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JOHNSON THOMASSON: Hi.
I'm Johnson Thomasson, virtual production developer
and Unreal Engine enthusiast.
On behalf of The Third Floor, I want to thank you for checking us out
at Unreal Virtual Production Week.
The Third Floor is the premier provider
of visualization services for film and TV
as well as themed entertainment.
We've been supporting productions for over 16 years.
We're an increasingly global company with headquarters in Los Angeles,
London, Beijing, and I'm here at our newest official branch
in Atlanta, Georgia.
We're on the lot at Trilith Studios, a world-class production
facility where Third Floor teams have collaborated over
the years on shows like Ant-Man, Avengers:
Endgame, The Tomorrow War and many others.
We've recently announced an alliance with The Imaginarium Studios
here at this location.
Lots of exciting things to come here.
We're thrilled to be on the lot in the creative core.
C let me tell you about how we utilize virtual production
techniques in the Unreal Engine to deliver best-in-class visualization
services.
At The Third Floor we keep the focus on realizing the filmmaker's vision
and putting story first.
We may be supporting their initial look development
or filling in the full context of a blue screen plate.
Our workflows are designed around enabling artists' creativity.
Real-time technology and remote workflows
allow the entire team to work in context, regardless
of where they may be.
As previs hands off to production, we work with on-set departments
to visualize the finished project.
Whether interfacing with the stunts team
or using real-time techniques with virtual production,
we believe our role is to facilitate and inspire storytelling.
Our amazing teams of artists are passionate about the work.
Technical solutions like simulcam can carry ideas being developed
in pre-production into production.
These technical solutions expand the possibilities
as filmmakers achieve their creative vision on set.
We've been using Unreal Engine for a while now.
In the last three years, it's become a fundamental part of what we do.
Our artist-friendly implementation of Unreal Engine
enables us to extend the benefits of the content that's
created in previs.
A big part of the workflow on Disney+'s The Mandalorian is motion
capture and virtual camera.
Previs master scenes can be blocked as episode directors work
with artists in motion capture suits with live retargeting
of the performances in engine.
We use a tablet-based virtual camera.
It's a lightweight solution with low overhead.
A DP or director can sketch out camera coverage
that can be fed back into previs for further refinement.
Motion capture also allows close work with the stunts department.
While they are choreographing complex fight scenes,
we can capture that motion and apply it
to any of the characters' previs avatars.
This allows directors to see that action
in the context of the environment long before they go to set.
The Tomorrow War, released on Amazon Prime Video,
is a large-scale action film with frightening aliens
called White Spikes.
We worked with the director and VFX team
to visualize these creatures across several complex sequences.
Early in pre-production we made our real-time AR tool
Cyclops, which uses Unreal, available to the filmmakers.
To judge scale of the White Spikes, multiple monsters
could be staged in Cyclops around a real-life person.
The size and arrangement could be checked on accurate lenses
with video captured to show the rest of the creative team.
Our Unreal visualization pipeline, which we call Mercury,
grew out of a workflow and toolkit first developed on The Mandalorian.
Mercury leverages a proprietary scene description format,
which allows artists to build shots in Maya
and transfer them into Unreal.
This maximizes animators' strengths in Maya
with the sophisticated graphic scalability of Unreal.
A customized Live Link interface allows artists to preview their work
in Engine while animating in Maya.
This high bandwidth pipeline into Unreal
opens the doors to new ways of interacting with the sequences.
Versatile workflows, including remote access and multi-user sessions
are making previs creation more hands on, giving key creatives
a direct way of interacting with and shaping the content.
Creative decision makers can scout their worlds and shots in VR.
On HBO'S Game of Thrones, we developed a virtual reality
scouting tool set that uses Unreal to support the art department.
It's a system to explore proposed designs and actors, creature, prop,
and camera placements before the constructed sets exist.
For Sony's Venom: Let There Be Carnage, this scouting system
enabled virtual walkthroughs of production designs
and CG set extensions for the movie's prison and cathedral scenes.
The film team could use this tech to gauge the space needed
for character action in the prison breakout
and develop modular shooting options and resets for two-way
filming that extended distance on the practical stage.
For the church standoff, we created an explorable cathedral asset
based on art department models showing both the real C
stage and CG set extensions for the vaulted ceiling and interior tower.
Scale and aesthetics of these real world and digital set elements
as well as scaffold dressings could be planned through views in VR.
Where visualization once served exclusively as an early-phase step,
it is now used to help fuel the entire filmmaking process.
As the complexity of today's projects increases,
so does the need to maintain context keeping
all departments aware of how their work is
building towards the finished film.
Sophisticated LED Volume productions like The Mandalorian
extensively rely on careful planning to maximize the creative potential.
Our internal R&D department is always looking ahead.
Here you can see some behind-the-scenes footage of a test
from a few years ago.
We're mixing simulcam and interactive lighting.
The tracked picture camera is driving a virtual camera
in Unreal, which is rendered and composited
into the background in real time.
It's also driving a second virtual camera up
in the sky that is capturing a shadow map of the tree canopy displayed
through projectors in ARRI sky panels.
All of the interaction was live and driven through Unreal Engine.
We love projects that have interesting and specific needs
like this.
Often the same basic proven processes can be combined in a new way
to solve new creative challenges.
With tools like Cyclops, we want to make
visualization available to filmmakers anywhere they may be working.
Productions such as Netflix's The Witcher: Season 2
push us to evolve these tools bringing more quality
and interaction to the level of visualization
that's available as film teams make critical decisions.
Image-based decisions are high quality decisions.
Cyclops puts the content in their hands on location
to accurately plan filming while still
allowing for happy accidents and on-set adjustments.
Visualization in Unreal Engine offers faster ways
to communicate the creative vision throughout the filmmaking
process helping today's visionaries realize ideas and move
the industry forward.
Thanks for spending your time with The Third Floor
today at Unreal Virtual Production Week.