VIRTUAL PRODUCTION
“The panels create light, but not strong enough to get shadows. So, you can have an overall global lighting and the value’s just right on the character, but there is no shadow for the character. That’s why we wanted to also have practical lighting. We used the DMX plugin from Unreal, which would send information for correct intensity and color temperature to every single practical light. So, when you move in real-time, the light actually changes, and we can create the real cast shadows on the characters.” —Julien Brami, Creative Director and Visual Effects Supervisor, Zoic Studios
TOP TO BOTTOM: The LED wall, provided to Zoic on loan from Fuse Technical Group, gave the visual effects studio a chance to test several shooting scenarios. The LED wall, a ROE Black Pearl 2, was 28 tiles wide and 8 tiles high. An on-set tracking system utilizing Vive controllers allowed for camera movement and real-time re-adjustment of the imagery on the LED wall.
wall at their studio space in Culver City. It was a big leap for Zoic, which predominantly delivers episodic, film and commercial VFX work. Subsequently, the studio launched a ‘Real Time Group’ to explore more virtual production offerings and use Unreal Engine for visualization, virtual art department deliveries, animation and virtual production itself. “What we said was, ‘We have the time, we have the technology, we need to learn it,’” relates Brami, in terms of the initial push into LED wall filmmaking. “FTG lent us an LED wall for about three months, and it was really exciting because they said, ‘We can give you the panels and we can do the installation, but we can’t really give you anyone who knows how to do it. You have to learn yourself.’ So it was just a few of us here at Zoic doing it. We each tried to figure everything out.” The LED wall setup at Zoic was used for a range of demos and tests, as well as for a ‘Gundam Battle: Gunpla Warfare’ spot featuring YouTuber Preston Blaine Arsement. The spot sees Preston interact with an animated Gundam character in a futuristic warehouse. The character and warehouse environment were projected on the LED wall. “That was the perfect scenario for this,” says Brami. The wall was made up of around 220 panels. Zoic employed a Vive tracker setup for camera tracking and as a way to implement followfocus. The content was pre-made for showing on the LED wall and optimized to run in Unreal Engine in real-time. “We had the LED processor and then two stations that were running on the set,” details Brami. “We also had a signal box that allowed us to have genlock, because that’s what matters the most. Everything has to work in tandem to ensure the refresh rate is right and the video cards can handle the playback.” There were many challenges in making its LED wall setup work, notes Brami, such as dealing with lag on the screen, owing to the real-time tracking of the physical camera. Another challenge involved lighting the subject in front of the LED panels. “The panels create light, but not strong enough to get shadows. So, you can have an overall global lighting and the value’s just right on the character, but there is no shadow for the character. That’s why we wanted to also have practical lighting. We used the DMX plugin from
10 • VFXVOICE.COM FALL 2021
PG 8-12 ZOIC.indd 10
8/29/21 2:32 PM
