Few occasions have been filled with as many announcements about Disney’s theme park plans as the recent D23 convention. New attractions have been revealed for all six Disney resorts around the world. In fact, the announcements were such that some escaped media attention almost entirely.
One of the most welcome reveals wasn’t about a new theme park or even a new attraction, but an update to an existing attraction.
Disneyland in California and Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando are home to a Star Wars simulator called Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, which is one of the biggest missed opportunities in theme park history.
Sitting atop a life-size reproduction of the Millennium Falcon, Smugglers Run allows visitors to live out the fantasies of their formative years by putting them at the controls of the iconic Star Wars spaceship. Each pilot assumes one of 3 roles depending on the seat assigned to them. , with the lucky few sitting in the front wielding weapons and controls.
The driving position looks like on the big screen, right down to the beige color of the seats. The whole is accompanied by sufficiently genuine images on the vertical screen in front of the window. The photographs are generated through computers in real time, allowing pilots to fly freely along a predetermined trajectory and push the lever that launches the Falcon at the speed of light. The gunner can fire at will with the ship’s lasers and, at a key moment, a harpoon fires from the Falcon when an engineer at the stern presses a flashing button.
Thus, Smugglers Run lives up to its reputation for putting visitors in control of the fastest piece of scrap steel in the galaxy, as the Falcon is affectionately nicknamed in the Star Wars films. Force disruption is its story.
Rather than being based on the Falcon’s famous owner, Han Solo, played so memorably through Harrison Ford, Smugglers Run is themed around a character who first made the impression in the Star Wars computer-animated series, The Clone Wars. As it is an exhibition aimed at children, many visitors will be unfamiliar with the character and the same goes for the fuel he asks them to collect on their adventure in space. Called Coaxium, he played a lead role in the 2018 film Solo: A Star Wars Story, which ended up being one of the biggest box office mistakes in Star Wars history, as we know we reported. So that’s not very well known either.
Neither Ford’s famous face nor his voice appear on the merry-go-round, and Chewbacca, his character’s furry sidekick, has only a short-lived role. This leaves the enthusiasts with nothing more and in D23, they gave it to them. At the center of the conference, Dave Filoni, artistic director of Disney’s Lucasfilm subsidiary, announced that in 2026, Smugglers Run would receive a new project themed around the hit Star Wars streaming series, The Mandalorian.
It caused such a stir that many members of the media missed the news that this is rarely the only Mandalorian charm that’s on Disney’s radar. Vanity Fair was one of the few publications to report that Filoni and Mandalorian leader Jon Favreau were considering Epic Games’ Unreal Engine software, which creates the series’ special effects, to allow enthusiasts to enter their alien worlds and wander around. they. their sets. Nothing further was discussed about what this might entail. Until now.
When Disney announced that it had bought a $1. 5 billion stake in Epic Games in February, it was widely perceived as just a step into video games, but in reality, it might just be part of the story. ‘History.
Video games moved into the middle when Disney pulled back the curtain on the blockbuster deal in February, declaring it would create an entertainment universe connected to Epic’s hugely popular online game Fortnite. True to their word, at D23, Disney revealed that their Marvel Comics characters, including fan-favorite villain Doctor Doom, would appear in a Fortnite Battle Royale story.
Doom is the city’s message, as Academy Award winner Robert Downey Jr. recently announced that he will be playing the character in upcoming Marvel films. Disney is building on this momentum by placing hints and hints in Fortnite about the stories of upcoming Marvel movies. This makes the game a central component of Marvel’s storytelling, although the synergy doesn’t prevent that.
At D23, Disney also announced that Epic’s Unreal Engine 3D creation platform, which powers many major video games, will be used to create the visuals for the new Mandalorian project in Smugglers Run.
Fittingly, the Mandalorian himself has innovated in the use of the Unreal engine. The Visual Effects Division of Industrial Light
ILM called the screen and software package StageCraft and built the first in 2018 to film the first series of The Mandalorian at Manhattan Beach Studios in Los Angeles. Since then, a second screen has been built there, followed by others at Fox Studios Australia, ILM’s Vancouver facility and Pinewood Studios in London. This helped attract film studios to film there, which led to more business for ILM’s United Kingdom division.
As we revealed last week in the London Evening Standard, despite actor and writer moves delaying productions for much of last year, revenue at ILM’s UK department remained strong at 111. 6 million dollars (£86. 2 million). In addition, its net profit almost tripled to $11. 9m (£9. 2m) as more people worked remotely, allowing it to reduce rents for its London headquarters.
The StageCraft generation has been used in all 3 seasons of The Mandalorian, as well as the spin-off series The Book of Boba Fett and other Star Wars streaming shows, adding Ahsoka, Andor, and the upcoming Skeleton Crew. Several Marvel films have used it as well as others from rival studios such as Warner Bros. ‘ The Batman and Black Adam. Cinema may well be just the beginning.
