In our LAB+ series of articles we are giving production companies, post houses, music houses, CG & VFX artists, an opportunity to demonstrate transparency in their technical set of skills bringing to light their most interesting projects and collaborations.
SHP+ 的LAB+系列还在进行中。在这一系列的文章中，我们为制作公司、后期制作公司、音乐公司、CG&VFX 艺术家等，提供了一个展示他们技术能力极其透明的机会，以介绍他们最有趣的项目和合作。
SHP+ continues with SPONSORED series of articles by JUICE, a renowned polish Visual Effects & Sound studio that very soon will open its new office doors in Shanghai.
SHP+继续JUICE赞助的系列文章。JUICE是一家著名的波兰视觉效果和声音工作室，即将在上海开设新的办公室。
This time we’re inviting you to behind the scenes of Buick Electra — a fully remote post-production of a mostly CG auto commercial for China.
这次我们邀请您一同探索别克ELECTRA概念车的幕后，一窥这支后期制作全靠远程，基本由CG完成的汽车中文广告。
The SAIC holding company wanted to take “would-be” drivers on a 150 second imaginary ride through a universe of fantasy worlds that finally converge in reality. Production house Qianxi Media and JUICE post-production team were up to the task. The reality of the project starting at the height of the Covid-19th pandemic meant JUICE team couldn’t follow the traditional workflow. They had to deliver the results without a team of SFX supervisors working alongside the production team on set, marking and mapping objects in real-time, and adjusting as the production progressed.
上汽控股公司希望让车主们体验一段150秒的“未来”虚拟旅程，穿越一个最终将与现实融合的梦幻世界。千禧传媒制作方联手JUICE后期制作团队，两个团队均富有能力胜任这项工作。而该片的制作正逢新冠疫情的高峰，这意味着JUICE团队无法按照以往的流程开展工作。他们必须得在特效主管无法与制作团队并肩工作的情况下完成摄制，实时标记并绘制对象，并随着制作的进展进行调整。
HOW TO CREATE A MOSTLY CG AUTO COMMERCIAL WITH FULLY-REMOTE POST-PRODUCTION?
如何摄制一部后期全靠远程的CG汽车广告大片？
CHALLENGES
挑战
Challenge #1
第一个挑战
In a series of dream sequences, the main character is fantasizing about her perfect car while floating between different CG worlds. To seamlessly integrate the footage with CG environments the team had to give extra attention to lighting and reflections. At the same time JUICE had to make up for the fact that some shots were done in studio due to Covid-restriction, which involved heavier CG.
在一系列的梦境中，女主角一边幻想着她完美的汽车，一边漂浮在不同的CG世界中。为了将镜头与CG环境无缝丝滑地整合在一起，制作团队必须特别关注灯光与反射。同时，因受新冠疫情的限制，有部分拍摄内容在工作室完成，为了补完这部分镜头内容，JUICE团队进行了大量的CG工作。
Challenge #2
第二个挑战
Director Li Zimo loves to scatter light off different surfaces in his minimalistic designs. In other words, a nightmare scenario when shooting lots of green screen. Generally speaking, green screens and reflective materials like the car’s coating and character’s clothing don’t mix quite well.
导演Li Zimo在他的极简主义设计中喜欢将光洒落在不同的表面上。但在拍摄大量绿屏时，这简直就是噩梦般的场景。通常，绿屏和反光材料，比如汽车的涂层和人物的服装并不是很协调。
Challenge #3
第三个挑战
The motion board presented by the director had quite a lot of minimalistic references with only one or two prominent elements that lead the scene. This effectively put all eyes on the nuances of each shot.
导演展示的动作板同样也是极简主义，很多地方只有一两个突出的元素主导场景作为参考。如此，便可有效地引导观众将目光集中在每个镜头的细微差别上。
Challenge #4
第四个挑战
To achieve smooth flow of the video and make seamless change from one environment to another the director planned for a lot of creative transitions already at the step of the initial motion board. One of the challenges of a creative transition is the fact that sometimes it is not fully clear which object should help make the transformation.
