Respirar

Created as the final project the course “Creation of 3D Virtual Environments with Unreal Engine for Virtual Production”, “Respirar” is an exploration on how taking care of oneself while also taking care of our surroundings, both of people and the ecological environment. This project was created alongside Montse Alzamora and Maxi Díaz with the performance of Esmeralda Colette and Aurembiaix Montardit. To take full advantage of the capabilities of virtual production four different environments were created each by a team member within Unreal Engine using Megascan assets, allowing the filming of four different locations within a small set and a shorter time period. Camera movements such as a traveling and a dolly out were used to create a parallax effect that showcased the depth of the virtual scenes.

The environments were adapted to a real-time film set environment by improving their performance using techniques such as reducing the amount of foliage with world position offset caused by wind or reducing the amount of Nanite overdraw. The project was filmed using a green screen and Assimilate Live FX to visualize the the final composition in real-time. Set lighting was used to match the direction, color and intensity of the different environments.

For the final composition, the environments were rendered offline to improve the quality of the lighting calculations and reduce foliage flickering through spatial anti-aliasing. Camera tracking was used to perfectly match the on-set camera movements during the offline render.

In a final post-production step color correction was applied to fine tune the lighting of the on-set footage and match the levels and tints of the highlights and shadows between the acting footage and the rendered environments. Sound design was used to subtly enhance the difference between environments and reinforce the journey both characters are in.