Unreal has been pretty intuitive to use, especially after going over all the keyframing stuff in After Effects. I started by creating a world and then terraforming it. I created mountains on three sides and left one edge flat. I knew I wanted to work with water, so I made a lake in the center of the map, and terraformed around the edges so it had some depth. I then made a simple cuboid structure, with water for a roof, wooden floors, and slate walls. I inserted three point lamps to provide lighting in the room. I used the default character from Mixamo as my first character and textured it with a glowing material. I then made a simple character in Fuse and uploaded it to Mixamo, downloading the bellydancing animation. I placed my custom character in the middle of the lake.

The camera starts on top of the roof (which is water), so it looks as if you’re looking out over water to the horizon. It then drops down through the water to focus on the default character. It slowly backs up and pans a full 180º towards the outside and re-focuses on the custom character. The next camera move goes closer to the character and tracks him as he turns so that the house and default character are back in frame. The default character begins rotating and gliding out to meet the custom character in the middle of the lake, as the camera begins to fly up and tilt downwards, giving a bird’s eye view of the scene.

The song is “Holy Water” by my friend, Tanners.

Here’s the video:

Unreal Demo