为了让影片流畅自然，且从一个环境到另一个环境的切换丝滑无缝，导演在最初的动作板阶段就计划了很多创造性的过渡。丝滑转场的挑战之一便是有时并不完全清楚应该利用哪个对象进行转换。
SOLUTIONS
解决方案
Solution #1
方案一
JUICE team prepare a 3D layout where they could position the props and account for all the big character movements on set as they set up their cameras and plotted their movement. This helped them to anticipate almost all of the problem areas and deliver precise camera and lighting instructions to the production team.
JUICE 团队搭建了一个3D场景，在那里他们可以放置道具，架设摄影机，规划动作，现场模拟所有主要的角色动作。得益于此，他们几乎预测了所有有问题的区域，并向制作团队交付了精准的运镜和照明指示。
In a scene where the woman’s hand was playing with the celestial rings of one of the planets to make the interaction feel credible and the light play —realistic, the team was shooting a hand against a black backdrop while shining on it with a laser beam.
有一幕，女主的手在拨弄某个行星的天体环，为了让观众感到这个互动真实可信，追光游戏逼真有趣，项目团队在黑色背景下拍摄手的同时，也用激光光束照射了手部。
Solution #2
方案二
Choosing a matte white suite with silver accents for the character’s outfit for the fencing scene was a less time-consuming compromise.
选择一套银色带镶边的哑光白色套装作为角色在击剑场景中的服装，算是为了省时的妥协。
But the actual Buick had an extremely reflective coating, which meant the team had to deal with a ton of green spills. With the exception of the final rooftop scene that featured the real car, JUICE used a 3D model which helped eliminate spills.
但实际的别克车也有着非常容易反光的涂层，这意味着团队必须处理大量的绿光溢出问题。因此JUICE团队大部分场景采用了3D建模的车辆，仅在最后的屋顶场景中使用了真车，大大减少了绿光溢出的问题。
For the rooftop scene where the team had to make up for the missing reflections, JUICE came up with oversized LED screens for projecting the sky HDRI’s. Due to the time restrictions, the production had the sky printed on large vinyl canvases instead.
至于屋顶的场景，项目团队必须补全缺失的反射，因此JUICE想出了利用超大的LED屏幕来投影天空高动态范围图的解决方案。但由于时间紧迫，最终的方案是将天空印在了巨大的乙烯基画布上。
It meant recreating most of the elements in the shot in CG, as glossy floor and water on set simply attracted a ton of unwanted reflections from the white ceiling and the supporting stands.
因为片场光滑的地板和水只是吸引了白色天花板和支撑架上大量不必要的反射，这意味着要用CG再现镜头中的大部分元素。
Solution #3
方案三
In order to solve visual challenges the decision was to push this dreamworld beyond any physical constraints. For the energy sphere containing the actress, JUICE combined the structural feel of a glass bubble with a golden hair light then surrounded everything by filaments of light reminiscent of coronal-mass-ejections and a touch of Tesla-ball internal lightning.
为了解决视觉方面的挑战，制作团队决定让这个梦幻的世界超越所有物理的限制。因此，为了打造那个包裹女演员的能量球，JUICE结合了玻璃泡的结构感和金色的光丝，然后用闪亮的灯丝包围一切，这让人联想到日冕物质的喷射和特斯拉球内部的闪电。
They created two kinds of light vectors: one set that felt more organic and tangled more freely with the hand and another set of more engineered vectors that both built the outline of the dashboard and then adhered to it.
他们创造了两种光的载体: 一种感觉更有组织，与手更自由地纠缠在一起; 另一种更工程化，它们勾勒了仪表板的轮廓，然后依附在上面。
animated light vectors
动画中的光载体
Revealing the surfaces that make up the car interior against the dark space was a subtle dance as the team didn’t want it to look like a rough mask. They solved this by combining the render of the interior with the golden glow, as if emanating from the contours, and the FX revealing mask assisted by a fluid shape.
