A part of an emotional story
I wanted to create something emotional — and for me, nothing hits harder than the idea of loss, especially the loss of a parent. This Previs is just a small fragment of a larger story, a glimpse into a memory this woman is having.
The plot is simple: a father and daughter go on a hunting trip. It’s something the father has done for years, and now he’s brought his daughter along. But she’s not really into it, and he can tell just by looking at her. So instead of taking the shot, he suggests they quietly approach the deer and take a photo together. Funny enough, that ends up being the last photo they ever took, a small act of love, and a quiet moment where the father chose her over the tradition.
The Virtual Production process
1. Motion capture on a volume
After writing the script and having a concrete storyboard for our shots, we went on filming on the virtual production volume at USC Games.
Directing the actors and capturing that performance on Motive while also using Live Link for face capture.
2. Refining in Motion Builder and Unreal Engine 5.4
Once we have all the body and face capture data, I then use motion builder to make the body capture ready to export to Unreal Engine to be used on Metahumans.
Then, with Control Rigs I’m able to make precise changes to the animation. For example, we have a rifle prop in the body capture and is hard to get finger data, so I manually do that in Unreal Engine with control rigs.
