[MUSIC PLAYING] SHAUN COMLY: In this
visualization guide, we're setting out to
tell somebody exactly how to do this sort of virtual
production using Unreal Engine. Visualization and
virtual production is where we take performance
capture and virtual camera and we string that together
to make a storyboard. KATHERINE HARRIS MOJICA: It's
where the director, or the DP, working with a team and the art
department explore their ideas. If that's the shot
that they really wanted or if it's even possible to do
the shot that they really wanted. SHAUN COMLY: So the
challenge of visualization when it comes to
virtual production is that you take a sophisticated
game engine, like Unreal Engine, you throw in multiple pieces of
software, hardware, timecode, and then you throw in film directors
and try to make them all play nice together. KATHERINE HARRIS MOJICA:
Visualization is difficult because there's no one way. And it's even more difficult because
no one way is ever written down. SHAUN COMLY: And that's
when we started to go, OK, we need to start to
pull all this stuff together to figure out how to
get from A to B. So, at Epic we are lucky enough to be
in contact with a bunch of studios who are leading the field
in virtual production. Once we told them what we
were trying to do here, absolutely every single one of them
was more than happy to talk to us at length about their processes,
certain rules that they have, things that work for them, things
that haven't worked for them, and their feedback is going to make
Unreal Engine better and easier to use. KATHERINE HARRIS MOJICA:
Having a lot of experience on set throughout the
years using Unreal, we've really dug into
the engine, including working with Epic on
a lot of our tools and how we use them with directors. LILY PITTS: Creating a
process that's flexible, allowing for adaptability by a
director is really, really important and hard to do. Figuring out exactly
where things go wrong and how to fix them, even harder. SHAUN COMLY: We went
halfway down the path and then realized that we had
to way back up and figure out what kind of slate we want to use,
what our naming conventions are going to be for our sequences,
how we're going to tape record things, how we're going
to use sub scenes, how we're not going
to use sub scenes. And what we're setting
out to do here is we want to go through and
make all of these mistakes and tell you exactly
what happened and what we should have done, and
then go back and redo them. If we've done it
right, somebody should be able to start from
the beginning and go all the way through to
the end of the guide and be able to start their own
small visualization studio. KATHERINE HARRIS MOJICA: I wish
they had done this years ago. [LAUGHS] It would have saved me so much
time, and energy, and tears. SHAUN COMLY: We're refraining from
calling this the best practice guide. This is more of a, if
you don't have to do it, this is a great place
to start, and then you figure out what works best
for you and your studio. But this is supposed to
be a foundational piece. This guide is being written
for one person sitting in their room that wants to get
into this or a large studio that wants to build up their own team. We're listing different hardware at
different price points, software, and the same thing with
body capture solutions, face capture solutions, what
buttons to push to democratize this type of virtual production. KATHERINE HARRIS
MOJICA: One thing I love about this whole process is
that it allows for any creator to get started. LILY PITTS: Being able to look
at a single source of information and be like, yes, finally,
a place for people to approach Unreal
Engine with confidence, knowing that throughout
the whole process, they have a place to refer to. SHAUN COMLY: As soon as you get
your ideas into Unreal Engine, it can be a film. It could be a game. It could go on to ICVFX wall. It could go into Fortnite. It could play a
million different ways. So hopefully, this is motivating
people to get in the engine and explore all of these
different creative opportunities.
