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RYAN MCCOY: When we initially got the interview to do Free Guy,
they wanted a vendor that knew how to use Unreal Engine because they were
working on a video game project.
So it just seemed to align really well.
And we pulled together a bunch of our favorite snippets
from different video games and stuff that we
thought could be really helpful for the action sequence
and for just inspiration along the way.
And they really resonated with that.
We were able to have a whole lot of fun just trying
to get these great video game concepts into these sequences
and collaborate with them in a way where
it would be funny and compelling and also just brought back
those best moments from our childhood and from the other games
that we've been playing on the side.
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Using Unreal Engine, we were able to set and dress
environments in ways that ordinarily would
have been very cumbersome because it's
existing within a game environment.
So we can move around to duplicate props and have that all
happen in real time with the camera angles in mind as we go.
GRANT OLIN: The big benefits of doing our set
dressing in Unreal is that we were able to see the lighting
and see some of the context while we're building out
and arranging the sets.
And this was very helpful in particular
for things like the location scouting that we
did where we would build scans and use that to help track the sun,
see how the light's going to play on the day
when they actually go to shoot in a more detailed way
than you would just by using like a sun-tracking app so that you know,
oh, the sun's going to be over here on June 3.
We could actually pull up the light in the streets
and say, hey, here's what it's going to look like.
RYAN MCCOY: Yeah.
It was really cool to be able to have that light information as to what
the shadows would be cast based off of the buildings that
are in the environment without actually having
to go into the future and see where the sun would actually
cast on the ground at that time of year and time of day.
GRANT OLIN: Yeah.
And just like get a sense for what buildings the sun's
going to bounce off of.
So maybe an area isn't going to get direct sunlight,
but there's a big white building that's going to be hit by the sun.
RYAN MCCOY: Yeah so the DP was able to make those decisions way ahead
of time so that they know if they have to push the shoot day
or rearrange the calendar.
GRANT OLIN: We were able to help George, the EP, both location
scout and figure out how to arrange outdoor sets in the way that
would best give him good light on the day
that they were going to actually be filming.
RYAN MCCOY: When we were doing post-vis
we were able to blend in takes that they had shot into the CG of Unreal
Engine rendered environment and then back
into the live action footage in a way that felt pretty seamless.
Whereas if we were to do that traditionally,
you would really notice the jump in quality and lighting
quality, the textures, the shaders.
Everything worked to create a much more realistic end result
without nearly as much effort.
GRANT OLIN: Yeah.
Especially in the opening oner shot.
The fact that we were doing that post is in Unreal.
Blending, I think, it was seven or eight live action plates together,
some green screens on location.
It even helped figure out parts of the shots
where they might need to replace a part of the car
or a little piece of it instead of being gray shaded, kind
of distracting my own models that were
blending in with these real plates of cars and stuff.
It's a nice Unreal vendor.
I mean, some of the quick post-vis we did over about a week,
I think you'd be hard pressed to point out
exactly where CG parts of the car blend with the real car that
was driving on the day.
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One of the big on-set components to Free Guy
was the opening oner shot that we kind of
took from end to end, all the way from base concept phase
through to the shoot.
And then post-phase before handing off to DD to final,
it was a really technically-oriented process once we kind of ironed out
the shot itself.
Starting in Maya and going to Unreal, we
designed the whole shot, worked out creatively what it needed to be.
And then on set, started breaking that out
into its individual components of, what did they need to shoot
and where did they need to shoot it and what
actors did they need to be there?
What kind of gear did they need to shoot it?
What could be on location?
What has to be on green screen?
We were pretty integral in helping figure that out
as well as how these pieces will actually come together.
The big bit part of focus out on location
was really ironing out the stitch points,
figuring out how we're going to transition from Channing
Tatum sitting in the stationary car on a green screen
to that same car with a stunt driver in it,
hauling ass through downtown Boston.
And doing that without old-fashioned methods
that you would use to stitch shots like just something big coming in
from the camera or coming at camera, and instead
doing it very seamlessly through careful choices
of how the plates would stitch.
And then once they filmed that, pulling all of the new information
that we got from the film plates as well as our CG Unreal backgrounds,
doing quick comps for post-vis to make
sure that, yeah, OK, what we shot today is actually going to work.
This is going to stitch together fine.
Kind of like verification process almost on the day, on the fly.
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RYAN MCCOY: So we started adopting Unreal Engine
as a studio in about 2016 on War of the Planet of the Apes.
And at the time, it was very new to try
to create a pipeline between Maya and in Unreal.
And we created some tools.
And since then, we've continued to up them and get
the familiarity between artists and supervisors
and the rest of our crew.
At this point, Unreal is our default interactive rendering software.
We're really looking forward to what's going to happen in the future
and how we can embrace Unreal Engine more and more
with the natural features that they have been including.
Like every month, it seems like there's
some cool new thing that we get to incorporate into our workflow.
GRANT OLIN: So since Free Guy, we've been rapidly adopting all the tools
that Epic rolls out into Unreal and have started,
in the last year and a half or so, doing more and more of our layout
and that kind of process with Unreal Engine, some simple animation
in engine.
And as they improve the animation tools, what we'd love to do
is start doing all of our animation there.
RYAN MCCOY: We're eager to keep developing
these tools and processes as we move forward with Epic
and the new changes that are coming our way.
GRANT OLIN: Thanks for checking this out.
We can't wait to tell you more about all the work we're doing currently
and in the future with Epic as we make the jump into Unreal 5.
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