When approaching a cityscape shot the main obstacle I saw was how to manage and distribute objects throughout the scene. The solution couldn’t involve manually placing them due to sheer numbers, and I also wanted to create a workflow for larger scenes in the process.

The initial idea came from working with houdini and MASH in maya, and evolved from there. I quickly realized that the MASH system didn’t have the features I needed, primarily referencing, randomizing and diving into the machine’s folder structure. In the end it was obvious that a scene like this isn’t even possible without a scripting solution, so it’s very fortunate that I took this approach from the beginning. I do have plans to release the scripts in the near future, however there are still a few bugs to work out before I would feel comfortable making it public. For now, here’s a short video that gives a peek into the process.

You’ll notice that I use polygon cubes in this example, however the script works by either selecting faces or vertices, depending on your preference. I ended up using Maya’s MASH system to distribute cubes on the meshes, then using that geometry as a starting point to distribute the buildings. This is basically a hack copy of houdini’s copy-to-points workflow, so nothing new here, nevertheless it was a very helpful application of that same idea.

This project involved going out and making a lot of my own photogrammetry meshes. Tree trunks were all found around a lake in the east of Scotland, and the remaining static meshes that make up ground details are from Southern California. Quixel textures and foliage meshes were very helpful as well to fill in the gaps as well. Animations for the flies were done in Maya with a simple expression.

Another average day in the VFX studio… an oldie but goodie

The clean plate for this project was created with over 250 slices from the original footage, and combined with a 360 degree pano. Painted, Composited, and graded – all to give the illusion that no visual effects were used. There’s a reason Matte Painting is called the “invisible art”, and it’s also one of the reasons I love it.