而汽车内部的展示与周围黑暗空间的对比则像是微妙的舞蹈。因为项目团队不想让这一画面看起来显得粗糙，所以在展示渲染汽车内饰的部分加入了金色的柔光，仿佛是从轮廓中散发出来的一般，同时展示操作面板的部分还加入了流体的形态。
‘growing’ mask
“生长”的面板
manually animated countour lines
手动动画轮廓线
Solution #4
方案四
In the energy ball outburst scene the first stitch is covered by the burst itself while keeping the same camera movement, then the imaginary nebula surface transforms into the planet rings
在能量球爆发的场景中，第一针被爆炸本身所覆盖，同时镜头保持相同的运动，随后幻想中的星云表面转变成行星环。
To help the transition happen more organically we defined a visible plane in the center of the scene.
为了帮助过渡更加自然有机，我们在场景的中心定义了一个可见平面。
Then we created a special particle simulation for the nebula look, and inside this nebula we placed the transformation of the plane that helps fit in the planet rings.
然后我们为星云的外观创建了一个特殊的粒子模拟，在这个星云中我们放置了有助于适应行星环的平面变换
Light-to-grid transformation called for a dramatic transition from the more “stripy” structure of the car lights to the more grid-driven structure of a wheel which transforms into a tunnel as it rotates. Here’s how JUICE tackled it：
而从光到网格的转换则需要更多戏剧性，从递增的“条纹”结构的车灯，到更多的网格驱动结构的车轮，随着车轮的转动，又转变为一个隧道。而JUICE是这么做的：
rom rigid to curving and fluidy
从硬朗到曲线与流动
from curving to rigid
从曲线到硬朗
to the spokes of a wheel
到车轮的辐条
to the segmented structure of a tunnel
到隧道的分段结构
A glowing light grid scattering in the tunnel
闪烁的光网散落在隧道里
The rigid stripes that make up the car lights had to transform into an abstract spiral with curved lines – like in the reference:
构成汽车灯的刚性条纹必须转变成带有曲线的抽象螺旋 – 如图所示：
At the same time we had to stay within the framework of the wheel grid that came next.
与此同时，我们必须也考虑到接下来的车轮网格的框架。
In addition to unifying the rotation movement throughout the entire shot we also preserved the glow of the lights that scatter in the tunnel.
除了统一整个镜头的旋转运动，我们还保留了散射在隧道中的灯光。
This scene is also transitioning the story from the dark space, which we can glimpse in the background, into the clean white space.
这个场景也将故事从黑暗空间（可以从背景中瞥见的部分），过渡到干净的白色空间。
reference:
参考：
The director also wanted to use supersonic waves created by the car as a transition effect. Where the sound barrier is broken, one environment was supposed to be broken and give way to another. The director’s reference was quite clear, however the dark background made the effect stand out.
导演还提出想利用汽车产生的超声波作为过渡效果。当音障被打破时，一个环境就会被打破，让位于另一个环境。导演的参考很清晰明了，但黑暗的背景使得效果非常突出。
Working with a near-white environment, the team couldn’t rely on classic air flow so they relied on the gray tones in the background and in the car to help the air waves, compounding the effect by distorting the environment to intensify the final effect.
在几乎纯白的环境中，项目团队无法依靠传统的气流进行判断，所以他们选择依靠背景和车内的灰色色调来帮助实现气流，通过扭曲环境来强化最终效果。
CONCLUSION
案例总结
Tackling first ever fully remote post-production meant grueling nights pouring over previews, extra meticulous attention to details and creative solutions to make up for the absence of production team on set. The result is a fantasy world of Buick Electra brought to life with certain production adjustments, but no compromise on the original idea.
挑战百分百远程的后期制作意味着大量的预览审核，更多，更细致地关注细节和创造性的解决方案，以弥补制作团队的缺席。而最终，虽然有一定的制作调整，但并没有在原有的创意上妥协，制作团队最终让别克ELECTRA概念车的幻想世界成为了现实。
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