DraconisOlim the making of VFX

Hi my name is Eugene Chu. I'm responsible for most of the VFX and CG shots for Draconis Olim's trailer pitch. I created this blog so I can share some experiences of the process and pipeline during the making of this trailer. Plus I thought to myself there are a lot of cool stuffs happened during the VFX stage. It's basically me showing you guys how I pulled a dead rabbit out of my hat and reanimate it... digitally.

You can watch Draconis Olim here:



The story and production of Draconis Olim is created and founded by Elana Mugdan. It's in my hands to help that film as much as I can in a month's or two time frame... with my weekday job like all of the other staffs

When creating VFX as a profession or freelancing or for a friend (like this one), there are two types of work. Making Micheal Bay's explosions and CG robots or cleaning up trackers and tracking. In Draconis Olim, I've done both. Once Elana gives me the shots I looked at them and said to myself, "This is a 2d footage...how do I make this 3d again so I can incorporate more objects such as lens flares from the staff or dragons or power balls?"

This is one of the tracking shots. I had Elena to add the black beads around the actor's eyes. This will allow me to track and add effects around his eyes as if he has organic makeup. What I did find out is that a person's face has so many muscles moving around, even if it's just his cheeks and eyes. It makes my effects a little more harder to get it just right. And when you think that's done, I had to clean up these little trackers that helped me...ironic.

This shot is one of my favorites to work on. I told Elena to keep the camera still on a tripod, because in the digital world, I was able to shake the camera manually with my own control.
Besides the technical aspects, the art idea is the fun part. I didn't want this to become another Dragon Ball Z, where everyone is making energy balls. It's an idea that the energy is less contained and the enemy to the left is using a shield spell. A lot of pulsing wave happened in this shot and composite smoke on the floor makes the energy blast more believable in slow motion.



So here are the tougher parts of this movie, but is totally worth it. Making a dragon and making him move.

The dragon took me a month to make at the end of my college years. Not only that, I had to texture his skin and give him bones so he can move and growl. Especially his cheek bones when he talks. I didn't make everything, but only necessary things that only matters for this trailer. I can do a lot in the CG world but time is against me.

The shot below was then tracked so I can add the dragon in as if it's in the real world. Best thing about VFX and CG artist, you can make your own world.... that's why I put mushrooms in it cause it's planted onto the ground, giving me great feedback how good the track is with perspective. Dragon flies so it's not going to give me real feedback on the technical aspect. Now all of this was within that month's time so I track what I needed and moved on.

(tracking shot of the valley)


 Okay so this was the biggest part of my job. Elena wants her actor to be with the dragon and I totally agree. It will give the feeling that the character is with the dragon like a bond.

Recent scifi movies does abuse a film strategy that the actor looks surprised or scared and the next shot is an up close shot of an alien or the crew is in the ship, all looking surprised, and the next shot is showing the bridge window. Classic cheat of not having CG integrated with real life actors so it doesn't look fake. I can go on explaining this strategy like when Dracula tries to bite a person, the next shot is the thunder so the audience believes in the idea the victim is killed with that transition. Our idea is to show that bond and how far will I have to go to accomplish this.

This is one of the two shots that the actor has to be close to the dragon. The actor herself is not real for the mountain shot. She is digitally remolded in CG and animated for specific reasons.

                                                          (Real life mug shots)

(Digital model)

The reason was that the actor has to jog down the mountain and the camera was moving as well. To do this in a green screen, we needed to have a long or big sheet of green screen, but we didn't. We also don't have a treadmill or else she has to walk in place. Since I mentioned that the helicopter shot of the mountain was moving, her being shot in the green screen will damage the perspective and will make her look like a cardboard box walking down the mountain. We call this planer or billboard effect.

(early shot of dragon with girl walking across the mountain)

I had to recreate a part of the mountain so I can animate them on top of the rugged ground accurately. It served me to produce a perfect mask and shadow effect for the actor and the dragon.

When making the dragon coming close to her, I have to ask: "Where's the sun at? Where's the 360 panoramic shots?" Just to make the dragon more believable next to the actor.

The sun will let me put a directional light source to light the dragon and the 360 panoramic shots will let me put real reflections on its black eyes. The forest surrounding the dragon will reflect green illumination against it. The green on the actor's white shirt, as seen below, tells me this.

Making a VFX with real shots is like a detective work. You need all of the evidence you can get so you can replicate it. Or if worse comes to worse, you can eye ball it, but the resource and the reference will make the shots real and work.

These are the few shots I like to share with you. It's a tough month making some of the VFX shots of the trailer but the experience is fun and seeing the shots and actors on them makes it sort of like a music band that everybody plays a part in.

You can view some of my other recent works here:  http://eugene-chu.blogspot.com/