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[IbizaPocholo]

Over 50% of the Mandalorian Was Filmed on a Digital Set With Unreal Engine Technology

An ILM behind-the-scenes video shows off how over 50% of filming for the first season's The Mandalorian was possible thanks to Unreal Engine.

www.dualshockers.com

Using an LED set, the crew behind The Mandalorian were able to capture an entire scene by simply using a camera to film the subjects while the background was captured in a single pass.

Jon Favreau explains how over 50% of the first season of The Mandalorian was filmed using the new technology made possible by the Unreal Engine. The sets are 20′ high and are a 270-degree semicircular LED video wall and ceiling. The actors are able to move around with a 75′-diameter performance space where practical set pieces were combined with digital extensions on the screens.

The 3D environments were created by Industrial Light & Magic and edited in real-time during the filming process. The power behind all of this came from Nvidia GPUs. According to the description of the video, the scenes were “lit and rendered from the perspective of the camera to provide parallax in real-time, as if the camera were really capturing the physical environment with accurate interactive light on the actors.”

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Amazing and Good Job with a Crappy Engine .

can you Imagine if it had been with Fox Engine, RE Engine or with Decima Engine?.

This Blow my mind literally.

 

[TeamGizzyy]

This is freaking insane. Wow.

Way to go Kathleen Kennedy with the management skills and foresight to do this.

jk get fucked Kathleen

 

[Mato]

Why would they pick a game engine over something more specialized like 3ds Max. Budget? Why not use Blender then? Weird.

 

[Nella]

I read that they're also using the same UE tech with the new Batman movie.
This seems like it's going to be an industry standard, seems to save them a lot of money while still maintaining passable looking CG.

 

[Dural]

Amazing! I'm guessing this makes the filming of a show like The Mandalorian a lot cheaper than it would seem?

 

[TeamGizzyy]

Amazing! I'm guessing this makes the filming of a show like The Mandalorian a lot cheaper than it would seem?

Imagine not having to film on location on that planet. Lots of money saved

 

[Croatoan]

Amazing and Good Job with a Crappy Engine .

can you Imagine if it had been with Fox Engine, RE Engine or with Decima Engine?.

This Blow my mind literally.

As a dev who uses unreal I don't agree with you.

UE4 is a beast.

Why would they pick a game engine over something more specialized like 3ds Max. Budget? Why not use Blender then? Weird.

UE4 isn't just a game engine. It has been designed for film as well.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

As a dev who uses unreal I don't agree with you.

UE4 is a beast.

There is Decima in market?

Which is better, unreal , decima or Cry engine... as easy to use it?

 

[Croatoan]

There is Decima in market?

Which is better, unreal , decima or Cry engine... as easy to use it?

I have never used decima. UE4 is 100x easier than cryengine though. CE is pretty but obnoxious to work with.

 

[Spukc]

every time i hear unreal engine.
i remember how forknife fucked over unreal tournament

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

I have never used decima. UE4 is 100x easier than cryengine though. CE is pretty but obnoxious to work with.

i ask it... because in steam there are tools... and i wish some day make a videogame. =)

 

[Shadowplay1979]

Amazing and Good Job with a Crappy Engine .

can you Imagine if it had been with Fox Engine, RE Engine or with Decima Engine?.

This Blow my mind literally.

uh what? theres a reason so many of us use Unreal

Unreal is incredible for artists and gets massive updates every few months that adds fundamental features.

I actually almost had this job

 

[Croatoan]

i ask it... because in steam there are tools... and i wish some day make a videogame. =)

Unreal is best for beginners for sure. I don't think decima is available for indie development. Its Sony owned.

 

[01011001]

Amazing and Good Job with a Crappy Engine .

can you Imagine if it had been with Fox Engine, RE Engine or with Decima Engine?.

This Blow my mind literally.

Decima Engine? lol. honestly, Death Stranding doesn't look drastically better than MGS5, yet runs at half the framerate. and I bet that if Kojima would have been able to use the Fox Engine for Death Stranding the game would look almost the same but run at 60fps.
just because 2 games came out using it that both look alright but run at 30fps, doesn't mean it's super great... it honestly didn't show anything special so far.

 

[Mistershine.]

Unreal is best for beginners for sure. I don't think decima is available for indie development. Its Sony owned.

Is Unreal better than unity if someone has absolutely no programming knowledge??

 

[Entroyp]

Amazing. UE4 keeps getting better and better, which is good for everyone.

 

[Kokoloko85]

Decima Engine? lol. honestly, Death Stranding doesn't look drastically better than MGS5, yet runs at half the framerate. and I bet that if Kojima would have been able to use the Fox Engine for Death Stranding the game would look almost the same but run at 60fps.
just because 2 games came out using it that both look alright but run at 30fps, doesn't mean it's super great... it honestly didn't show anything special so far.

The environments look better than fox engine for sure. Death stranding probably has some of the nicest landscapes ive seen in video gmaes

 

[manfestival]

I think the only 3d in the show that was jarring for me were the droids in like the third or 4th episode at the repair yard.

