SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 held in Daegu, South Korea, highlighted the creative visual effects that are being created and used in Korean content. It can be said that their VFX industry has immensely contributed to improving their projects’ visual quality. In one of the featured sessions at the event, Westworld VFX managing director Koni Jung shared a comprehensive breakdown of the outstanding creature development process done in Sweet Home for Netflix Korea and the use of innovative techniques, including shooting with LED walls and Unreal Engine for another Netflix project The Silent Sea.
Westworld VFX, one of Korea’s leading visual effects companies, delivers VFX, pre-production, on-set supervision and post-production. They strive for seamless collaboration of the best DI artist, technology, and facility to create beautiful images.
In an interview with Animation Xpress, Koni Jung revealed how they explored virtual production for the first time during pandemic years and how they are now ready with another such project.
Their beautiful visuals of The Silent Sea have been garnering praises for the realistic feel and brilliant quality. And Jung credits her amazing team for the marvelous work they delivered for the Netflix productions.
According to Jung, with the advent of various digital platforms like Netflix, the production money is bigger than usual TV series or films. This has been one of the major drivers for the Korean VFX industry.
Speaking about The Silent Sea, she revealed that they have been considering the use of virtual production from the beginning, not only the LED walls but also the use of real-time pre-vis, simulcam and the in-camera visual effects. The team had started the pre-production quite earlier than the usual production, along with the design of the props like ‘the ship’ and so on.
They worked on several drawings from where they started doing the real-time pre-vis using Unreal Engine. She revealed that the director was really happy with it.
Asked about how to keep oneself updated with technological innovations, Jung said that meeting different kinds of people helps a lot. Jung was very happy to attend SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 which was back on-ground after a gap, and meet everyone face to face.
The pandemic years had affected the content production in Korea, which led to the use of the LED wall for the first time. They had an amazing experience working with members from Netflix and also Unreal Engine who provided the technical support.
“We are ready for another bigger IC-VFX production for Netflix. It is going to be released early next year,” she disclosed. It is currently in the post production stage.
The studio works both on their own projects as well as other outsourced ones. They do have a plan to work on quite a few original shows.