This month, we’re excited to feature UK-based creative director Neil O'Donnell as our Artist of the Month. Neil leads Creative CGI, where he blends cinematic storytelling with cutting-edge real-time tools. His recent personal work highlights the power of using CGI.Backgrounds in Unreal Engine to craft emotionally driven scenes with precision and control.
Crafting Scenes Like a Cinematographer
Neil’s background in high-end visual production is clear in every frame. His approach to automotive and aviation renders is grounded in storytelling — treating each vehicle as a character and every shot as a carefully composed moment.
In one scene, a McLaren W1 cuts through a Tokyo street, surrounded by a cityscape. In another, the same car sits quietly in a rugged mountain valley under brooding skies. A Spitfire rendered in the desert adds historical weight and mood, while the featured Bentley placed inside an industrial hangar show his attention to soft light and spatial realism.
Lighting, Space, and Total Control
Neil builds most of his scenes in Unreal Engine . In these , he uses CGI . Backgrounds content to accelerate his workflow and achieve cinematic results.
“CGI.Backgrounds really does turn you into a virtual cinematographer or location scout. The ability to move freely within a photorealistic 3D environment in real-time, adjust lighting, and find your perfect frame without the logistics of a real-world shoot is incredibly empowering. It’s storytelling with total control over space and mood.”
Explore the Tools Behind the Work
Neil used the following scenes from our library to build the visuals featured in this post:
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