Digital Domain has continued producing dynamic game cross-over content in the Destiny universe with their latest launch trailer for Destiny: The Taken King. The DLC was recently released by Bungie and Activision for various PlayStation and Xbox consoles. The trailer relied on live action, mocap and extensive visual effects and was directed by regular DD collaborator Joseph Kosinski for agency 72andSunny and production company Reset Content. Claudio Miranda was the DOP. In this visual behind the scenes look, we find out from senior visual effects supervisor Eric Barba and visual effects supervisor Dan Akers how the trailer was made.
https://youtu.be/RpDLxs8z08A
Eric Barba: We started previs with Joe from early boards. We also took a trip up to Seattle to meet with Bungie and go over the look and feel of the game. Joe then gave us some reference of what he wanted for Saturn, and the basic plan for lighting the set.Eric Barba: Working with Claudio Miranda, Joe explained that he wanted soft light coming from the rings of Saturn being backlit, and treating them as ice particles / chunks. This allowed Claudio to plan for the lighting during the live action shoot.Eric Barba: Joe wanted the idea of the creatures coming out of the darkness and into the light. The contrast of lighting that Joe created, help to create the moodiness and ominous nature of the environment.Dan Akers: We did the mo-cap shoot in our LA Studio. Having previs’d the spot out, we knew what pieces we would need. Working with stunt coordinator Robert Alonso (whom we had worked with on Oblivion), Joe and Robert planned out the choreography of the fight sequence and we “shot” the mo-cap in Digital Domain’s LA Mo-Cap Studio.Dan Akers: We used Z-brush for the hi-res sculpture and re-targeting animation we used maya with our proprietary tools, and used motion capture as a base to help refine animation on top of that. We used Mari for the characters and V-Ray for lighting. For the environments we used a combination of Nuke and Maya.Dan Akers: There were effects work in every single shot. Not only were Houdini effects incorporated in big explosion shots, but every single shot had subtle atmosphere and dust. There were a lot of layers that contributed to the density of the overall feel of the piece.
