Looking outwards 05: 3D graphcis

Industrial light and Magic is a seminal american visual effects company that pioneered many computer graphic techiniques used in major movies, games and 3d graphics. The 1 project that they completed recently that will have a lasting effect on TV production is the Star Wars show, The Mandalorian. Having it’s founding roots in the original star wars movies, Industrial Light and Magic yet again pioneered another visual effects technique for the the new show. The filming of The Mandalorian was one of the first times real time rendering was used in filming. The desolate alien planets on the Mandalorian, where not real earthly locations but instead, real time, computer generated terrain designed by the 3D artists at ILM. These virtual sets were then cast onto “the Volume” a large circular stage with its floors ceilings and walls covered in high def LED screens for camera capture with the actors acting on them. What’s interesting about this is that the real time rendering engine ILM used was the Unreal engine, a 3d graphics software developed by the company Epic games with a focus on 3D video games. This feat, breaks several boundaries in that, not only does it prove that video game engines now have the capacity to perform at a level of photorealism but it also breaks the boundary of a simulated reality, in that in order for this technique to work, there needs to be real time 3D location and space tracking for the camera work to actually make sense in capturing the footage. Although 3D motion capturing was already a thing, it always required more post processing from the artists but in this case, it was good enough to be captured directly on camera.