#ndisplay

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Week 8 - Final Project Planning

This week we began planning for our final project as well as continued testing in The Void. This workshop was mainly a way for us to brainstorm and plan for what we wanted our final project to be.

The class decided to split amongst ourselves as we had a few ideas kicking around, throughout the semester. Early in the year, we made a few joke suggestions about creating a Minecraft parody with the mocap suits. This was due to the fact that it wouldn't require a facial performance and it also sounded pretty funny if we were able to pilot a Minecraft character and record some memes. We thought it would be good to incorporate some NDisplay as well to show our skills. This led to my suggestion that we do a parody to "Take on Me" by A-Ha due to the fact the music video had a sequence in which a 2D character becomes real, I thought we would be able to replicate this idea with the NDisplay and mocap.

With the initial idea settled we began assigning and volunteering for roles that best suited our knowledge and skills. I volunteered to be the director while Jorji, who suggested the Minecraft parody first, became the producer. We also created a potential asset list of all the things we'd need to create/source for the Unreal scene and mocap.

After the group brainstorming session, we went back to The Void and did more project testing. Now it was definitive that both the groups were using some form of NDisplay and mocap characters we decided to launch a similar scene to the scene in Week 4, alongside the robot models from Week 1.

Aside from the regular marking, we were introduced to some fingerless markers that allowed for more articulation in the finger joints. A lot of the time, the finger and hand movements do not translate well due to how minuscule and tiny they are. Therefore, the addition of more markers on the knuckles of the fingers gives Shogun more tracking data for more accurate interpolation.

We wanted to test the realism of having a mocap and an NDisplay actor interact, so much of the set was overhauled to recreate the same lighting as the environment. It was also interesting to see the camera being used at the same time as the mocap actors, meaning they could only be performing behind the camera. Shogun even allows you to section off what area needs to be tracked and recorded, so the set-up would enable the mocap actors to perform without interfering with the NDisplay.

We had to play a lot with scale in the scene because obviously, we can't change the size of real people, but we needed them to be in line with the size of the character models and the environment. We discovered that our NDisplay actor was too tall in comparison to the scene so he ended up kneeling in the shot in order to be of the correct scale.

This week was just before the break so I was excited that we had a set goal and a means by which to achieve it. The refreshment on NDisplay and mocap was very insightful for the planning and timing of what needs to be done in the following weeks. I have a lot of anticipation (and some fear) about how the project is going to go because this kind of production is something I've never done before. So I am optimistic in the following weeks of how its going to turn out!

Sources

a-ha - Take On Me (Official Video) [Remastered in 4K] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914&ab_channel=a-ha

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Week 4 - NDisplay

This week we were introduced to the concept of NDisplay. NDisplay is a way to render an Unreal scene across multiple synchronised display devices. The main way NDisplay is used is for filming live action against a 3D background. Similar to the virtual production of The Mandalorian, the real-life actor is filmed against the digital screen which has a live 3D environment.

Flinders obviously doesn't have the money of a million-dollar production but a similar effect can be created in The Void with the giant monitor. The camera in The Void can be marked and tracked in Viacon and Unreal.

The effect it creates is quite uncanny as the background will create a sort of parallax that looks real to the camera. It's as if the camera and actor are in fact in the 3D world.

Jason and Cam had already filmed a video utilising this technique and the advantage of this is that it's super simple to use when it's set up properly. It also allows for the incorporation of real-life props in the scene to make the illusion more effective.

NDisplay works with the camera projecting onto a plane in Unreal. The plane is placed equidistant from the marked-up camera to the real-life screen in The Void. Therefore when the camera is moving, the viewing frustum is moving along the plane. This is what creates the illusion of a real background because the image on the plane is moving with the camera.

After the initial demonstration, we were tasked with setting up an NDisplay of our own, utilising a sci-fi scene (a Helpmann Academy asset). We actually needed to remove a lot of elements from the scene as it was a fully rendered game environment with independent animation and effects. These extra animations were causing the scene to run very slowly and attempting to launch NDisplay would take a while to load. While setting up the Unreal scene we also placed lights around the set to make the lighting more synonymous with the scene location.

Here's the final output we managed to create! With all the lights in the scene and the scene launched into Unreal, the illusion is quite effective. This workshop has provided a ton of inspiration for the final project as it means there are endless possibilities of what world/location we could set out production in, as long as we have an Unreal scene of it.

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Virtual Production Features coming to Unreal Engine 5

Virtual Production Features coming to Unreal Engine 5

With the upcoming scheduled release for Unreal Engine 5 we thought it a good idea to look over the new virtual production features. Looking past the obvious Nanite and Lumen game changers and focusing in on specific Unreal Engine 5 virtual production pipeline improvements and changes. nDisplay Integration Improvements To start our list of virtual production improvements we have the growth…

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