{"id":15082,"date":"2021-07-12T22:00:33","date_gmt":"2021-07-12T21:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firedbydesign.com\/?p=15082"},"modified":"2021-07-12T22:07:27","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T21:07:27","slug":"erg-reveals-an-unreal-volume-of-vfx-in-resorts-world-las-vegas-campaign-by-psyop-and-hooray-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firedbydesign.com\/?p=15082","title":{"rendered":"ERG reveals an Unreal volume of VFX in Resorts World Las Vegas campaign by Psyop and Hooray Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Extended Reality Group (ERG) has revealed the workflow behind its contribution to the Stay Fabulous <\/em>campaign for the Resorts World Las Vegas<\/a> luxury destination. The campaign, created by Hooray Agency<\/a> and Psyop<\/a> to build excitement for the resort’s grand opening, kicked off in April with an immersive short film <\/a>featuring Celine Dion, Carrie Underwood, Katy Perry, Luke Bryan, Ti\u00ebsto, and Zedd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Scenes from Resorts World Las Vegas “Stay Fabulous” production courtesy of Extended Reality Group.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Supporting the vision of Psyop’s director and founding partner Marco Spier and his colleagues, ERG’s assignment began by providing asset optimisation of geometry and texture for LED volume production, based on models provided by Psyop. The campaign’s physical production took place at LA’s NantStudios virtual production complex, and involved Wonder Woman<\/em> DoP Matthew Jensen, ASC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hybrid UE workflow for real-time VFX<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Resorts World Las Vegas “Stay Fabulous” production, courtesy of Extended Reality Group.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Resorts World Las Vegas “Stay Fabulous” production, courtesy of Extended Reality Group.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Launched last year by Evan Glantz, Zack Kingdon, Keith Anderson, and Patrick Beery, ERG’s roster of artists, integrators, and production experts pioneer new applications for XR, MR, AR, and VR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In direct collaboration with Marco, we were tasked with doing all the scene building, lighting, and final touches,” said executive producer Glantz. “We were responsible for optimising, and in some cases, creating, the content appearing in the volume, which is the space where the virtual-tracked content is presented for motion capture. In other words, the volume is comprised of the LED screens where the Unreal Engine technology renders all the complex visual effects shots in real-time during the live-action shoot.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Render from Resorts World Las Vegas “Stay Fabulous” production courtesy of Extended Reality Group.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The ERG team began with models created in Autodesk Maya, Maxon’s Cinema 4D, SideFX’s Houdini, and Adobe’s Substance Designer. Those assets were then integrated into the UE environment volumetrically, where optimisation largely focused on designing for geometry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Render from Resorts World Las Vegas “Stay Fabulous” production, courtesy of Extended Reality Group.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

“This project’s high number of animation and lighting elements interacting together required a tight polygon budget to render everything at an acceptable frame rate,\u201d said Beery, the senior technical artist and senior lighting artist. \u201cOur workflow allowed us to optimise and \u2018retopologize\u2019 these models to work well within Unreal, and required us to model each component and environment accordingly, to meet the industry standard for motion capture.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Behind the scenes image from Resorts World Las Vegas “Stay Fabulous” production, courtesy of Extended Reality Group.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Baked in lighting<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As part of its pre-production services, fully understanding the potential for massively impacting in-camera virtual production scenarios, ERG created and programmed several different baked lighting scenarios for instant activation on the set. These addressed factors like various positions for the sun, and incorporating effects such as lazy God rays, with appropriate shadows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Behind-the-scenes image from Resorts World Las Vegas “Stay Fabulous” production courtesy of Extended Reality Group.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

“This approach of preparing baked lighting workflows saves a huge amount of time on set,” explained virtual lighting programmer Alvaro Turino Grosso. \u201dIn settings like this, it allows us to give the director and DoP content that is consistent across all playthroughs, which can be invaluable for blocking and rehearsals.”

Anticipating on-set demands for dynamic interactive lighting, Turino Grosso programmed full CUE to CUE and in-engine control via DMX. This allowed him to run both UE environmental lighting and physical lighting on the set using a GrandMA3 lighting console. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Scene from Resorts World Las Vegas “Stay Fabulous” production, courtesy of Extended Reality Group.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The results include the ability to make on-the-fly colour adjustments and vary the speed of the pinball’s roll, among many others.
For ERG, Turino Grosso, Beery, and CG Supervisor Darron Granieri actively participated in the production, providing quality control during the rehearsals and shoot, in concert with executives from NantStudios and Epic Games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Behind-the-scenes image from Resorts World Las Vegas “Stay Fabulous” production, courtesy of Extended Reality Group.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

“Along with Virtual Production Supervisor Lawrence Jones, Marco gave us an amazing set of references and concept art that helped us understand the goal of telling a dynamic story blending classic Las Vegas with the newest technology,” said executive producer Kingdon. “In this case, the use of bold physical set pieces to bend the line between photo-real and surreal elements \u2013 what we call photo-surrealism \u2013 worked like a charm. We were honoured to be part of this epic, groundbreaking campaign, alongside the world’s premier talents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image from Resorts World Las Vegas “Stay Fabulous” production, courtesy of Extended Reality Group.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The studio has released a video here<\/a> showing its work in more detail, and you can view the final campaign film below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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