IT CAME FROM THE DESERT was CGI heavy with over 300 VFX shots including 150 cgi ant shots.

I worked as VFX supervisor/producer building the VFX workflow for the project and leading 20 people VFX team.

On-set supervising included LIDAR scanning, HDRIs and color charts on all sets where we needed to create cgi elements; ants and set extensions.

Later on post production we used LIDAR scanned point clouds to make proxy models of the sets, and then used Pftrack to machmove the camera footage with these proxy models using the same LIDAR point clouds.

The proxy models of the sets helped animators to see where all the set elements (like ground, walls etc.) were and play around in 3d like in real set.
Another big benefit for making proxy models of the sets was to use them for cgi lighting. We used spherical HDRIs shot in different points on the sets and projected these into proxy model. This gave us more accurate lighting when characters moved from point A to B and lighting condition changed. This was especially helpful on interior scenes when there’s different lights in the environment.

For project management and reviewing we used Shotgun and Cinesync combination.