Unreal Engine worldbuilding / Early film prototype

Tuna World.

A short-film world shaped around a character’s search for the ocean.

The work

Build a world for a story.

Tuna World began as a self-initiated story about loneliness and the desire to find a way home. The visual brief was to make an Unreal environment that could carry that feeling through place, color, and camera movement.

I developed the world and documented its production workflow: terrain heightmaps, scene composition, character motion, Live Link tests, and detailed character adjustments. This is an early prototype and process record, not a released film.

Unreal EngineTerrain heightmapsMotionBuilderBlenderLive Link

01 / environment

Build the world first.

A drawn heightmap became terrain in Unreal. Color, atmosphere, and camera angles helped define the character’s surroundings.

Tuna World planning board — Story and world planning

Heightmap and Unreal terrain comparison — Terrain from a Photoshop heightmap

Early green Tuna World environment — Environment study / version one

Second view of early Tuna World environment — Environment study / version two

Tuna World scene composition — Scene and atmosphere

02 / movement

Give the character motion.

The prototype explored captured movement and animation workflows, including MotionBuilder cleanup, imports into Unreal, and Live Link tests.

MotionBuilder workflow screenshot — MotionBuilder workflow

Green screen motion capture test — Green screen capture test

RADiCAL motion processing screenshot — Motion processing

Unreal Live Link workflow screenshot — Live Link in Unreal

Animation selection screenshot — Animation library

Unreal Sequencer screenshot — Sequencing movement

Combined animation sequence screenshot — Animation sequences

03 / detail

Refine the point of view.

Camera perspective, UV work, eye scale, and small character details were part of making the world feel coherent from scene to scene.

Point-of-view view in Unreal Engine — Point of view in Unreal

Unreal UV texture adjustment — UV and texture study

Character pupil remapping test — Eye scale and pupil remap

Character eyelash detail — Character detail

From practice to projects

A wider visual toolkit.

This prototype shows how I work across visual concept, 3D scene building, animation workflow, and technical iteration when a story needs a world of its own.

Explore development work ↗

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