We had an interesting time at MPTS (Media Production and Technology Show) last week. Jon featured on a panel discussing future skills development for Virtual Production. Anselem in support.
Among the Cherry Trees
Over the past few years we’ve been delving into the exciting new world of Virtual Production. This is where live action and foreground set design is set against a realistic responsive ‘virtual’ background, usually displayed on a videowall made up of high resolution LED panels. The background is generated and rendered in realtime, using high-end GPU based systems and 3D rendering software such as Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. This produces a background image that is effectively a realtime 3D environment, and the view as seen through the camera lens adjusts in both parallax, viewing angle and focus according to the camera lens’ position, focal length and aperture data – all of which is ‘tracked’ within the space using various techniques and technologies. It’s easiest understood when you see an example, so here is a rather nice production we managed to create a couple of years back, when all this was fresh and new, and the technology was far from tried and tested. Evenso, the result was quite pleasing, and there is a decent ‘Behind the Scenes’ video to complement, so you can see how it was all made. Take a look:-
Remember the Future
The C-CATS team is delighted to have been commissioned by the University of Surrey’s amazing newly minted Institute for Sustainability to create a special animation to support the Institute’s work. Produced and Directed by Jon Weinbren, teaming up with co-writer Tom Hill and featuring the amazing skills of Animation Director Izzy Barszcz, we have named the film “Remember the Future”. It looks at the past, present and possible future of a sustainable planet and sustainable living. We are working with the Institute’s key people, Lorenzo Fioramonti and Nathalie Hinds in developing the ideas and treatment behind the animation, and it’s undoubtedly a wonderful way for this multi-disciplinary Institute to engage with the Creative Arts and associated technologies. What more can I say: it’s a fantastic project which we love working on. So here’s a little sneak of some behind the scenes work featuring Jon Weinbren and Izzy Barszcz.
