In the new music video for the worldwide chart-topping ‘Free Fire’, live action characters turn into digital heroes amid extreme sports scenes, epic battles and rhythmic dance-offs to the game’s theme song ‘BEATz Go Boom’. For the tight-knit team of skilled craftsmen at Post Panic in Amsterdam – The Panics’ in-house VFX studio – music video production for the international battle royale phenomenon required developing highly stylized characters, vehicles and environments and seamlessly interlocking digital elements with photorealistic plates. Led by Creative Partner and Head of Production Ivor Goldberg, the KitBash3D team used premium 3D assets as the building blocks for immersive environments, allowing artists to devote more resources to producing a striking final look.
Post Panic’s work area involved developing a massive digital city environment that served as the arena for the climax of the battle series. The team conceptualized the environment in a neo-Tokyo style reminiscent of a graphic novel, with a high enough level of photo-realistic detail to match live action records. The entire city had to be viewable from the air for shooting as well as from street level for shots zoomed in on action. To work out the details of the environment, including buildings, streets and alleys, the team used KitBash3D’s Warzone and Future Slums model Kits to quickly block virtual sets and speed up the scene creation process. Goldberg said: “Using KitBash3D gave us a huge head start. After we blocked the virtual sets, we were effectively able to go on a 3D location scout with director Mischa Rozema to get the footage we needed. This allowed us to do so much more. of our time on the creative aspects of the production and the final look – where it ultimately counts the most.”
Goldberg continued: “We quickly discovered that the key to creating the style of the project was that the high level of detail and realism would diminish with distance, becoming more graphic and undefined as the further elements came from the camera. To achieve this, we fused these details with a graphic fog effect, which was an important part of the look of the project.”
Post Panic used a combination of Houdini, Maya and Blender for modeling, rigging and animation; Nuke for composition and editing; and Redshift for display. Goldberg stated, “KitBash3D assets were easy to use in all of our creative tools and were able to get started right away. We mainly used Blender in the concept stages and were able to easily import the kits, update the shaders as needed, or to achieve our desired look, then adjust the geometry to suit the style and composition.For the final development of the look, we had to convert the Shaders from the KitBash3D model to Redshift shaders and then add all the details in the adding textures, shaders and geometry so they would preserve the close-ups and overall visual style Working with KitBash3D assets gave us the perfect foundation for every shot.”
In addition to the cityscape, Post Panic was tasked with developing the hero characters and enemy opponents, which involved both digital head replacements for live actors and the creation of full CG characters in the same graphic novel style as the project environment. While game publisher Garena provided existing resources for some game characters, the team still had to rebuild the models and shaders to match the high level of detail and realism in music video production. In addition to the challenge, Garena’s character designs were still in development and had to be changed while Post Panic was creating the project models. “The sheer range of work on this project was madness and required bringing so many different elements together,” Goldberg added. “We were also responsible for creating CG monster trucks, explosions, mopeds that turned into stylistic hyperbikes, rockets, grenades, mobs of attacking enemies, disintegrating characters, collapsing buildings and environmental destruction, skydiving, rappelling and – of course – a healthy amount of dancing.”
Despite a huge post-production workload and tight deadlines, the team helped deliver on time by using KitBash3D as building blocks for the environment. “Using high-quality assets from KitBash3D, we were able to use our time and budget more wisely and arrive at the final image in the fastest and most efficient way. Instead of building each individual element, we are able to adjust our time and spend our time making the end result look great,” Goldberg says.
Goldberg continued: “The sheer size and scope of the project, along with the seemingly contradictory contrast in visual aesthetics between highly stylized and photorealism that had to work together seamlessly, presented a major challenge. Combine that with a shrinking production timeline and it was a daunting undertaking. Despite the size of the project, with the help of KitBash3D, we were able to fill the worlds quickly, which made this project really fun from start to finish.”
About KitBash3D
KitBash3D creates and inspires creators of the virtual frontier. They produce and distribute libraries of fully customizable 3D models with over 10,000 premium assets used to create everything from futuristic utopias to ravaged war zones, cyberpunk underworlds, bustling modern metropolises and much more. To help studios and artists share and distribute 3D assets, KitBash3D provides DCC-compatible file formats to store high-quality 3D data, conversion tools, and a streamlined digital asset management platform for accelerated production workflows. Since 2017, KitBash3D assets have been used in hundreds of feature film, television and game projects to bring immersive, cinematic and interactive worlds to life for entertainment companies including Marvel, Netflix, Warner Bros, HBO, EA, Ubisoft, Naughty Dog, 2K Games, as well as thousands of independent artists around the world. For more information, visit: https://kitbash3d.com
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