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Here's the Unreal Engine 4 technology used to help create The Mandalorian

Darknight

Darknight

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,842
I saw an article pop up talking about how they used UE4 in the production of The Mandalorian and a couple quotes stood out to me. Favreau talked about having these giant LED walls in the background that they used on set to help simulate the environment and I thought they were just using them for position tracking and rendering stuff on a screen so they could preview what it might look like with a background environment. But some of the things being said didn't line up with that. Here's some of the quotes that were said:

"For the actors, it was great because you could walk on the set, and even if it's just for interactive light, you are walking into an environment where you see what's around you. Even though they might not hold up to the scrutiny if you're staring right at it from close up, you're still getting peripheral vision. You know where the horizon is, you feel the light on you. You're also not setting up a lot of lights. You're getting a lot of your interactive light off of those LED walls. To me, this is a huge breakthrough."
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"And it would fool people. I had people come by the set from the studio who said, 'I thought you weren't building this whole set here,' and I said, 'No, all that's there is the desk.' Because it had parallax in perspective, it looked, even from sitting right there, if you looked at it casually, you thought you were looking at a live action set."
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So after doing some Googling, I stumbled upon this video and I think this is what they're using and it's way better and cooler than I thought was being done or could be done. Have a look:




Render me in post if this is old news to people...
 
ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
61,987
it's exactly what they're using. last year-ish, Disney mentioned they were working with Epic for a tv show and The Mandalorian was it. you can even see the UE4 logo in the credits for the show
 
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Darknight

Darknight

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,842
ILikeFeet said:
it's exactly what they're using. last year-ish, Disney mentioned they were working with Epic for a tv show and The Mandalorian was it. you can even see the UE4 logo in the credits for the show
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I knew they were using Unreal but I assumed it was like how they used it in The Lion King. The giant video walls is what's new to me and how they use them.
 
Tom Penny

Tom Penny

Member
Oct 26, 2017
19,246
So when are we getting movies where we can change all the color settings like some graphic mods? Seems very doable.
 
2CL4Mars

2CL4Mars

Member
Nov 9, 2018
1,713
Wasn't the work done on Star war 1313 contribute to the SW movies? I remember reading that the engine or something would help with the new trilogy.
 
Grimminski

Grimminski

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,136
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Corridor Crew was talking about this in a recent video, and they apparently have a video coming up with a focus on the tech, where they went and talked to the people behind it.

Oblivion used something similar:

 
Koukalaka

Koukalaka

Member
Oct 28, 2017
9,292
Scotland
This is mental - I imagine there's huge potential cost savings in being able to see roughly how a scene looks "then and there"?
 
Nakadai

Nakadai

Member
Jan 10, 2018
508
Christ almighty, just do the goddamn work: build the set, go to the location, deal with the weather, talk to your actors.
It's called film-making.
 
CesareNorrez

CesareNorrez

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,522
Nakadai said:
Christ almighty, just do the goddamn work: build the set, go to the location, deal with the weather, talk to your actors.
It's called film-making.
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Filmmaking has always been a tech forward medium. It's also been about maximized budgets, and more recently it's been about doing all of this as safely as possible. Computer imagery is an important tool. It's an artistic tool and we should be celebrating the artists that use it as much as those that build sets, perform stunts, and manufacture puppets.There's room for all kinds of productions.
 
Mcfrank

Mcfrank

Member
Oct 28, 2017
15,219
Nakadai said:
Christ almighty, just do the goddamn work: build the set, go to the location, deal with the weather, talk to your actors.
It's called film-making.
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Are movies that used matte paintings not "film-making"? Cause you are gonna exclude a lot of all time classics if you make that rule.
 
Crossing Eden

Crossing Eden

Member
Oct 26, 2017
53,381
Nakadai said:
Christ almighty, just do the goddamn work:build the set, go to the location, deal with the weather, talk to your actors.
It's called film-making.
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If you knew anything about the history of filmmaking you'd know that cost efec technology advancements were always a major part of the process. Also lol at the idea that VFX isn't "work"
 
big_z

big_z

Member
Nov 2, 2017
7,797
Been waiting for the corridor crew video on this. While nothing will beat being on location this should be a big leap in getting better looking shots than green screen.
 
Teenage Fansub

Teenage Fansub

Member
May 24, 2019
22,197
i-Lo said:
Lighting matching is done well:

Minor Episode 5 spoiler:

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Watch in HD
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I don't think that comp is super great. Doesn't seem like the actors were actually going through any of that up and down motion, and the application of artificial motion blur doesn't hold up too well.

edit: Speaking of old techniques, it's a little like the modern version of read screen projection for driving scenes.
 
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BlueTsunami

BlueTsunami

Member
Oct 29, 2017
8,510
Nakadai said:
Christ almighty, just do the goddamn work: build the set, go to the location, deal with the weather, talk to your actors.
It's called film-making.
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I agree with this in a sense but this tech has some crazy utility for getting very specific atmosphere. Plus I'm sure exotic location shooting is probably extremely expensive. Your essentially digitally bringing vistas to a stateside studio.

On a other note, are there currently consumer level room filling projectors? Not as advanced but something that throws designs across a space.
 
Okabe

Okabe

Is Sometimes A Good Bean
Member
Aug 24, 2018
19,939
Nakadai said:
Christ almighty, just do the goddamn work: build the set, go to the location, deal with the weather, talk to your actors.
It's called film-making.
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8c3.jpg
 
BDS

BDS

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,845
So what you're telling me is the Mandalorian is LITERALLY a video game
 
Cyanity

Cyanity

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,345
How do they avoid the weird banding effect that most cameras have when shooting digital screens?
 
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Darknight

Darknight

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"
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Oct 25, 2017
22,842
Cyanity said:
hmm, and then what, add sharpening in post-processing? seems like you wouldn't be able to get any closeups of the background with this setup
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I don't think it's meant to be final. They still do a composite with a higher quality version in post. This is just to help them while filming.
 
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Darknight

Darknight

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,842
Commedieu said:
Same with rogue one.

Ue4 has raytracing now too.
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I'm not too surprised that they used UE4 to render final shots. But I figured they were offline rendered shots for higher quality. I'm just surprised they used the real time ones used on those large screens for a final shot.
 

VideogameVices

Banned
Oct 2, 2018
3,902
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