高级渲染课程（英文）

Course ID: 600277

Credits: 2

Instructors: Yunshui Jin, Jiachen Li

I.Course Positioning

This course is a professional elective for students majoring in Animation, particularly those focusing on 3D animation short films and visual effects. It aims to deepen students’ understanding and application of advanced rendering technologies and real-time rendering tools, enabling them to proficiently complete animation rendering for complex scenes. By the end of the course, students are expected to be able to use real-time rendering tools, conduct technical research, and tackle key challenges, thereby laying a solid foundation for their future careers.

II.Course Objectives

Objective 1:Understand the core concepts of real-time and offline rendering, including linear workflows, ray tracing, the Lumen global illumination system, the Nanite virtualized geometry system, virtual shadows, and procedural modeling.

Objective 2: Become familiar with real-time rendering tools and technical pipelines represented by Unreal Engine, and be able to use them for material development, basic VFX production, and high-quality lighting.

Objective 3: Master the ability to combine and modify DCC assets, such as integrating Unreal Marketplace scene assets, Metahuman character assets, Mixamo animation libraries, and the Unreal terrain system to create customized scenes, characters, and animations, and complete animation rendering and layered compositing output.

III.Course Content

IV. Assignment Requirements and Grading

Assignment Requirement:

Students are required to use Unreal Engine to render and complete an animated short film of at least 1 minute (including character animation). The assignment theme changes each semester and typically covers topics such as science fiction, Chinese history, Chinese mythology, and contemporary social transformations.

V. Outstanding Student Work

1.“The Lucky Gift”

Author: Yudong Chen

Award: Gold Prize, MOTZIFY 4th Content Creation Competition (Prize: Xiaomi SU7 car)

Synopsis:

In the year 2137, the Interstellar Federation announced to the outside world that Earth would no longer be habitable. They built the Telos Ship, capable of carrying all humankind, and launched the first interstellar migration in human history, known as the Odysseus X Project. Yet behind this grand narrative, a hidden conspiracy seems to lurk.

2. “Crack”

- Author: Xu Xuanzhi

- Award: First Prize in the 13th Future Designer · National College Digital Art & Design Competition (NCDA)，First Prize in the Animation Category of Huichuang Youth Shanghai College Students' Cultural and Creative Works Exhibition

- Synopsis:

Crack is a fantasy, adventure, and comedy short animation. The story follows a small skeletal dragon NPC, originally meant to provide players with experience points in a novice village, who—due to an unexpected game bug—manages to break into other parts of the game world, triggering earth-shaking changes across the entire game.

3.“Zunyi · Loushanguan”

Authors: Xu Xuanzhi, Hao Lisha, He Jiaxuan, Chen Meixin

Award: National First Prize in the China Great Creativity Awards (CGCA)，First Prize, 13th Future Designer · NCDA Competition (National Level)，First Prize (Shanghai) in the Interaction Category of Huichuang Youth Shanghai College Students' Cultural and Creative Works Exhibition

Synopsis:

An original large-scale immersive multiplayer VR game. This work is a teaser trailer produced for the game. The project integrates multiple technologies: Reality Capture for 3D character scanning, Metahuman for character creation, Marvelous Designer for costume design, Substance Painter for texture painting, Blender for skinning and rigging, Unreal Engine 5.4 for terrain and vegetation, Ultradynamic Sky for daylight and volumetric clouds, EasyFog for atmospheric fog effects, the Niagara particle system for airborne dust, Noitom for motion capture, and Live Link Face for facial expression capture.