Tribes of Europa is available to watch now on Netflix,
a sweeping sci-fi drama that shows us a fractured future
of warring factions and fallen cities.
But it's also a story about a family and the very real struggles they face
as their existence is turned upside down.
That poses an interesting challenge from a visual effects perspective.
It's not enough to show a bleak, unrecognisable future -
it has to feel like our own world, but different,
lived-in and abandoned,
lost and reclaimed.
And however incredible the effects are,
characters and story must be at the centre.
To learn more about how that balance is struck,
we spoke to Rick Sander, co-visual effects supervisor on the show.
I'm a photographer and designer
and have been working in the visual effects industry for 25 years.
Rick explained that much of the VFX work on Tribes of Europa is world-building.
The team has to take what's there
and enhance it to reflect what showrunner Phil Koch is imagining.
There are numerous ways this is done.
It's partly about making already beautiful locations bigger and more complex
in order to match the vision of the series creator.
Sometimes, this involves shooting in a real place,
then adding elements from other areas to make entirely new worlds.
Other times, like in this shot from episode six,
it's about taking things away to make the world seem more abandoned.
Urban spaces are a great way of telling this story.
Given the postapocalyptic nature of this show,
the team needed to find ways
to make the world look like it was being reclaimed by nature,
and that meant going the extra distance to add dense vegetation and greenery.
Take these shots from episode two -
vast buildings obscured by trees and tower blocks choked with vines.
The inspiration here comes from real life.
You can see it here in abandoned locations
the team shot,
and they even studied photos of ancient cities in India and Cambodia
that were totally overrun by forests.
What does an entire city look like that's been overgrown by greens?
That was a key exploration of Tribes.
Again, the purpose of these shots is to enhance the story being told,
and striking visual elements
can serve as a means of expressing what a character is feeling.
There's another great example in episode two
when Kiano sees a city for the first time.
His reaction, a mix of fear and wonder.
I think people connect with that shot
because they experience it through our character.
He's scared, but his world just got a lot bigger.
The more specific effects,
like the Atlantian hoverbike crash in the first episode,
require a different approach.
The team scouted the perfect location near Cape Town
and created a pre-vis to map exactly how the crash would look.
Then the real hover-jet vehicle was scanned using photogrammetry,
then modelled, animated and composited.
And the reason it feels so real is detail -
things like fire, leaves and debris.
The animation was even tweaked to pick up the reflection of the sun
as the craft turns in the sky.
And the compositors warped the trees to react to the passing jet
and it all just comes together beautifully.
Another example of storytelling through special effects
is seen in the holographic projections from episode three.
These are done using 3-D laser scans of those rooms
so the team could build a hologram that filled the space,
as well as accurately map the reflections
those images would make on the real-life room.
We tell the story using glitches to heighten the tension and mystery.
The results allow us to tell a much bigger adventure yet to come.
And, of course, we can't talk about Tribes of Europa
without mentioning the cube.
It's a real physical prop,
and the team initially planned
just to enhance the physical version in post.
But, in the end, for the sake of continuity,
it was replaced in every single shot.
The 3D version was designed using photogrammetry
with around 300 photos taken
before the team added additional detail and texture,
then animated the mechanical unfolding interior.
The results are really breathtaking.
The look and animation, it's glowing, the integration,
the way the facets catch light.
I couldn't tell if the cube was real or not,
but it was better than photorealistic
because now we had options and controls to take the cube to another level.
At its heart, Tribes of Europa is a story about people and characters,
and Rick hopes the visual effects serve to enrich that
rather than distract from it.
I hope viewers just accept as a given
that within our story, these dazzling things are possible.
The work we envisioned evolved over time and it just got bigger.
We doubled the size of the Origines village.
We added dozens of cubes, flying and fighting.
They catch this wonderful natural light.
We designed every bullet hit, every flash, the Ark emerging from the Adriatic.
The holograms all grew in scope to support a wonderful story
and bring Philip's vision to life.
I worked on Tribes for fifteen months
and it took dozens of people almost a year
to finish all the shots we created.
I hope everyone just sees past the work and enjoys this great series.
Tribes of Europa is available to watch on Netflix now.