Into The Volume
Agency. Territory Studios. | Client. imagination
PB worked with his good friends at Territory Studio to Art Direct an immersive virtual production showcase for Imagination London, controlled by Epic's Unreal 4 software platform.
Imagination received an Epic - UNREAL Mega Grant which enabled them to use the power of a real-time workflow through a unique showcase film, exploring the dynamics of a virtual production environment housed within an LED stage setting, at Epic’s own studio in London.
The showcase film would explore a narrative created and directed by Imagination, of a near-future London street scene setting, following a protagonist as she interacts with physical products on stage, using the immersive qualities of our UE4 real-time digital backplate. The overall scene wasn't purely about visual elements, we also had to ensure there was a cohesive narrative that held it all together, creating a micro-story that gave life and reason to everything that was in the scene and attached to the overarching narrative that Imagination wanted to bring to life.
©Territory Studio 2021 |. ©Imagination 2021
In the volume — Live shoot day!
Real time environment development
The aspect of light played a key part in our R&D — from dynamic long shadows produced during golden hour, to punchy, vibrant neon glows captured during our day to night transition, alongside how this would then react with specific real-world textures like tarmac, water, concrete and glass.
It was important to understand how light would affect our scene during these transitional moments, and there was a good proportion of “in engine” R&D which took place to enable us to explore the dynamic qualities of light within the design.
Scene development and block-outs
We explored many attributes within our research in order to build out the environment, gaining insight into how we’d represent a “near future” city street scene in a virtual production.
