After the issues with rendering my sequence and having no audio, I decided that I would move the task of re-syncing the audio and sound effects obtained from EpidemicSound to DaVinci Resolve, as I was already planning on completing colour correction within the program. The list of audio downloaded from EpidemicSounds is listed at the bottom of this post.
RESYNCING THE AUDIO
Matching the audio to the exported sequence inside DaVinci allowed for more control than Unreal’s sequencer. As only some of my audio tracks were edited in Adobe Audition and others were implemented without editing, I had to experiment and control the volume levels of each track. Inside Unreal’s sequencer, I was rather limited with how I could control the audio for the sequence, as I could only edit how loud the track would play, whereas using DaVinci Resolve, I could use fades on both the start and end of my tracks, edit the semi-tones and pan the clip to create different variations of the same sound. An example of this can be heard in the “Sci-fi alarm device”, which can be heard before the explosion plays to mimic how explosive devices sound in some forms of media and also before the camera rolls in the train platform section.
Having the ability to fade certain audio tracks, such as how the song Lone Lee by Wesky which plays throughout the sequence has a fade at the start of the clip helps to convey to the viewer that this city is loud and bustling but can have moments of quiet and peace as you move further away from the centre of it.
EDITING COLOURS
As my sequence is set at night, there are certain sections in the sequence that appeared fine when viewed through Unreal’s viewport, yet when exported were too dark to be viewed.
Due to the scale of the scene that I had created, I found out that three-point lighting didn’t work as intended and the quality of the shots was deteriorating when transitioning to the new areas, which led to the use of point lights for the hanging lanterns, spotlights for the streetlamps lining the street and editing the emissive values for the tube lights that can be seen adjacent to the posters. I also included a post-processing volume that encompassed the entire scene, which allowed for the Bloom values to be edited. Through trial and error, I found that around 1.5 gave the lights increased vibrancy, which adds to the stereotypical cyberpunk/sci-fi genre.
An issue that I did experience in this section was attempting to export and render a 2K video. Through multiple attempts at re-rendering and changing settings in Unreal and changing the settings of the timeline and project file in DaVinci Resolve to render out at a high resolution, the exported mp4 file remained at 1080p HD, which was the required minimum for this assignment. Despite my best efforts, I could not fix this issue, leaving the final product at 1080p HD.
Audio Reference List:
EpidemicSound (n.d.) Sound effect: Ambulance Horn Honk | Epidemic Sound. www.epidemicsound.com. Available online: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/XTF3kFe7vt/
EpidemicSound (n.d.) Sound effect: City Ambience Busy | Epidemic Sound. www.epidemicsound.com. Available online: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/TES60gvqSa/
EpidemicSound (n.d.) Sound effect: Dimension Portal 1 | Epidemic Sound. www.epidemicsound.com. Available online: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/hVjuDBdfki/
EpidemicSound (n.d.) Sound effect: Electric Hum 3 | Epidemic Sound. www.epidemicsound.com. Available online: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/hIpfrjjXTO/
EpidemicSound (n.d.) Sound effect: Explosion Crash 3 | Epidemic Sound. www.epidemicsound.com. Available online: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/5awLjkLfcs/
EpidemicSound (n.d.) Sound effect: Fire Auto | Epidemic Sound. www.epidemicsound.com. Available online: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/ocG1h8XMG4/
EpidemicSound (n.d.) Sound effect: Metro Train Pass By | Epidemic Sound. www.epidemicsound.com. Available online: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/Oa7VKZXXMO/
EpidemicSound (n.d.) Sound effect: Rain Gutter 2 | Epidemic Sound. www.epidemicsound.com. Available online: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/EqXEs6qhoW/
EpidemicSound (n.d.) Sound effect: Sci Fi Alarm Device 1 | Epidemic Sound. www.epidemicsound.com. Available online: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/FYaoRBgI4j/
EpidemicSound and Wesky (n.d.) Wesky – Lone Lee | Epidemic Sound. www.epidemicsound.com. Available online: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/TlGwrpaFeB/ .