CATEGORY
Visual Effects
CLIENT
Timeless Pictures for Hallmark Channel
GENRE
Rom-com sport
PROJECT
Crowd extension and set extension through CG and tiling
A Winning Team
We’re really getting into crowd extensions, with bigger and better challenges. For A Winning Team, we were tasked to recreate a full soccer stadium. And nothing was going to keep us from reaching that goal (get it?).
We stepped up and upgraded to a better motion capture technology with the help of ninja-style Rokoko Suite, capturing 50 different crowd actions and putting them to the test. Recording these actions were somewhat tedious, but after dozens of tests, we figured it out through IClone Studio and Character Creator (CC) from Reallusion.
IClone was fundamental for the recording phase and character animation implementation. It essentially served as the main hub between CC and Rokoko. We created 50-80 CG characters in CC, brought them into IClone, animated via Rokoko Mocap suite, and exported to Unreal Engine for the clean-up and rendering process. Composite the sh#% out of the renders to make it look sexy on screen. And all this huge effort to solve one of the many shots we had on the pipeline!
Even though the production didn’t have as many shots as we had hoped, the stakes and timelines for TV shows are always tight! We thank the whole crew for their extra hours and big efforts on set and behind the scenes. What a ride!
- We created a library of snowed trees and foliage
- We created an Unreal Engine tool for snowed rooftops and cars
- We developed matte painting brushes to dust green foliage
- We developed color correction parameters that could easily convert green foliage to dry foliage.
On top of all this, our super talented VFX Supervisor, Juan Orea, went on paternity leave to welcome his first baby boy, little Ferran. Welcome to planet Earth, Ferran. The planet where we turn summer into winter with magic (and lots and lots of hard work).
