The Silent Sea is the first Korean Netflix series
to introduce Unreal Engine’s ICVFX.
This project was a great opportunity for creating the Moon's surface
to make the content more immersive
and deliver a new VFX experience.
Westworld was established fairly recently in October 2018.
But our team of experts have
more than 20 years of VFX experience.
These group of professionals have come together
to deliver quality work from start to finish.
We first incorporated Unreal Engine
in the Netflix series "Sweet Home"
by using Ncam and Unreal Engine together
for real time previs on the film set.
Our new project The Silent Sea
is a Sci-Fi thriller set in the near future when Earth’s resources become depleted,
which forces the crew to venture forth into outer space and the Moon.
This setting was introduced to K-drama for the first time.
In order to realistically create an unknown environment of space,
we used Unreal Engine’s ICVFX.
In this project,
we made a 30-square-meter lunar surface set
and used LED walls to connect with the virtual surface
prior to filming.
Our most important challenge was
to create the physical and virtual sets
so that they were linked seamlessly.
The best solution was to use the ICVFX feature
available in Unreal Engine.
First, Multi-User Editing
connected the machines for rendering and editing
so that the changes could be applied in real time
without any on-site delays.
Color Correct Regions allowed us
to change the color, illumination, and texture of certain areas
bridging the LED walls and the physical set
for a seamless look.
With these two features,
we were able to create a believable lunar surface.
What we liked the most about using ICVFX in this project
was being able to fix and updates things like
object location, lighting, color and
anything requested by other directors and DPs in real time on site.
Conventional blue screen pipeline requires
a lot of modifications from modeling to final rendering
for the merged area on the screen,
but ICVFX addressed all these at once and on the spot
to significantly boost production speed and efficiency.
The Level Snapshots feature was also very useful.
To make real-time changes in the past,
we had to manage the changes in different versions for the version control tools.
However, with such text-based information,
it was difficult to keep track of
all the changes and new details.
But Level Snapshots allowed us to manage screenshots of our edits and
search and filter
all the changes in detail.
It was very useful when we returned to
a previously filmed version
or restarted a new one.
Switchboard was very handy as well.
Before using it, we had to put in a lot of effort to manage and use
the myriad of equipment necessary on-site.
It was very time consuming to
launch and modify each device
before we started using Switchboard.
But with it, we can list,
launch, and modify all the devices simultaneously,
which improves the productivity of the entire ICVFX project.
Unreal Engine supports Python,
so we were able to build a Blueprint plugin
called L Exporter based on the popular programming language.
As a tool designed to
reuse Unreal projects in other DCC tools,
L Exporter supports Python, which uses Unreal projects in VFX the most,
enabling us to make and use the desired features in no time.
The Silent Sea is our first project
to adopt ICVFX filming using LED walls.
The project we're working on now
includes even more immense and interesting
ICVFX filming using more LED walls.