Exploring hidden depths. 422 employs new techniques and cutting edge tools
to bring the ocean floor to life.
to bring the ocean floor to life.
422 has a history of not shying away from large,
ambitious projects. Drain the Oceans has to rank
amongst one of the most challenging yet.We had a tight tight deadline of 130 shots in 3 months,
including many huge landscapes with exacting geographic
and geological specifications. Minimal amounts of available
data and reference exist, and almost all of the landscapes
and features would have to be built from scratch.Many of these landscapes are simply immense, and exist
on a scale way beyond what we are accustomed to seeing
on dry land. Portraying this vast sense of scale while not
sacrificing the wealth of detail within these environments
was not going to be easy.
The moment the project was given the go-ahead, an intense period of 2d concept and 3d R+D began. Art Director and concept artist Eduardo Schall led the 2d department and worked carefully with the shows producersand directors in order to flesh out how we would approach the show, and create a visual language that would work throughout. This helped us to quickly establish how we were going to portray the sense of scale as elegantly as possible while allowing the directors enough freedom to tell their story. The initial concepts were vitally important on many levels, there being no other visual reference for these alien worlds. So the 2d quickly
helped everyone understand where we were heading in terms of re interpreting the scientific data, which was our main reference on which to build the landscapes. This work, coupled with early 3d tests gave our clients the confidence needed to quickly evolve from the concept stage to full production.
A feature of the show was the placement of scientists within the environments. The pre-production work made this far less arduous than it could otherwise have been. Careful planning and being able to provide everyone on set with a clear idea of what we were looking to achieve, made for a smooth and pain free workflow. As the rule goes, if it’s big it’s slow, this would be a constant reminder throughout the show. Cameras had to conform to real world speeds and constraints, the managing and monitoring of these aspects, down to the finest details, like rock or pebble sizes would be paramount in maintaining and producing an accurate representation of scale.
For all these challenges and restrictions, the 2d team set about the task with relish. Good artists always look for fresh and exciting ways to tell a story, or portray and image. In this case, the inspiration was easy, we had the opportunity of creating something quite special, that none of us had witnessed before. The 2d development also had the luxury of working in tandem with the 3d team who were busy researching, testing new tools and evaluating different workflows.
This not only served to keep the 2d grounded within the restrictions of what the 3d tools were capable of, but also made us realise that we were going to be able to push the boundaries much further than we originally thought was going to be possible. It is unusual to have so much cooperation between 2d and 3d departments at this stage of planning, and on shows of this scale and nature. However, in this case it was to prove highly rewarding, the collaboration and mixing up of methods and ideas, yielding results that exited our clients about the potential of the show and pushed the team in directions that would have been thought only achievable by much much larger film post production houses.
Workflow and 3d processes
Above: Sample images of the data sets showing the resolution we had to work with
We knew from the very beginning that making the right
choices at the start of the project was vital to making this
show work. Traditional techniques are quite labour
intensive and allow very little leeway for a director to
make any changes. So it was essential that we
discovered a method that would give us a far greater
degree of flexibility. After testing several alternative tools we decided to go with
Terragen 2 as our major tool for terrain creation, texturing
and rendering. This was a potentially risky choice, the
software still being at alpha stage and some way off being
a fully released product. Yet after some thorough stress
testing and achieving solid early results, it was felt that
the software had so much potential that we would deal
with any unforeseen pitfalls as and when they arose. Our
faith was repaid, as it soon became apparent that the
level of support from the makers ‘Planetside Software’
was second to none.
Above a sample image from Challenger Deep
Above: A sample frame from the Bahamas grand bank sequence
Terragen 2 has a unique workflow and a whole new set of
tools to work with. As with any new software, nothing is
totally intuitive, and so began the journey of learning to
take the best from and integrate it into our pipeline.
Scripts were written to handle data and asset flow
between Terragen and Maya. This would ensure that
we could easily combine any other 3d elements, and
comfortably place our presenters within our rendered
output from Terragen.
We were able to augment our low resolution data, as well
as create massive and complex landscapes from scratch in
relatively small time frames. Once created, there were no
restrictions on camera placement, an almost unlimited level
of resolution meant we could happily zoom down to a tiny
speck of dirt on the ground if need be, with no loss of detail
between. This gave our virtual sets an enormous amount
of flexibility and creative freedom.
Author: Chris Hunt - 422 Ltd.
Author: Chris Hunt - 422 Ltd.