 

[MiguelItUp]

This is really cool to see. Love it.

To each their own, but saying UE4 is crappy is absolutely absurd. It's incredibly user friendly making it very easy to work with, and the results are pretty outstanding. It all depends on what it's being used for though. I mean, that really goes for all the top tier engines. Some definitely look better than others in certain scenarios, but a lot of them can certainly hold their own across the board.

 

[Blond]

Why would they pick a game engine over something more specialized like 3ds Max. Budget? Why not use Blender then? Weird.

My guess is budget.

 

[Elektro Demon]

Amazing and Good Job with a Crappy Engine .

can you Imagine if it had been with Fox Engine, RE Engine or with Decima Engine?.

This Blow my mind literally.

You serious man?
Unreal engine is one of the most advanced, powerful, scalable and versatile engines out there.
It's good for begginers but also for profesionals. It's especially good for smaller studios because it's very powerful but also free (up to a certain point) but even then, the cut Epic takes is small.
And also it's one of the most used engines in the whole gaming industry.
The fact it was used for Mandalorians just proves how versatile the engine is.

 

[brian0057]

My guess is budget.

Versatility, ease of use and, most importantly, cost trump everything else.

 

[nixcm]

Versatility, ease of use and, most importantly, cost trump everything else.

It's 100% because it's real time. Cost and development time is not an issue when you are creating a huge set effectively surrounded by screens to replace a green screen.

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

Is Unreal better than unity if someone has absolutely no programming knowledge??

I think unreal has something called blueprints that are a sort of visual scripting that eases programming tasks for new developers. Unity was going to add official support for some sort of visual scripting not sure were they are at now.

 

[EverydayBeast]

I'm keeping an eye out for Mandalorian 2.

 

[SenjutsuSage]

The environments look better than fox engine for sure. Death stranding probably has some of the nicest landscapes ive seen in video gmaes

In fairness, it's also largely just a single guy moving around a massive, empty environment by himself. How far could many titles push their visuals if they were structured the way Death Stranding is? Most games aren't built that way, where you can expect extended stretches of the engine only having to worry about a single character.

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

In fairness, it's also largely just a single guy moving around a massive, empty environment by himself. How far could many titles push their visuals if they were structured the way Death Stranding is? Most games aren't built that way, where you can expect extended stretches of the engine only having to worry about a single character.

if you'd seen digital foundry's review or played it you'd also know that it appears able to massively alter the scenery in many cases, not sure how frequently.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Great

You serious man?
Unreal engine is one of the most advanced, powerful, scalable and versatile engines out there.
It's good for begginers but also for profesionals. It's especially good for smaller studios because it's very powerful but also free (up to a certain point) but even then, the cut Epic takes is small.
And also it's one of the most used engines in the whole gaming industry.
The fact it was used for Mandalorians just proves how versatile the engine is.

Great answer. Im gonna check the engine then

 

[Ballthyrm]

This video goes more in depth on the tech

 

[policestationx]

In fairness, it's also largely just a single guy moving around a massive, empty environment by himself. How far could many titles push their visuals if they were structured the way Death Stranding is? Most games aren't built that way, where you can expect extended stretches of the engine only having to worry about a single character.

And shitty physics for both Death Stranding and HZD thanks to Decima.

 

[MDSLKTR]

So the assets for the game are ready, nice!

 

[Zekra Dezivad]

Decima Engine? lol. honestly, Death Stranding doesn't look drastically better than MGS5, yet runs at half the framerate. and I bet that if Kojima would have been able to use the Fox Engine for Death Stranding the game would look almost the same but run at 60fps.
just because 2 games came out using it that both look alright but run at 30fps, doesn't mean it's super great... it honestly didn't show anything special so far.

Probably an engine and game developed to work on old gen ps360 it's easier to pull 60fps on ps4/one. Just speculation, I'm not experienced with both FOX or Decima.
However saying that they look the same is a bit of a stretch...

 

[TUROK]

Probably an engine and game developed to work on old gen ps360 it's easier to pull 60fps on ps4/one. Just speculation, I'm not experienced with both FOX or Decima.
However saying that they look the same is a bit of a stretch...

That's exactly what happened with MGS5.

Started off as a last gen project that got ported to next gen consoles with texture and shader upgrades.

But the models are still the exact same ones from the last gen versions.

That's why it runs at 60 FPS, not because it's this amazing engine that somehow outperforms all of its contemporaries.

 

[Croatoan]

Is Unreal better than unity if someone has absolutely no programming knowledge??

Yes, blueprint (ue4 visual coding) is easier than c# (unity coding language) . If you want to learn actual coding c++ (ue4 coding language) is way more powerful than c#.

Unreal also offers about 10x more features than unity with the base engine. I swear unity devs expect you to spend money in their store for the features your need. Epic just adds them in for free.

