I was tasked again with another shotsculpt task for the latest installment of the Fast & Furious franchise film, Hobbs & Shaw. This task in particular set up work for the FX team with which the cached digi-double mesh is being deformed by the slow motion punch sequence. I had to ensure that the digi-double matches with the silhouette of the hero characters on the 2D plate while maintaining the volume of the 3D mesh. This is to help simulate the water colliding the the characters.

I was assigned two shotsculpt tasks from the same sequence which was both done within a span of 4 working days. At the beginning I was very perfectionist and particular with how the little details. My lead addressed to me to really focus on maintaining the volume rather sculpting in the costume creases which actually guided me back on track to finish my task on time.

It’s still so surreal to me that the first VFX project that I got to work on a big film franchise. It was the first time I got to interact and work with the Creature team in DNEG. I was still new and confused with so much that went on during the production which is inevitable during the beginning stages. But as I’ve progressed along the weeks, I started to gain more clarity and understanding of the shot workflow.

My role for this project centred around ‘Shotsculpt’. Shot sculpt involves working on top of the animated and even simulated character(s) that will need to be cleaned up. The clean up would entail fixing intersections on the costume and the body of the character. As well as creating creases and building up the silhouette features to create the desired look.

My first task involved working on fixing the costume of the character ‘Vungus the Ugly.’ The character has been modelled, rigged, animated and even simulated and gets passed downstream on to the pipeline ready to be shotsculpted. This process takes in an alembic cache of the character with all the animation and costume data, in which will require to work on top of the shotsculpt rig. This entails adding key frames on the transforms and deformations within the shotsculpt rig to get the desired outcome of the sculpt.

The task was initially given for me to do within 5 bid days. And so I had a multiple mentors that offered to help me throughout the time I had to work on the shot. My mentors all helped me get familiar with setting up the shot, the techniques and introduced me to bespoke tools that enabled to help speed up the process. I’ve also learnt a lot about the application of different deformers such as lattice and delta mush. The training that you really gain from actually doing the work is invaluable because you understand and there’s a way for you to really look back and apply the knowledge that you’ve gained as a result.

I ended up getting my first shot approved after 14 days! I was quite annoyed at myself at first but I had to remember that this was my first task. You will make mistakes and learn important lessons at the very beginning. But it will be worth the struggle because you would’ve gained more insights and resilience. That it’s okay to ask for help because people are willing to help you.

I was also tasked another shot from another sequence which involved correcting costume intersections from 6 crowd agents. In this task I was given 2 bid days and I was able to finish the shot in under one day. This just goes to show how it gets better and easier the more that you practice and perfect the craft.