Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1495092
During COVID, I started working on Star Trek Picard with Todd Cherniawsky (s1) and PD Dave Blass (S2 & 3) and on LOTR: Rings of Power (PD: Ramsey Avery). Foremost, I find that Unreal Engine dominates the pre-production workflow and, secondly, I have fully switched to using Blender. LOTR environments are also partly sculpted using Gravity Sketch VR. Basically, my output on these shows was fully real- time environments from which illustrations and concept geometry for Set Designers were generated as needed. Remote collaboration and virtual production became real. Love it or hate it, Artificial Intelligence is here to stay. I keep exploring the possibilities, occasionally face-planting, yes…but having a great time doing it too. The final images shown here are an example of this process: starting with a simple block-out sketch which is fed into the "img2img" AI system prompted with "steampunk goth lab" (Hey, why not?) It generates a 2D image. That image is fed into different AI to generate a coarse depth map… which is then applied onto simple geometry planes in Blender as displacement to generate base 3D shapes. That base geometry is then sculpted and modeled extensively. Reworked meshes are then translated into low poly geometry and arranged as a full 3D scene, adding standard 3D assets. The full Blender and Unreal Engine scene is now navigable. Verdict: Lots of manuel labor needed and the results are hard to control. But a whole universe of possibilities awaits here, especially as the workforw becomes simpler. ADG A. IN TIME. DOWNTOWN LA ENTRANCE TO "NEW GREENWICH". ILLUSTRATION DONE IN PHOTOSHOP. B. THE STARSHIP AVALON FROM PASSENGERS. ILLUSTRATION DONE IN RHINO AND GRASSHOPPER. C. STAR TREK PICARD. STARGAZER COMMAND BRIDGE RENDERED IN BLENDER AND AND EVEE. D. LOTR: RINGS OF POWER. KHAZAD- DUM GATE CONCEPT ILLUSTRATION DONE IN 3D COAT AND GRAVITY SKETCH. FINAL OUTPUT IN UNREAL. ILLUSTRATIONS BY IGOR KNEZEVIC. A B C D