Unit Image: Trailer ZombiU
Last month I had the chance and pleasure to work with the young Parisian animation studio, Unit Image. I took part in creating the cinematic for the game ZombiU, presented during Ubisoft’s E3 2012 conference. A look back at a dream project with a nightmare twist.
Unit Image
Take four 3D supervisors, each specialized in a discipline (animation, VFX, rendering, and matte painting), and you get the core team of the young Parisian studio Unit Image. Thanks to their experience, they quickly landed prestigious projects, and in less than a year and a half, produced 8 commercials and game cinematics.
Along the way, they picked up a few awards, notably for the Sequoia ad featuring the snail.
The ZombiU project
Unit Image and Ubisoft have been collaborating on this project for quite some time. Initially, ZombiU was supposed to be called Killer Freaks and was meant to be a kind of Raving Rabbids zombies from outer space. Unit even produced a trailer for that game for E3 2011:
But Ubisoft eventually decided to create a more hardcore gamer title for the launch of Nintendo’s new console, the Wii U. So, goodbye zombie rabbits, and hello to real classic zombies.
Unit was once again tasked with producing the trailer and chose to immerse us in the heart of several zombie attack scenes through a large bullet time sequence reminiscent of the film Carousel made for Philips, or some Max Payne-style gunfight moments. Only the virus contagion progresses through the effect and continues to evolve in real time.
- It took 3 months and around twenty people to make this film, entirely CG-rendered.
- The characters were modeled in ZBrush.
- Environment modeling, animation, and VFX were done in 3DS Max, and rendering in V-Ray.
- All compositing was done in After Effects.
- Everything was produced using about fifty machines, two-thirds of which were part of the render farm — around 400 cores. I can tell you the render farm sounded like a small plane taking off.
The average render time per frame was 1 hour 30 minutes, not counting the multitude of passes, and the fact that some of them were re-rendered 4 or 5 times. Needless to say, the film shown at E3 during Nintendo’s conference was piping hot off the machines!
Making of the trailer
And what about motion design?
Yes, we’re still on mattrunks.com — and even though the visuals are stunning, you might be wondering what exactly is the role of a motion designer in this kind of production. Well, it turns out several of us came from motion design, and for good reasons:
- First, because Unit likes to work with small, versatile teams; we’re far from the massive productions where everyone only does their tiny part. Here, you need to be creative, adaptable, and resourceful — all key skills for a good motion designer.
- Second, Unit’s workflow is very similar to motion design, especially in its rendering/compositing phase: they use After Effects for all compositing.
- And finally, who better than a motion designer to create the logo animations for Ubisoft and ZombiU?
Case study: Adapting the Ubisoft logo
When Unit asked me to work on adapting the Ubisoft logo in the ZombiU style, the project was already about ¾ complete. I had to adapt to Ubisoft’s request while fitting in with the work Unit had already done.
At first, Ubisoft wanted us to incorporate London-themed elements, but after several tests, we realized it made it look as if the game was made by a Ubisoft London division. However, the game was actually developed by Ubisoft Montpellier.
We then had the idea to recreate the same sequence as the current Ubisoft logo, but within the context of the zombie virus infection.
Here are the different steps of creating this sequence:
- First, an initial test to get visual feedback on the concept — the goal was to get a quick sense of how it could look before going further. (WIP 1 below)
- Then, a first version, timed to the official Ubisoft logo sequence. This one was meant to get Ubisoft’s approval — all the ingredients were there, but nothing was finalized yet. (WIP 2)
- Next, we refined every detail: the virus had to remain “beautiful” and move at the right speed. After several days of work and with the help of Unit’s FX R&D team, the animation was ready for rendering. (WIP 3 and 4)
- Finally, after V-Ray rendering and a compositing pass in After Effects, we reached the final result. (Intro Trailer)
In total, it took me 8 days to complete this sequence, and you can watch each stage of the process below:
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About the author
François-Côme du Boistesselin is the General Manager and motion designer at Unit Motion Design, contributing to high-profile CG, VFX, and cinematic motion projects.