How Vine FX created a parasitic underwater forest for The Rig
Vine FX has released its VFX breakdown for Season 2 of Amazon Prime Video’s thriller The Rig.
The show follows the crew of a North Sea oil rig threatened by The Ancestor, a mysterious ancient microbial life form that has been unleashed from the ocean floor.
Creating a fungal underwater forest using procedural growth simulation
For the finale of Season 2, UK visual effects studio Vine FX delivered 115 shots, creating a glowing underwater ‘forest’ of mycelium, its canopy extending 400 meters above the seabed.
Beginning with concept art created by Scott McInnes, Vine FX used simulation techniques to grow the vast structures in an organic way.
To create the forest, the studio created several tree designs that could be instanced throughout the scene, explains Vine FX Head of 3D Pedrom Dadgostar.
“The great thing about procedural growth simulations is that they look different from any angle, so by rotating and placing assets we were able to build a dense forest with no repetitions.”
The trunks were illuminated internally using mesh lights in Solaris, Houdini’s look dev and shot layout environment, which gave them an otherworldly presence.
Defining scale with lighting and floating particulates
As well as the parasitic forest, Vine FX created entire ocean world, augmenting live-action shots with CG and 2D assets to give a sense of being underwater.
“Light plays a critical role in defining scale,” says Dadgostar. “We carefully placed floating particulates that helped establish that sense [of scale, falling off] into darkness around the trees.”
“The idea was to envelop the characters in an expansive, claustrophobic world.”
Vine FX’s compositing artists also ensured that the bioluminescent trees integrated seamlessly with the live-action footage, with the light given off reflecting from the characters’ diving suits.
Produced using a new USD studio pipeline
For the show, Vine FX built an entirely new USD pipeline, taking advantage of the flexibility and efficiency of Universal Scene Description in handling multi-shot workflows.
The new pipeline enabled Vine FX to create a unified environment that could be reused across shots without extensive re-rendering.
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