HellFire
Cinematic Music Video Trailer — Unreal Engine 5
A cinematic music video trailer built in Unreal Engine 5 — two gunslingers, guitars, and a desert landscape set the stage for a confrontation with an unknown enemy.
Role: Director · UE5 Artist · Animator
Overview
HellFire is a fully computer-generated cinematic music video trailer produced entirely inside Unreal Engine 5. Set in a sun-scorched western desert, it follows two gunslingers — guitars in hand, weapons at the ready — as they face down an unknown enemy. The piece is designed as a teaser for a longer narrative, establishing tone and world through atmosphere rather than plot: wide desert vistas, close-up weapon details, and a brooding musical undercurrent. Lighting is driven by Lumen global illumination with Virtual Shadow Maps and Nanite geometry. Five custom MetaHuman characters were created and rigged with Mixamo and DeepMotion motion-capture animations retargeted to the MetaHuman skeleton. The environment is built on the Rural Australia landscape pack, extended with Quixel Megascans surface materials and custom volumetric cloud setups. The full cinematic was assembled across ten Sequencer shots and rendered via Movie Render Queue at 4K.
Characters & Animation
Five MetaHuman characters were built in MetaHuman Creator and imported via the MetaHuman Plugin. Body animations were sourced from Mixamo and DeepMotion motion-capture sessions, then retargeted to the MetaHuman skeleton using IK Rig and IK Retargeter. Each character received custom clothing, accessories, and prop attachments — including guitars, a Marshall amp rig, firearms, and period-appropriate wardrobe.
Environment & Lighting
The base landscape uses the Rural Australia pack, dressed with Quixel Megascans foliage, rock, and ground surfaces. Sky and atmosphere are driven by a Sky Atmosphere component combined with a custom Volumetric Cloud material profile for a dramatic overcast look. All scene lighting runs through Lumen with hardware ray tracing enabled, giving accurate indirect bounce light and contact shadows without baked lightmaps.
Cinematography & Sequencer
The film is structured across ten Level Sequences — covering the entry shot, performance scenes, action beats, and a closing scene. Camera work uses Cine Camera Actors with custom focal lengths and aperture settings to simulate a shallow depth-of-field film look. Camera shake assets were applied to action sequences for a handheld feel. All sequences are assembled in a master sequence for final render.
Rendering & Output
Final frames were rendered through Movie Render Queue with anti-aliasing set to Temporal Super Resolution. Post-process volume settings include a custom tonemapper sharpen pass, lens flare, and alpha channel output for compositing flexibility. The project targets DX12 SM6 for full access to Lumen ray-traced features and Nanite tessellation.
Production Pipeline
- 1MetaHuman Creator → MetaHuman Plugin import
- 2Mixamo / DeepMotion MoCap → IK Retargeter
- 3Quixel Bridge → Megascans environment dressing
- 4Level Sequencer → 10 cinematic shots
- 5Cine Camera Actors → custom lens & aperture
- 6Movie Render Queue → 4K final output