being used now if you want to match a an exact set then um all you got to do is just find your uh set online and then find out what the focal lengths are so I just um I just Googled right here um cookies Force so um so this right here shows you you know S4 is an 18 a 21 a 25 32 40 50 65 75 100 and 135 uh the T 2.8 is the aperture so this is how much light they can let through this is admittedly not a very fast lens especially nowadays you know they're pretty much on a slow end very good lenses but a little slow-ish so all right um and this is the this is right here is this aperture so you see the aperture is the um should have left that window open um demonstrate this to you so the aperture is is this right here so you know if your your lens is is wide open the higher that this number goes the more uh this lens closes and um the the more uh uh you know the darker your image gets uh the uh the you know the the lens before you saw was uh advertised as a 2.8 so this is means that it can only you know let uh this much light through okay so some lenses are faster um once you go into uh once you go faster than two uh then then it's called super speed and uh once you get faster than one at this point uh which there isn't much um your lenses are often referred to as knocked in okt I believe uh lenses and so because they're extremely light sensitive so um the you know I I personally use these apertures these are the full stops uh right here I use these apertures I use these numbers also in the engine um and the reason why I like using them is because I also know that which with each stop uh I am if I if I close it down with each stop you are cutting the light in half so you're cutting your exposure in half so two is is cutting it in half of 1.4 2.8 is cutting the brightness in half of two and so forth and and um this is good to know because this also then later on relates really well to the iso of our camera so we can really kind of like work with this okay so you can see that at we are at a 2.8 now if I now go and close this lens by let's say two stops then the image is gonna get darker whoops didn't mean to type in so the image has gotten darker um what's a little bit difficult to see now because we are we we are um because it got darker is that also now our our door should be a little bit more in focus and this is an important thing to to realize uh when okay I'm trying to find my camera there we go so here's our camera ISO and um I'm gonna play with the shutter in a second I'll show you that but um the the iso is set to 100 which is you know the iso is is the sensors light sensitivity and if you want to you know again adjust this to Real World um uh real world settings then you will find that if the fastest Motion Picture film stock made by Kodak would be 500 ISO nowadays and the uh the fast the app not the fastest but the average camera the average cine camera nowadays is around 800 all right so this these numbers have been creeping up but it's your that's your average so um in in this case scenario I was lit for a 2.8 and I I closed down by two stops so you can let me just bring this back here so you can see this right so I was at a 2.8 and I closed down by two stops now the way I can compensate for this right here is by increasing the number and by doubling it every time so from 2.8 to 4 uh that would be one stop that is in terms of ISO from 100 to 200. so if I double the iso I am increasing the light sensitivity you know I'm doubling the light sensitivity if I then double it from four from 200 to 400 I I'm um again doubling the light sensitivity so I have with my lens I have cut it down these are called stops I've cut it down by one stop and then I've cut it down by second stop and if I want to compensate this now to look exactly the way it looked before then I gotta go 100 to 200 it's the one stop and then 200 to 400 is the second stop so in this case 400 is going to give us the same lighting uh the same brightness than we had before now if I if I now up this again by let's say two stops so it would be uh 1600 right 800 and then uh 800 times 216. so 1600 so now um well let's even go 3200 so now up this by three stops and in order to compensate for it I gotta go f8 16 of 11 16 and then by the way if if you you know the way it works is that every second number doubles so the next one would be a 22. okay so uh and then 32 and so forth so we're gonna go now to a16 and that's gonna give us the same image but now you should be able to clearly see what has happened as I'm closing the aperture down my door has come more and more into focus and that's because we are increasing the depth of field now plain and simply if you want to shoot more cinematic in the engine you want to have a shallower depth of field most of the time so in other words it makes a lot more sense to leave your aperture at something like you know a super speed 1.2 or 1.4 you know and then adjust your ISO or ideally actually your Lighting in accordance to that okay so [Music] um in this case we're probably going to go down to something like 50 or yeah that was not his man okay there we go so um now the other thing is that your shutter speed a camera shutter is uh that the speed is kind of like um double your frame rate so what this means is