All sectors within the digital creative industry have been adapting to a new way of thinking when it comes to production of any kind. Volumetric LED screens have become fashionable in film production and with the latest release of Unreal Engine 5, allowing the creation of atmospheric background space for motion capture and compositing in real-time. Combined with the use of the latest available in-camera visual effects (ICVFX) techniques, really have exemplified what the future of TV and filmmaking would probably look like in the coming years. The film industry was astonished by the use of ICVFX in “The Mandalorian” and since after the film’s initial release back in 2019, the hype and excitement remained within virtual production and no they have not slowed down with the champagne bottles. I can definitely still hear the few renegades in the background celebrating passionately exclaiming “No more green screens!!”
Many creative studios are trying to figure out the best way to integrate 3D technology into their pre-production and production pipelines. Anybody working within the 3D industry at the moment can explain to you about how quickly technology can change and redefine industry standards. As an example, throughout the decade there has been immense growth in the use of Zbrush and Blender 3.0 within the sculpting community. To decide which software will set the next industry standard would be the wrong question, since the likelihood is that it’ll be dependent on the matter of individual preference as well as the scope of the project.
Concept artists are not immune to this transition, even though you’d expect that their sketches are 2D based illustrations, on the contrary, they were probably the forerunners in the attempt to include 3D within pre-production. Shaddy Shafadi, art director and founder of “One Pixel Brush” did a talk about the future of concept art and he described this scenario perfectly. Imagine, if a director asks you to change the camera angle of a shot, the traditional method would be to reconstruct all of your lighting and perspective angles and redraw the entire scene. Nowadays with 3D modelling softwares being so prominent, what you can do is build your desired scene entirely in 3D and use the models as reference, then all you have to do is rotate your camera in the viewport to allow all of the lighting equations to be calculated by the software. Problem solved !
So the dilemma here is this: “How is anybody supposed to keep up with this pace of change in the creative industry ?”
Working within the creative industry, things tend to change rapidly similar to fashion. Digital workflows will typically switch overtime to the most efficient toolset, a great example would be the adoption of Figma being used in practice by graphic designers to communicate design updates with web developers. After that there’s the content delivery, which is highly dependent on the latest hardware available, so having a comprehensive understanding of the type of technology in development can provide you with a sense of ‘what may come next in the near future’. AR/VR have been around for quite a while, although you may say that this isn’t the future but to counter this argument, yet the quality of these products are continuously being refined and improved. Furthermore, with the rumours of the launch of the new Mixed Reality headset from Apple in 2023, who knows how this will change the digital ecosystem.
For any creative agency who falls behind this trend and doesn’t have a strategy in place of providing 3D digital solutions for their clients will definitely have a difficult time ahead. Traditional mediums are stagnating as seen with the decline in TV viewership for younger audiences instead opting in for streaming services simply because of the ability to watch on demand. In the upcoming years, the potential benefit commercially that 3D working pipelines could bring from a photorealistic perspective to both pre-visualisation and development stage will definitely be a game changer. Having the option to deliver production ready mock-ups in real-time as demo samples will substantially improve agency and client collaboration.
Alongside all of this knowledge, you’ll also need to identify the ideal platform and medium to unload your creativity, this will typically require you to know your audience, the people who you’re trying to reach. Keeping your business updated in a highly competitive market, with all of these changes firing from left, right and centre can be extremely daunting. Staying afloat and surviving this myriad of chaos can only be achieved by being ahead of your competition.
Advertisers will need to understand that literally all sectors within the creative industry are trying to include elements of 3D in their workflow or production. Not before long, the influence of 3D will spread eventually touching all industries, similar to how the web has instantly changed our day to day communications. Realising that the 3D digital revolution is almost upon us, you’ll most likely need specialists and consultants to guide you through this period of constant change, especially if you have a creative department within your company.
Oh and by the way we haven’t even begin our conversation about Artificial Intelligence ( A.I )
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