Production technology
About the production
When thinking about the production technology of the series, our team was faced with a choice: either to use traditional programs or explore new developments. The game engine Unreal Engine 4 by Epic Games was chosen as the foundation for the pipeline. What appealed to us, was the flexibility of the engine, the chance to make animation production as interactive as possible and, at the same time, take advantage of high-quality real-time rendering with fine-tuned lighting characteristics
Editor of emotions
The IDE built into the engine allowed us to instantly create different utility and editing software.
Character animation
Character animation is performed using the motion capture system, which is built right into the game engine. For this, a special setup was created based on the equipment for virtual reality HTC VIVE PRO, on Xsens suits, additional sensors, gloves, utilities and plugins.
Working with actors
There are three phases of the work with actors.
First, the actors perform a specially designed set of exercises and pieces of training to simulate the movements of drawn characters. Through this training, they get used to completely new movements and "flowing" from a pose to pose.
Over the course of the second stage of preparation, the actors get used to their new bodies with the help of virtual reality. While in a virtual space, in front of a virtual mirror, the actor sees not his real body, but the body of the character. He develops the character's physicality - the poses, gestures, movements that open the character up.
Phase three is a rehearsal. It's the more common studying of the role with specific tasks in scenes.
After that, the actor is ready for the film set.
The world of the series is assembled as a single game level, which gives directors the ability to instantly move to any place they want inside this world.