this comes from from movie cameras and by the way you you see now how I opened up the the lens and you see look at the doors right as opposed to before so if you want to have shallow shallow depth of field open up your your your lens just leave it open now the in in the real world what I just did you know compensating with my ISO like that this is not a good idea because you're actually affecting um the camera's dynamic range um negatively and uh if you're going into the wrong direction you can also uh introduce a significant amount of noise so this is not something you want to do uh but in the engine this doesn't happen so it doesn't matter okay so um now the way a shutter works let me see if I can find something online for you guys so the way a movie camera shutter works is it rotates in front of the gate and um the the thing is that the film stops when when uh it's being exposed so when this is open and then this this shutter rotates in front and that's when the film is being transported otherwise this whole thing would be a blur so so as as this uh rotates in front the film is being transported and because it is a semi-circular shutter it means that half the time the film is being exposed and half the time the film is being transported in that at 180 degree shutter which is standard in the US at least um at 180 degree shutter you you therefore get a 24 frames per second and exposure time of 148 per second so the standard motion picture speed is 24 frames in the theater and so the shutter speed for that would be 1 48 and that's where this setting right here should be uh if you're if you're doing 30 frames which is television or technically 29.97 us television um but if you if you're doing that then then you want to set this back to 60 but um you know we're talking here about cinematic and we we're Now setting this to 148th okay so another thing that um is is going to affect your your depth of field and how cinematic this whole thing looks is actually your film back so and and this I have set up uh with other cameras so I'm just gonna show this to you so because if the see if when a sensor let's see sensor size differences so there are tons of different sensor size differences um in the professional world the tent these These are kind of like consumer grade stuff but in the professional World it tends to relate to Motion Picture film gauges and and you can see that the um obviously if this was a picture now if we're using the same lens the sensor size will crop out the image right so here is a you know a comparison between a full frame sensor and then that would be probably you're kind of like a cine 35 super 35 and then um micro four thirds so you can see that if the it doesn't matter if the lens projected there if there's no sensor it doesn't matter it's you know you're just gonna it's gonna crop the image so what that means is in order to get the same field of view you need to adjust your focal length right so that means that on cameras with a larger sensor your normal slash standard lenses will be longer so while on a full frame a standard sensor would be a standard lens would be around 50. on a super 35 or 35 millimeter it would be 35 millimeter motion picture that is sorry um it would be more in the 35 millimeter region in order to get the same field of view so if you now go up to like IMAX you're more in a realm of like 75.95 or uh for a normal normal lens and the this matters because the focal length also is going to affect our depth of field so um and the way this rule goes is that the the longer your focal length is the the shallower your depth of field gets and The Wider your focal lymphis the shorter your focal lymphase the um the greater depth of field you have so if I if I now so I've I'm gonna demo this now with my other cameras right here that I've set up and I'm gonna start out with I'm gonna start out with a non-sinematic film format it is a film format but it's not very cinematic it's not really used for motion picture um as I said before other than uh uh you know um things like um things like music videos um but but it's a it's a good example because it's kind of like an extreme so um a Super 8 camera uh has a very very tiny Target size sensor if you will it's not a sensor but so I you can see that because it's cropping out very much a um our my Super 8 right here is um is is really cropping out you know my wide shot and it's very um very uh um uh you know zoomed in if you will and if I now go in my Super 8 to a 35 millimeter yeah so 35 is my next one then you can see so now we're going even farther in so this is only a 35 millimeter lens uh and and we're we're already into a medium close-up right here or a medium shot I'm sorry and um and you can see that you know we are wide open on this lens uh I believe so let's take a look we are uh this is this one so we're wide open and and that counter actually has 1.2 so that that kind of like helps with um with the shallow depth of field because you know if I if I up this just to a two it's gonna get darker for a minute but you can see immediately this drops into Focus so go back to 1.2 and um but but you know so you see we're we're very far in already and then I'm gonna go to summer 35 to a 75 and now we're in a close-up and then I