The grey was a good lighting reference for us. Raking light across the scenes would create harder shadows and contrast. We wanted a monochromatic look - that was a conscious design choice. It’s my excuse for being a big kid!Ĭan you tell us in details about the creation of the frozen environment?Ĭreating interesting snow scenes is tough, and the last thing we wanted was white scene after white scene without visual interest. It reminds me a lot of being a kid, and you imagine these worlds in which you are a space soldier or something. The actors have to imagine everything in front of them, which I am sure can be tough for some people. I always try and get them in the headspace of what world they are in and what character they are playing. What is your work methodology with the actors? Well it takes the responsibility of camera away from the animators and gives it to the director, which is where it needs to be, allowing us to get the desired shot faster, in real time, with minimal clean up required, rather than having me sit behind an animator noodling with chopsticks which can be very tedious. What were the advantages of the vCam for the shooting? Aladino (VFX Supervisor) and I always wanted Isaac to jump into the pit at the end because we thought it was badass. The ending of the piece was still not thoroughly fleshed out at this point so we captured a couple of different endings. He gets it and gives you exactly what you need. Dan Southworth was our mocap actor and I’ve worked with Dan before on THE DARKNESS II. The action was simple – it is Isaac walking through snow pretty much. One day, one actor, a couple of witness cameras and the crew and you are off. Motion capture for this show was pretty straightforward. The team did a great job in mixing both the game reference and our own photographic, real-world reference together to create a very believable climax to the environment.Ĭan you tell us more about the motion capture sessions? For example, EA wanted the skies toward the end of the piece to be angrier, more stormy, more like the game reference we had, but we still wanted to keep it in our realistic, photographic world. Obviously we had to keep things in canon with the game so EA shared a lot of stuff with us like game assets, concept art etc.
At the end everything is put together in Nuke with the final touches added in Flame.ĭid you received specific indications and references from Electronic Arts? Concurrently all effects were created using traditional particle systems in Maya. Once the animation is approved, all lighting is done with our custom HDR-centric pipeline in V-Ray. In Maya, our animators layer all the nuanced animation that motion capture is not capable of producing (weight, hands, fur, helmet animation in this case, etc.). With that edit in hand, we use the virtual camera system here in our virtual production studio to create realistic cameras for each shot.įrom there, the production moves into Maya (where the initial model and rig were created). Once that session is completed, an edit with selects is created.
#Dead space 3 digital series
The story here has three acts, and the characters have story arcs, the same as in a real film, so it engages everyone involved in the creation on a deeper level.Ī broader sense of our usual process consists of creating a series of storyboards and a board-o-matic to guide our motion-capture session, which is done here in DD’s virtual production studio by Gary Roberts and his team. Creatively all of the artists have an investment in the project. This more sophisticated approach means that instead of just producing a bunch of shots that don’t really tie together, you end up with a cohesive visual piece that shares assets across the show, which lets us create a better end product. We try and implement our virtual production pipeline on CG projects whenever it’s appropriate, treating them like live-action film productions. What was your approach on this commercial? We all kept referencing the same movies like ALIEN and THE THING so we were on the same page from the beginning. They had their concept so I gave them a visual pitch on how I thought their story could be told. I love video games so it’s a great place to be right now.ĭraftfcb San Francisco wanted to work with us. The video game space is expanding rapidly. I’ve been signed as a director at Mothership since January 2012 and have been getting more and more video game spots and cinematic jobs. Accompanied by Aladino Debert, he explains his work on this DEAD SPACE 3 commercial.Ĭan you tell us about your work at Mothership? He then joined the team of Mothership as director. He talked about his work at Prime Focus on AVATAR.