Writing / Directing
We were happy to write the screenplay for that trailer, it was based on the cool Frag Lab concept idea. Big thanks to our copywright team, who beautifully translated the original screenplay text into English! Below you can see how this story grew.
Necessary to understand that the structure of the story is ready to work with, and we were happy enough with this one.
After the screenplay, we started to draw the storyboards, and before asking someone to do unconscious work, we usually develop the story with the raw storyboards and re-drawn them with the concept artist's help in further steps.
The more people come to the project - the more ideas appear, and that is the path, but it is necessary not to lose the direction of the plot and tasks that the story should solve. Every new idea can improve the story, as well as kill it completely. Below you can see the director's treatment page, where we tried to highlight the coolest parts in each shot that helps to push the story.
Usually, for a better understanding of the look and feel of the story in the pre-production stage, we started to assemble 2d animation with the reference music. In the beginning, we wanted to buy reference tracks, but our composer offered to write an original one for this trailer and we knew that would be unique and epic!
And this looks like a story already! At this point, we started to break down the script and 2d animatic. Here is an example of some useful docs that helped us to plan the production stage of this project, highlighted the important things, and share all the necessary stuff with the team.
VFX worklist per shot.
Before the production storm, it is always good to have a clear vision of how the story should look, and our concept artist did stunning work. We are happy to share some of their concepts here.
Besides, we created a cool test location in the Unreal Engine, where we researched a bunch of stuff in real-time. We did a lot of motion capture tests before the real shooting, and some of them looked so cool that they went to the production stage. All these backstage activities allowed us to save a huge amount of time in the future, especially on set with real actors, where we did everything we need for the one shooting day. Thank you all who bravely fought with us side by side on the motion capture battlefield!
Many thanks to our DOP for the camera vibe on that project! In the earliest stages we even scouted the location and test the action with our in-house shooting operator from the broadcast department, that was a deep dive project!
ENVIRONMENT / LIGHTING
Many thanks to our modelers and animators' team who did fantastic work to bring those characters to life, as well as our talented composer team that pushed the render limits to the awesome result!
The ground mesh was sculpted and shaded in Houdini. We used copy and instancing techniques to scatter various game and library assets, as well as the crystal's digital asset that was made for the pilot infection shot by our crazy talented technical artist team. Just look at that masterpiece!
Below you can see WIP step with the coastal environment. We had to create a ray system that allows projecting those crystals to the ground mesh where they are needed.
And here are some WIP steps from the last shot. Below you can see the concept vs render comparison.
And that's how awesome that shot looks right after the render. Everything was rendered with Redshift.
BREAKDOWN
And as a bonus, here is our cool breakdown for this project. You can see there our happy faces and many more.
And that's it! That project was an amazing teamwork example where nobody remained indifferent. Thanks a lot for such a great result to everyone who worked. Without your help, it wouldn't look as it looks!
And thanks for your time! ^^
AWARDS
NYX Game Awards 2023
CREDITS
Project Manager: Olya Makarevich, Nikolay Popov
Director: A. Liustsiber
Art Director: Konstantin Brailov
CG Supervisor: Andrey Bogdanovich
DOP, CC: Dzmitry Halavach, Dzmitry Lutsko
Pipeline & Tech TD: Aleksandr Antoshuk
VFX: Aleksandr Antoshuk, Nikolay Skolkov, Dzmitry Papok, Andrei Baranau
Concept Art: Konstantin Brailov, Pavel Zayats, Anton Chernoskutov, Alexey Rybnikov
Modeling, Texturing, Grooming: Ilya Klishin, Dzmitry Udovenko
Environment, Lighting: Aleksey Kozyrev, Aleksandr Antoshuk, Andrey Andrushevich, A. Liustsiber, Oleg Patonich, Andrew Petrukovich
Mocap TD: Konstantin Nalobin
Character Setup: Konstantin Nalobin, Ilya Klishin, Dzmitry Udovenko
Animation: Konstantin Nalobin, Igor Sandimirov, Dzmitry Lutsko
Compositing: Konstantin Brailov, Oleg Patonich, Dzmitry Halavach, Dzmitry Lutsko, Aleksandr Antoshuk
Sound Design, Compositor: Eugene Suhovei
Mocap Actors: Alexander Geleish, Aliaksndrava Tatsiana, Oleg Patonich, Olya Makarevich, Dzmitry Papok, Alexey Rybnikov