With full immersion, theme parks look like a weed house for StageCraft. It may be on the way, according to Philip Galler, co-founder of Lux Machina, the integrated visual effects company that has partnered with ILM and Epic to expand the technologies implemented on the big screen.
Measuring 20 feet tall and 75 feet wide, the original style features 1,326 ROE Black Pearl BP2 LED presentations giving it 270-degree scanning. It harmoniously joins a circular flat screen suspended above to recreate the sky. For total immersion, two huge LED screens can even be installed to create a 360-degree environment.
Big screens are nothing new in the theme park industry, but what makes this a whole new world is that the images that appear on them move in real time with the cameras. This is due to the Ungenuine Engine running on 11 interconnected computers powered by NVIDIA processors with d3 media servers to store the images and send them to the LED displays. The entire workflow is controlled through ILM’s proprietary software and incorporated into presentations with Lux Machina. It provided the hardware for the LED display and had a magic touch.
StageCraft provides digital backdrops for the filming of “The Mandalorian” ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd.
Prior to StageCraft’s progression, photographs projected onto screens in the background of shots only seemed plausible if the camera remained static or moved along a pre-programmed path. This is because photographs on the screen can be created simply to reflect that specific path. However, since the photographs were pre-rendered, they would not adjust accordingly if the camera deviated from them, which would break the illusion. The StageCraft demo has a trick up its sleeve to prevent this from happening.
The junction between the video wall and the screen suspended above is covered with motion capture cameras that track the position of the cameras on set. This knowledge is used to replace photorealistic 4K 3D photographs on the screen so that they move at the pace of the cameras. In an interview with AV Magazine, Galler explained that “real-time camera tracking and interactive, real-time rendering are some of the key features” of the system.
The 3D photographs of the screens can be edited into real-time filming, and you will have a team to help you with on-the-fly color correction and virtual lighting. It is essential to have exact control over the lighting of the screens. -It has to do so because it will have to adapt perfectly to the lighting of the set in front of it and vice versa.
Galler said that from an actor’s perspective, “being able to see the setting, the action, and the overall environment in which they act greatly enhances the narrative experience. “His words don’t apply to Disney specifically yet, to any studio of this generation that would have seemed like science fiction just a few years ago.
The most productive way to describe the formula is that it looks like an actual edition of the Holodeck from the sci-fi series Star Trek. The LED display immerses the team in a photorealistic virtual environment that gets bigger far and wider. and moves to the rhythm of the actors and the cameras that film them. Not only is there no need to build sets, but filmmakers also don’t want to spend time and money traveling to remote locations, as actors can be transported there with an undeniable click.
Gone are the days when film crews traveled around the world only to find that bad weather prevented them from filming there. Ideal lighting situations can be created digitally and displayed on screen so filmmakers can film there all day.
Decoration can be done with one click ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd.
Above all, the symbols and light from the screen are reflected even on the physical props on set, so the reflections don’t want to be inserted digitally in post-production, as is the case when filming in front of a green screen. This explains why Lux Machina is described as a closed-door visual effects company and this cutting-edge strategy came to fruition on the set of The Mandalorian while its eponymous protagonist is dressed in silver armor. If a green screen had been used, the post-production team would have had to remove the green glow from its armor and update it with a virtual symbol of its surroundings.
Instead, the environment around him on screens appears on his dress, as well as the steel surfaces of cars and weapons. This makes it seem like they’re in this alien place, which makes the series more compelling.
In fact, Galler said that the biggest benefits of employing the LED screen are “interactive lighting, reflections, if possible definitive pixel photographs on the camera in some cases, and immersive environments for productions. “
The producers of the HBO series Westworld used screens to show exterior shots of the Valencia City of Arts and Sciences complex, which represents the company’s headquarters at the center of the series. The shots are reflected in the windows of the interior sets and move subtly as the camera moves.
However, formula sensitivity can be a double-edged sword. In classic cinema, the camera will only see a small part of the stage. However, when you’re in the middle of a 270- or 360-degree screen, the whole environment is a soft box: the elements that the camera can reflect on the actors’ faces, costumes, or props.
This isn’t the only impediment that managers want to be wary of. If the camera lens is too sharp, the edges of the Mandalorian’s armor would stand out too much from the background and could appear as if they were superimposed on it.
To avoid this, Filoni and Favreau used Panavision’s Ultra Vista 1. 65x full-frame anamorphic lenses, which are known for their smoothness. Taking pictures of the background with comfortable lenses also had the added bonus of cutting through the wavy patterns of visual interference that are noticeable. when a camera is filming a screen.
Technology has revolutionized cinema ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd.
Despite all the benefits of LED screens, Galler said: “There are many scenarios where you may not be able to attend the final behind closed doors. Large war scenes, intricate choreography and many scenes with immediate camera and lighting adjustments will be Likewise, the doors will have to be part of the physical set, since the actors cannot walk through the LED screen.
