>> Hi. I am Jeff Grebe.
I am the FX Lead on Vader Immortal at ILMxLAB.
I started out in IMLxLAB in 2018,
and prior to that, I was with Industrial Light
and Magic for 18 years, working on over 40 films,
ranging from Star Wars, to Marvel films and beyond.
One thing that keeps me driven
is pushing the limits of art and technology.
And that is why I am excited to be a part of ILMxLAB.
I get an opportunity to bring my experience
in the film industry into VR.
ILMxLAB is Lucasfilm's Immersive Entertainment Division.
Since 2015, ILMxLAB has been on the forefront
of pushing the convergence between film and VR
as an immersive form of storytelling.
A member of the Lucasfilm family,
ILMxLAB has the talent to create cinematic VR experiences
in every aspect from sounds, performance,
to art and award-winning visual effects.
ILMxLAB works with real-time rendering graphics,
and Epic is an incredibly important technology partner
in that front.
Our companies share a same ambition,
to bring cinematic quality real-time experiences to life,
and Unreal Engine is a key tool in this endeavor for us.
Early on in ILMxLAB's history,
the team began exploring this new genre of immersive
storytelling on various platforms.
We knew we wanted to do something new,
and to continue Lucasfilm and ILM's legacy
of world-class storytelling and cutting edge technology.
ILMxLAB's experiments in virtual reality
provided us the foundation for our studio,
to tell a compelling, immersive,
interactive story about Darth Vader in VR.
Development on Vader Immortal really took shape
when Oculus came on board with the Oculus Quest.
With their hardware, you have six degrees of freedom,
and it is completely untethered.
That allowed us to understand
where and how to take our creative development.
For example,
a true 360-degree immersive experience with lightsabers.
We are always focused on crafting the right story
for the right platform.
The first part in a three-part series,
Vader Immortal, Episode I, released in the Spring
on the Oculus Quest and the Oculus Rift.
It is a highly cinematic experience,
a linear narrative with compelling interactions,
one that puts you inside the Star Wars universe,
as the center role of the character in the story
instead of just watching it on the screen.
Today, I am going to share with you
some of the visual developments that went into episode one,
but first, let us take a look at our trailer.
>> You have caused us considerable inconvenience.
In a moment, the lord of this monolith will give you a task.
A word of advice. Do not anger Vader.
>> Now that Vader has found you,
he is in reach of enormous power.
You must escape.
>> Grab my hand.
I wonder what Vader is after.
>> It appears Vader has finally found his candidate,
and our future is in your hands. Vader is here.
>> You are the one I have been searching for.
Do as I command.
>> Ugh!
>> Is there any version of this plan
that does not end up with us being dead?
>>Jeff: So, how do we go about
bringing engaging film-quality VFX into a VR experience?
Well, maybe to answer that,
we should probably ask ourselves first three questions.
First, what? What VFX elements work well in a VR story?
Do they add to the reality?
Are they engaging and interactive?
And can they trigger an emotion or a reaction?
How? How are we going to make it?
Well, we know at ILM we are capable
of delivering high-quality cinematic visuals for film,
but can we deliver the same in real-time?
And lastly, how do we make it for the hardware we have?
Will it be performant on those devices?
Our top priority is a hitch-free experience,
else all the work that we have put into our experience
will be overshadowed by poor performance
pulling you out of the reality that we worked
so hard to create. And we cannot have that.
First and foremost,
we want this to be a fun and exciting experience.
And that comes from you driving the experience.
You are the hero of our story,
and we want our visuals to support that.
Speaking of you driving the experience,
we want visuals that engage you.
We want visuals you can participate and interact with,
and it is that interaction that pulls you deeper into our story.
And we want to provide you a chance to interact
with some of the iconic Star Wars assets
you have come to know and love.
We aim to deliver the highest quality visuals possible.
Lucasfilm is known for pushing the boundaries
of art and technology. We spent considerable time
polishing and refining our assets
to capture those little details from the films.
For example, the holograms.
We wanted to match that exact vector graphic
look from the '70s, the fritzes, pulses, glitches,
and sound effects you have come to recognize.
We want visuals that will help enhance the mood of the story,
cause an emotion inside of you, fear, awe, wonder.
