Yuemei Yu
Jie Jian – A Stylised VFX, Lighting and Rendering Pipeline in Unreal Engine 5
Summary
Jie Jian is a stylised 3D animated short produced using Maya 2025 and Unreal Engine 5.6 at 24 fps. The project focuses on the integration of visual effects, lighting and cinematic rendering within a real-time production pipeline.
A central element of the project is a stylised ink-wash explosion constructed using Niagara and coordinated through Blueprint, together with material-driven scene transitions controlled through Sequencer and Material Parameter Collections. Character animation was transferred primarily using Alembic Geometry Cache in order to preserve deformation and world-space movement without modifying the original referenced rigs.
The project also investigates practical production issues including cinematic effect timing, Movie Render Queue output, Geometry Cache memory requirements and the differences between interactive authoring and final rendering.
Thesis Jie Jian – A Stylised VFX, Lighting and Rendering Pipeline in Unreal Engine 5