He added that filmmakers should not be distracted by the ability to create the best shot. “Just because it’s in real time doesn’t mean you have to treat it as such. You can get stuck at the exit to touch everyone else. ” drives in real time and loses sight of the overall purpose of telling a story. Treat it as if it were a real environment. You wouldn’t show up in a redwood forest and try to move all the trees during the day, so do it. not do it in real time.
He added that it’s vital that managers don’t forget that “this workflow affects each and every facet of production, adding post-production, accounting, production design, hair/makeup, etc. “» The production procedure is reversed because, unlike classic productions, the computer-generated backgrounds must be finished before filming begins.
For the first season of The Mandalorian, ILM used the popular Maya program to design the backgrounds in 3D before they were assigned images of real-life locations to ensure that the end result was photorealistic. ILM received images from Iceland and the United States, but did not use much personnel to do so. In fact, each team used traditional devices with six Canon EOS 5DS and MKIV cameras, all taking pictures simultaneously.
Photographs of the day were taken to reflect other lighting situations and ILM used software such as Agisoft De-Lighter to eliminate shadows so that they could practically be illuminated on the LED screens. The screens were used in more than 50% of the first season of The Mandalorian and when they weren’t suitable for filming, the screen turned green at the push of a button.
Unlike a classic green screen, made of canvas, virtual editing takes no time to set up and its length can be set to outline exactly the required area. The effects are then inserted into post-production with the virtual elimination of the motion capture cameras that line the seam at the top of the screen. Instead, grass or rocks are used to hide the junction between the back of the screen and the landscape.
The demo requires significant installation time as well as external preparation to ensure that all software and media servers are working. As Galler explains, Lux Machina will have to “calibrate camera tracking, color and asset channels, production schedules, and all departments to shoot effectively. “
He has made Lux Machina a force to be reckoned with in the LED demo industry and, in the last few years alone, has installed them in the United Kingdom for Warner Bros. and Apple, built a transient for FOX Upfront and finished its Prysm Level at Trilith Studios in Atlanta. Lux Machina also worked on Amazon’s massive LED screen at the historic Culver Studios Stage 15. At a staggering 80 feet in diameter and 26 feet tall, it’s incorporated with AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing platform. to optimize workflow. The movie studios are possibly just the beginning.
The StageCraft generation can create exclusive 2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. theme ©park reports.
ILM introduced its StageCraft formula to the public for the first time at D23 and the theme park’s possibilities have temporarily become apparent. Not only the screen of the same caliber as the one used in the next The Mandalorian movie.
Right in front of the semicircular convention screen was a black level with a droid. With the touch of a button, the background changes from the neon-lit streets of an alien city to the hangar of a space station with ships arriving. Inside and outside. Visitors with lightsabers were able to remain in the level while a camera rotated around them, giving the impression that they were in the environment shown on the screen. The 10-second clips were emailed to each guest. giving them even more engaging content than they would get from a character meet and greet at a theme park.
“Oh, it’s great,” said one guest as she left the level smiling. “A once-in-a-lifetime possibility. “
As this is just a temporary exhibition on the grounds of a conference centre, it shows what a permanent installation in a theme park can achieve. Imagine yourself in a set filled with otherworldly props that cover the level and the edges of the screen showing an alien city on the horizon. Instead of being a static backdrop like you’d find on a theme park attraction, the alien cityscape in the distance zooms in as you walk towards it, just as it would in real life.
Disney has even developed friendly bipedal robots, which can populate the landscape, as well as an ingenious floor surface that allows it to adapt in particular to the footprint of the facility. Called a sea cucumber, it acts as a multi-directional treadmill so visitors can move in any direction they want and items in the distance on the screen come closer as they walk towards them in place.
Most likely, it’s a low-capacity charm that can have a high value, as it would create content that can’t be discovered anywhere else. Not only would this involve the same generation used in Hollywood blockbusters, but it would also make visitors feel like they’ve been transported to alien worlds.
Disney is already going in this direction since its Avengers Campus in Paris offers a character photo session consistent with the heroes taken through a ring of cameras that surround them. Generates a 360-degree slow-motion video clip modeled after the bullet scenes in the Matrix movies. It comes at the princely price of $16. 54 (€15) per year, on top of the park’s $82. 72 (€75) photopass package. An even more premium product may be just what parks want by raking in profits in the face of declining attendance, as we recently reported.
When asked if he thinks StageCraft could be used in theme parks in the future, Galler replied: “Of course, I think in many cases, real-time engines are used in theme park attractions. Real-time generation for preview, installation, and eventual engagement of the driving force.
The interview was published 3 years ago, but feels incredibly prescient in light of the recent D23 announcement. So while Filoni and Favreau are still considering the StageCraft formula just to immerse enthusiasts in alien worlds, its release in the parks probably isn’t too far away. .
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