Other things unreal is better for:
Graphics
Art pipeline
In engine animation tools (cutscene)
Material editor
Performance
Visual effects
Terrain editing
And just about everything else.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Amazing and Good Job with a Crappy Engine .

can you Imagine if it had been with Fox Engine, RE Engine or with Decima Engine?.

This Blow my mind literally.

Something tell me that i should erase this post

 

[M1chl]

Something tell me that i should erase this post

Where does those engines show, that they can do a realistic graphics for movies? Would like to see that...

 

[PSYGN]

Something tell me that i should erase this post

I thought you were just being a silly fanboy, it's good to see you just didn't know and owning up.

 

[yet_another_alt]

Something tell me that i should erase this post

Not to rub it in but...

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Where does those engines show, that they can do a realistic graphics for movies? Would like to see that...

I thought you were just being a silly fanboy, it's good to see you just didn't know and owning up.

Not to rub it in but...

Spoiler

Spoiler

Definitive with these screenshot of Days gone I have to admited that un real engine is better. Was a error for my part.

 

[M1chl]

Definitive with these screenshot of Days gone I have to admited that un real engine is better. Was a error for my part.

No problem : ) But it's not only about graphical capabilities, it's also how fast you can adapt it to desired results and for this matter, what kind of device you can display your creation on to. I don't think that it's embedded to engine itself, rather than the engine is able to be customised to this degree to take camera rig into action and than display it into this dome.

 

[pottuvoi]

Why would they pick a game engine over something more specialized like 3ds Max. Budget? Why not use Blender then? Weird.

Latency and amount of hardware needed for real time display.

The background needs to change depending the location of camera and add proper lense fx so it matches the lense of camera.

 

[Moses85]

Over 50% of the Mandalorian Was Filmed on a Digital Set With Unreal Engine Technology

An ILM behind-the-scenes video shows off how over 50% of filming for the first season's The Mandalorian was possible thanks to Unreal Engine.

www.dualshockers.com

Using an LED set, the crew behind The Mandalorian were able to capture an entire scene by simply using a camera to film the subjects while the background was captured in a single pass.

Jon Favreau explains how over 50% of the first season of The Mandalorian was filmed using the new technology made possible by the Unreal Engine. The sets are 20′ high and are a 270-degree semicircular LED video wall and ceiling. The actors are able to move around with a 75′-diameter performance space where practical set pieces were combined with digital extensions on the screens.

The 3D environments were created by Industrial Light & Magic and edited in real-time during the filming process. The power behind all of this came from Nvidia GPUs. According to the description of the video, the scenes were “lit and rendered from the perspective of the camera to provide parallax in real-time, as if the camera were really capturing the physical environment with accurate interactive light on the actors.”

Thanks for sharing! This was interesting and will have a great impact for future Films!
This is also very ecological!

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

If you want to learn actual coding c++ (ue4 coding language) is way more powerful than c#.

I think c# is just as powerful as c++, but c++ tends to be faster running.

 

[Tesseract]

blue print is really easy to learn

programming in general right now is kinda easy

 

[Mato]

Latency and amount of hardware needed for real time display.

The background needs to change depending the location of camera and add proper lense fx so it matches the lense of camera.

I hadn't fully understood what they meant with "digital set". But yeah, using an engine that is designed for real time graphics actually that makes sense.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

this is rad stuff. this being another in a long line of technical innovations from George's company Industrial Light and Magic. he really did create magic, and those companies are still paying off creatively and financially constantly over decades later. even in the face of total and complete creative collapse. im sure he wishes he had this tech for the first movie!

not enough people give George and his creations props. yes he made Star Wars but he also founded Lucasfilm, the Skywalker Ranch, ILM, THX, Pixar, so many companies that for the past 40 years have shaped modern movies. this was in fact much of the entire point of franchising it up and promising 6, 9, 12 possible movies w spinoffs (he did this back in '79). everything that Disney is leaning on right now, not just the Star Wars movies, all the animated remakes, all the green screen movies, all the modern CGI animated films, all of it is largely possible due to him.

before Star Wars, computers were not widely in use, compositors and animators had to make their own camera controlling hardware from scratch. SW brought back an appreciation for those old techniques and he pushed production with his sci fi idea factory. yes it was not just George doing all this, but that is kind of the point, he founded all the companies, hired so many people, created so many jobs, gave work to so many talented artists, painters, animators, puppeteers, programmers, etc. he invested all of that money back into the work rather than simply hoarding it.

this is something we forget when we get caught up in comparing how much this movie made vs that. or gawking at an impressive number of billions of dollars made per year. George didn't create his empire just to make money and have it sit in a bank. he created it to revolutionize the industry. even a decade later, in spite of the franchise getting strangled by intellectually bankrupt capitalism, it is still revolutionizing things in a creative way.

 

[Three]

Amazing and Good Job with a Crappy Engine .

can you Imagine if it had been with Fox Engine, RE Engine or with Decima Engine?.

This Blow my mind literally.

Unreal engine is not crappy mate