In 2015 and 2016 we had the amazing opportunity to work with Ubisoft on their upcoming title: Ghost Recon Wildlands. During this period we cast, 3D scanned and processed several hundred characters, ranging from the soldiers, the UNI, cartel members, civilians young and old and of course the story characters (you can find my gardeners and several family members and friends roaming around!).
I recently stumbled upon this article which talks a bit about the opening cinematic of the game, including the main character which we found for Ubisoft. Unfortunately the article wasn’t very accurate regarding our work. When they say “another company” they mean “Another World Studios”, and by “a different project” they should have said “specifically for this project!”
The original article can be found at here.
Ghost Recon Wildlands opening sequence by Brunch Studio has won Reel of the Month #9 and CG Record Team has great time to talk with them to see how their team to create the Cinematic opening sequence!
1. Please could you briefly introduce us to Brunch Studio, telling us about the accomplishments of your team and what makes you stand out differently?
Brunch Studio is a French VFX and animation studio based in Paris. It began 14 years ago under the name of “Chez Eddy”. Two years ago, we had to split the CG and the Production department. “Eddy” became the Production Company while Brunch Studio became the CG Animation Company. Brunch Studio is also a part of the Nigthshift group. The studio is known for its projects’ diversity and its ability to work on very different artistic styles.
The artistic range spans across very realistic CGs like the “Ghost Recon” cinematic, to a more traditional cartoon style like the “Triumph find the One” campaign (http://www.brunchstudio.tv/portfolio/triumph-find-the-one-again/) and an even more stylized image such as the “Charles X can you do it” clip ” (https://vimeo.com/160720205).
The studio also had the chance to collaborate with Dreamworks and Guillermo Del Toro’s Trollhunters TV show. We were involved from the beginning of the project and were asked to create the Trollmarket World. It was a creative collaboration and we provided artworks and assets for the Trollmarket. So it is extremely motivating and inspiring to work in a studio with such a variety of projects and so many talented artists.
2. How did you start Ghost Recon Wildlands? How many artists were involved, and how long did it take for your team to complete it?
We were contacted by Ubisoft directly, because we previously had the opportunity to work with them on a different cinematic. The previz was done with “Les androids” a French company specialized in Previz and Animatics. We were already familiar collaborating with them, so this made the creative process straight forward and it was a huge time saver for us. Once the Previz was finished and validated, it was easy for us to focus on what was important to do, and we were certain that everybody was looking in the same direction. The CG team was rather small on this project. I would say we used 6 artists for a 3 month production. It was really comfortable to have a small team of very talented artists.
3. What was the pipeline used to create the main character? Also, the animation and shader are great could you please talk more about it!
We first received a character model from Ubisoft. It was made by another company for a different project. We were lucky enough not to start from the beginning, so it gave us the opportunity to push the quality further. However, the asset was made with 3dsmax and Vray and we were using Maya and Arnold. We had a lot of close up to do, and the expectations from Ubisoft were really high, so we had to do the shading, surfacing and rigging from the beginning. So we started from the zbrush model, and we added some more details to the sculpt. Afterwards, we used Mari for the texturing, and with the amazing maps from texturing.xyz we were able to create a very high resolution texture for the model. The shading was done with the alshaders on Arnold. The SSS of the alshaders combined with our very high resolution maps gave us the details we were looking for.
Yeti was used for the fur while Marvelous designer was used to create the model of the suit and make the cloth simulation. The rigging part was also a huge part of the character as there were close-ups on the hands and face. The motion capture was a great basis to start with but it took some time to have all those little details that made the final character believable. The final compositing was done in nuke.
4. What was the most challenging aspect in creating this Cinematic trailer, and how did your team work to archive it?
I think the most challenging part was of course the character, which had to fit the expectations of the client and director. They gave us some examples of the qualities they were looking for and that was really motivating. The fresco was also challenging because it had to be done in very high resolution (16K) in the renaissance painting style. So it took some time to do the texture map and create the shader. It was a great project because we had a lot of freedom from the client and the director.
5. Do you have any exciting plans…perhaps, a new project to share with us?
We have just finished some exciting projects that would soon be released. I hope this will bring us even more exiting projects.
Thank you for your time and looking forward to see more great work from you!
http://www.brunchstudio.tv
https://www.fb.com/brunchstudio.tv
brunchstudio@nightshiftpost.com
Director: Guillaume Ivernel
Production: Eddy
Client: Ubisoft
CG: Brunch
CG Sup: Jean-Charles Kerninon
Line Producer: Fabien Cellier
Character Modeling and shading: Clement Lauricella
Set Modeling and shading: Rémi Julien, Clément Granjon
Texture Artist: Constance Beillard
Character Rigging and Cloth: Maxime Granger
Pipeline TD: Camélia Slimani
Post animation: Julien Hassenforder
Previz: Les Androids
Motion Capture: Mocap Lab
Design / Storyboard: Ivan Gomez
Animatic 2D: Benjamin Massoubre
Lighting Compositing: Jean-Charles Kerninon, Clément Lauricella, Rémi Julien
