ERG reveals an Unreal volume of VFX in Resorts World Las Vegas campaign by Psyop and Hooray Agency
Extended Reality Group (ERG) has revealed the workflow behind its contribution to the Stay Fabulous campaign for the Resorts World Las Vegas luxury destination. The campaign, created by Hooray Agency and Psyop to build excitement for the resort’s grand opening, kicked off in April with an immersive short film featuring Celine Dion, Carrie Underwood, Katy Perry, Luke Bryan, Tiësto, and Zedd.
Supporting the vision of Psyop’s director and founding partner Marco Spier and his colleagues, ERG’s assignment began by providing asset optimisation of geometry and texture for LED volume production, based on models provided by Psyop. The campaign’s physical production took place at LA’s NantStudios virtual production complex, and involved Wonder Woman DoP Matthew Jensen, ASC.
Hybrid UE workflow for real-time VFX
Launched last year by Evan Glantz, Zack Kingdon, Keith Anderson, and Patrick Beery, ERG’s roster of artists, integrators, and production experts pioneer new applications for XR, MR, AR, and VR.
“In direct collaboration with Marco, we were tasked with doing all the scene building, lighting, and final touches,” said executive producer Glantz. “We were responsible for optimising, and in some cases, creating, the content appearing in the volume, which is the space where the virtual-tracked content is presented for motion capture. In other words, the volume is comprised of the LED screens where the Unreal Engine technology renders all the complex visual effects shots in real-time during the live-action shoot.”
The ERG team began with models created in Autodesk Maya, Maxon’s Cinema 4D, SideFX’s Houdini, and Adobe’s Substance Designer. Those assets were then integrated into the UE environment volumetrically, where optimisation largely focused on designing for geometry.
“This project’s high number of animation and lighting elements interacting together required a tight polygon budget to render everything at an acceptable frame rate,” said Beery, the senior technical artist and senior lighting artist. “Our workflow allowed us to optimise and ‘retopologize’ these models to work well within Unreal, and required us to model each component and environment accordingly, to meet the industry standard for motion capture.”
Baked in lighting
As part of its pre-production services, fully understanding the potential for massively impacting in-camera virtual production scenarios, ERG created and programmed several different baked lighting scenarios for instant activation on the set. These addressed factors like various positions for the sun, and incorporating effects such as lazy God rays, with appropriate shadows.
“This approach of preparing baked lighting workflows saves a huge amount of time on set,” explained virtual lighting programmer Alvaro Turino Grosso. ”In settings like this, it allows us to give the director and DoP content that is consistent across all playthroughs, which can be invaluable for blocking and rehearsals.”
Anticipating on-set demands for dynamic interactive lighting, Turino Grosso programmed full CUE to CUE and in-engine control via DMX. This allowed him to run both UE environmental lighting and physical lighting on the set using a GrandMA3 lighting console.
The results include the ability to make on-the-fly colour adjustments and vary the speed of the pinball’s roll, among many others.
For ERG, Turino Grosso, Beery, and CG Supervisor Darron Granieri actively participated in the production, providing quality control during the rehearsals and shoot, in concert with executives from NantStudios and Epic Games.
“Along with Virtual Production Supervisor Lawrence Jones, Marco gave us an amazing set of references and concept art that helped us understand the goal of telling a dynamic story blending classic Las Vegas with the newest technology,” said executive producer Kingdon. “In this case, the use of bold physical set pieces to bend the line between photo-real and surreal elements – what we call photo-surrealism – worked like a charm. We were honoured to be part of this epic, groundbreaking campaign, alongside the world’s premier talents.”
The studio has released a video here showing its work in more detail, and you can view the final campaign film below:
Credits
Agency: Hooray Agency, Orange County
CEO: Steven Seghers
Executive Vice President: Randy Stuck
Chief Creative Officer: Eric Stein
Creative Director: Christopher Leon
Creative Producer: Kevin Johnston
Creative Director/Copywriter: Ted Trautwein
Agency Producer: Angela Castaneda
VP Marketing: Katelyn Raman
Account Director: Tracey McRae
Editor: Nelson Acosta (:30)
Storyboard Artist: Bart Bus
Production Company: Psyop
Director/Founding Partner: Marco Spier
Chief Executive Producer: Justin Booth-Clibborn
Executive Producer: Noah Goldsmith
Head of Production: Andrea Panda
Line Producer: Saul Germaine
Director of Photography: Matthew Jensen
1st Assistant Director: Scott Harris
Production Supervisor: Kevan Dirinpour
Production Coordinator: Phoenix Lawton
Talent Coordinator: Kim Seko
Production Designer: Jeffrey Higinbotham
Art Director: Mike Martella
Art Coordinator: Nicki Nevlin
Costume Designer: Cris Araujo
Key Costumer: Andrea Peraza
Key Makeup: Stella Tzanidakis
Key Hair (Celine): Deanna Amore Marti
Key Makeup (Celine): Justin St. Clair
Key Costumer (Celine): Pepe Munoz
Key Makeup (Carrie): Melissa Schleicher
Key Costumer (Carrie): Emma Trask
Key Hair (Katy): Jesus Guerrero
Key Makeup (Katy): Michael Anthony
Key Costumer (Katy): Heather Picchiottino
Groomer (Luke): Paula Turner
Key Costumer (Luke): Lee Moore
Groomer (Zedd): Jaime Maloney
Post/Editorial: Psyop
Producer: Jodi Kraushar
Virtual Production Supervisor: Lawrence Jones
Technical Producer: Kristin Carey
CG Supervisor: Pakorn Bupphavesa
2d Lead: Sang Lee
Flame Artist: Brandon Sanders
Editor: Loren Christiansen
Color: Marla Colour
Grading Colorist: Fernando Lui
Virtual Production Partner and Stage: NantStudios
Director of Virtual Production: Gary Marshall
Supervisor of Virtual Production Engineering: Juan Nader
Virtual Production Technical Director: Fernando Rabelo
Unreal Developer: Julia Lou
Real Time Content Lead: Bryan Brown
Stage Manager: Adolfo Sanchez
Operations Director: Keaton Heinrichs
Unreal Engine Workflow Optimization and Creative Services: Extended Reality Group
Executive Producers: Evan Glantz, Zack Kingdon
CG Supervisor: Darron Granieri
Senior Technical Artist / Senior Lighting Artist: Patrick Beery
Virtual Lighting Programmer: Alvaro Turino Grosso
Sr. Technical Artist: Warrell Andrew
Project Manager: Andrea Frey
Sound Design and Music: Squeak E. Clean Studios
Creative Director: Zac Colwell
Composers: Josh Hoisington & Zac Colwell
Sound Designer: Stuart St Vincent Welch
Final Mix Engineer: Stuart St Vincent Welch
Additional Recording: Stuart St Vincent Welch
Producers: Nicholas Doering & Danielle Toporoff