We want to stimulate this. It was a treat early on
when we got to watch recordings of our focus testers
physically reacting to some of the moments in Vader Immortal.
It was those reactions that let us know
we were doing our job right.
We aimed to create a richly detailed world
to immerse you in.
Part of what makes that environment feel real
is its complexity.
In the Mustafar arrival sequence,
we had over 60 elements added to enrich the scene.
Lucasfilm are known for creating a richly detailed universe,
and here, we get an opportunity to bring it to life.
We had over 400 particle effects crafted for Vader Immortal,
each designed specifically to enhance the story.
We wanted our visuals to continue our push
for innovative forms of storytelling.
The Quill sequence was one of our most stunning
and technically challenging moments to bring to life.
A true combination of art and cutting edge tech,
featured live brushstrokes, painted, animated,
and shaded by a talented team of artists.
It is a live work of art, flowing before your eyes.
So, how do we make all these visuals in real-time?
In the film industry,
I am accustomed to generating a lot of images,
and then later, assembling them all together.
And this is no different. We need a similar approach.
We relied heavily on Unreal's Sequencer
to compose most of the cinematic moments inside Vader Immortal.
As in film, this was a project
that was crafted and polished through iterations,
so we needed tools to do so.
To me, Unreal Sequencer is a real-time compositing suite,
capable of managing large amounts of data,
and we had a lot on this project.
As for the elements, the goal was always photo-real.
But beyond just looking real,
the elements had to behave and act realistically.
It is that last bit why we could not pre-render
all of our elements and place them on to cards.
They appeared fake without proper depth and motion.
When our audience has the abilities
to walk around the environment,
they can tell what is real and what is not.
And some of the effects, you can actually hold within your hands.
We wanted to simulate as closely as possible
the natural characteristics and behaviors you would expect.
Holding a simulation I crafted in VR
for the first time was a game changer for me.
There were so many new ways I could look at and experience
the detail I had put into my work.
As for me, as an artist, it is a new frontier to explore.
In our more cinematic moments,
we needed to deliver consistent behavior reliably,
deliverable in the same impactful moments.
I was a little concerned about this in real-time.
I was happy to see all the modules in Cascade
containing references to seeded operations.
It is a core component in film VFX,
having the ability to generate consistent results.
Finally, we needed an approach to deliver on two platforms,
with two very different performance capabilities.
We did not have the time or resource
to develop two different solutions.
Again, this is where Unreal provided us
an efficient workflow.
We were able to leverage Unreal's project
scalability configurations to tailor solutions
per platform and hardware. For example,
we utilize our particles level of detail system,
which is typically used for distance-based LODing,
to allow us to customize
and override specific sim parameters,
just for the Quest.
This way, we avoided duplicating our work
and causing a lot of branches,
and that would have been a tremendous amount of work.
Our vision from the start was to deliver
a common quality experience on both of Oculus's platforms
with the same immersive fidelity,
and I believe we achieved our goal.
It took a careful approach to achieve this,
and Unreal provided us the tools to do so.
So, that is a little look into how we created
some of the visuals for Vader Immortal with Unreal Engine.
Here is a clip of our final segment.
It was one of the most demanding sequences
we had to put together.
It had over six minutes of motion-cap footage,
cloth sims,
a moving environment, and loads of effects,
both dynamic and staged. We used all of the tools
and tech we had learned in the process
to bring a dramatic conclusion to the first episode.
I am really looking forward to showing you
the next chapter of Vader Immortal.
We have really got some innovative tech
in the next episode
that is really going to enhance the experience further.
I am excited about the future of VR storytelling.
We have the tech, we have the hardware,
and in ILMxLAB, we have the unique,
innovative form of storytelling. So, I am excited to see
where we are going to take this medium next.
And I am excited to be a part of this really talented team
of artists, engineers, and production staff
that relentlessly worked
to bring Vader Immortal into reality.
I am proud to be here representing them today.
And this project would not be possible
if it was not for our partnership
with Oculus and Unreal.
And special thanks to our content partners abroad,
Ninja Theory.
Thank you guys. Do you have any questions?
I would be happy to take them off-site.