have prepped for you guys right here a 125 which is kind of like a choker so this is a a close-up that's kind of like almost uncomfortable and and you can see that you know that's where very far in so in in in the case of a super 35 millimeter camera which you know until fairly recently was the standard in motion picture um an 11 millimeter will give you this as opposed to Super 8 sensor this all right I think now it becomes very obvious okay so uh so 11 millimeter will give it this and then you're going to a 35 millimeter and we're going to a 75 millimeter and we're going to a 125 millimeter so note the um note the um the shallow depth of field right we're still we're again on a 1.2 but um now now you know the background's gotten very very blurry and in the next one it's gonna get even blurrier because we are stepping this up to a DSLR sensor which is very similar to the Vista Vision one probably should have used this divisions just to not confuse people but um but this is kind of like uh you know what's called full frame now important movie cameras until very recently were not full frame they were you know smaller more like this Okay so again we are now going on a 11 millimeter and maybe I can click on here to compare this so this is this is now the full frame 11 this is the super 35 11. you can see the difference right there and now I am going on the 35 millimeter which is where are you okay did I label it wrong I think I'll label it wrong it's got a I didn't I didn't label it so I'm gonna assume this is it I'll can tell you in a second so um yeah so this is this is supposed to be uh the 35 and let me just fix this here and then I'm gonna go to the 75 and I'm gonna give you the 75 in comparison of the super 35 sensor right and you can see right here how because we are longer we're actually we're farther away still so the field of view is still wider out but we are already uh more out of focus because we got a shallower depth of field in the background than we are here and then we're gonna go all the way up to the 125 and compare that here also to the 125 okay so a little farther away but uh shallower depth of field and this is really one of the most important things when it comes to uh cinematic uh cinematic setups now there's one more thing that I'm gonna I'm gonna you know go into and um that is your let me go to something maybe this here okay this uh I do want to address I don't want to address the um lens bloom the thing is that off the truck a you know your there isn't vignette on it which is fine it has a cinematic feel to it so let me um let me show this to you should be under image effects right here so there is a 0.4 vignette on it and if I you know up this um so it's kind of like uh uh you know some people also but it's extreme it's called portholing um but you can see that it's kind of like you know it's darkening the edges like you know the lens Barrel is having an effect on the on the image brightness and you can adjust this here um so so by default that is on if you want to composite with these you may want to turn this off uh all together but by default it's at point four I believe so um lens flare is also there's also of the intensities on by default now that can be an issue um you might not want that or you want it stronger so that's that's totally up to you uh just be aware that by default this is on um what is interestingly enough not on is the the bloom so if if I turn this off then then you can see you know the image has a very sharp feel and overly sharp feel in my opinion uh it gets it looks very digital and if you start to you know add a lens Bloom right you can see now this light has much more Bloom to it I it at least to my taste this starts to to look better it starts to look more um more realistic uh because lenses do Bloom especially if you point them at a light there is gonna be a certain level of Bloom the other thing is that uh vintage lenses are extremely popular in you know quite some time now because as the film industry transitioned from shooting on film to shooting on digital there is um you know it just again it looked too sharp it kind of like had this this look right here and and by using older older lenses that may not you know that are not computer designed and are less perfect they have more more Bloom to them and that actually softens the image and gives it a bit more character so this is something that uh you might actually um you might actually like uh so so play around with this in initially when you're switching this on it feels like whoa this may be much but um but you know it may I think this could probably even go farther right we could probably even go to 25 yeah I'm I'm perfectly fine with that so um I think that this is actually an improvement over this um all right and so so you know I don't want to overload you guys with information on this I could you know go uh a lot deeper into this but this is kind of like you're you're very basic setup of on how to get a more cinematic look uh in your camera setup and I uh so I hope that this was was some help um and with that I I wish you a nice day

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Id: hftxCXvcJ9g

Length: 47min 57sec (2877 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 05 2023