The First 48 - Virtual Production

A Humber Faculty directed virtual production that I had the pleasure to be a part of. Teaming up with the film program and collaborating with other 3D artists we ventured into the filmmaking world of Virtual production.

Virtual Production is an emerging filmmaking method which acts as an alternative to a green screen. You combine physical elements in the foreground with a led wall in the background to create a realistic scene. The LED wall is synchronized with a real time 3D software that contains a 3D environment created by 3D artists. With the use of a special lens called an anamorphic lens when you are using in camera vfx the lens can add distortion and capture things that would otherwise be out of frame using a regular lens.

I had the responsibility of being the team lead of technical art for one of the levels in the film. My main duties included optimizing every aspect of the level in Unreal Engine. Lighting optimization, asset optimization, and rendering optimization were necessary in order to increase frame rate on the LED wall. One of the main issues we solved as tech artists was figuring out a way bake high resolution textures into low resolution meshes.