Chaos Group: Interview with Niklas Jacobson, VFX Supervisor & Co-founder of ILP

Customer Success Story
December 2012
Client: Important Looking Pirates
Industry: Film and Visual Effects
Products: V-Ray for Maya

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The Storytellers
Read about the journey Yafei Wu and Niklas
In the production of Kon-tiki Jacobson have embarked upon by creating Important
Looking Pirates.
we used all of V-Ray’s
advanced features such as
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Team Work and Inspiration
GI, caustics, camera Find out how ILP’s people have created a unique
motion blur/depth of field, team spirit that allows them to collaborate in the
most efficient way and enjoy their work.
fog, volume caustics, render
elements etc. and it worked
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The backstage experience
really great! Learn about the production challenges in Kon-tiki and
take a sneak peak at what’s currently cooking at ILP.
Interview with:

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Niklas Jacobson, Customer benefits
Visual Effects Supervisor &
Co-founder of ILP Find out why ILP decided to use V-Ray as their
main renderer.

Chaos Group
marketing@chaosgroup.com
Copyright © 2012 Chaos Software Ltd. All rights reserved. All brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to
www.chaosgroup.com
their respective holders.


2
The Storytellers
Jacobson have embarked upon by creating Important
Looking Pirates.

3
Find out how ILP’s people have created a unique
Client: Important Looking Pirates team spirit that allows them to collaborate in the

From that point everything went really

4
fast. In October 2007 we founded
How it all started… Learn about the production challenges in Kon-tiki and
Important Looking Pirates with the vision take a sneak peak at what’s currently cooking at ILP.

My colleague Yafei Wu and I worked to one day be able to compete with the

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together in the VFX commercial industry best international studios. Our motto Customer benefits
in Stockholm for a few years. In 2003 we became “Passion, perfection and Find out why ILP decided to use V-Ray as their
main renderer.
decided to move to get in on the action of development” and from day one we put
the blooming industry in London. Yafei a lot of time and effort into research and
continued with commercials work at development and pipeline work,
Glassworks, and I joined Double Negative something that we felt had been lacking
to work on such films as Batman Begins in the local VFX industry. Since we came
and Harry Potter. We stayed in London from the artist side of things our focus
for two years and as I headed home to my for the company has always been on quality
girlfriend, Yafei moved to Los Angeles to of the work and the tools, hardware and
start a 3D department at the Santa Monica work environment necessary to
based post production company Brickyards accomplish such work. We started with 4
VFX. During the summer of 2007 we met employees but grew relatively quickly and
up in Stockholm and talked about doing are now 20 fulltime employees that we
something together. We both had gained so believe are amongst the most passionate
much experience during our time abroad artists, technicians, producers and support
and were so inspired by how developed personnel in the industry.
the industry was in USA and England that
wanted to do the same thing but in our
home town.

Highlights
In October 2007 we
founded Important
Looking Pirates with
the vision to one
day be able to compete
with the best
international studios.
Our motto became
“Passion, perfection
and development”.

2 > Chaos Group Customer Success Story / 2012

Chaos Group
www.chaosgroup.com


2
The Storytellers
Looking Pirates.

3

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What is the typical profile of the Highlights Learn about the production challenges in Kon-tiki and
people working at ILP? How would
The passion for what we
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you describe your team? Customer benefits

The passion for what we do is our key driver.
do is our key driver. We Find out why ILP decided to use V-Ray as their
main renderer.

We have a very encouraging and informal have a very encouraging
work environment. We strive to help each and informal work
other and we are continuously trying to
develop our skills. Another thing we have in environment.
common is that we are mostly generalists.
I believe that in order to think outside the The process looks a bit different when you
box and become really good at what you do, This varies very much depending on the work with live-action as there is often a
you need to have a good understanding of project and client. When we work directly production company and a director that has
the entire process. with agencies, which we often do when a clearer view of what they want to achieve.
working on full CG commercials, we tend to In those cases our creative work is more
How about your creative process? to have more input on the creative process. about developing a certain effect or creative
How does the client brief turn into We can help out with storyboards and problem solving in how achieve a certain
the final projects you release? concepts and be more involved on the visual effect and how to incorporate that
creative side. into the live-action in the most efficient way.


Chaos Group
www.chaosgroup.com


2
The Storytellers
Looking Pirates.

3

We are using V-Ray’s Render Elements

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for a lot of things. It is a very nice and
Tell us more about your work on Learn about the production challenges in Kon-tiki and
simple way of getting the additional take a sneak peak at what’s currently cooking at ILP.
the epic feature Kon-tiki.
passes you need for a particular shot.

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However, I am still a big fan of beauty Customer benefits
Kon-tiki was an extraordinary exciting Find out why ILP decided to use V-Ray as their
renders. As soon as you start doing shots main renderer.
and challenging project for us. V-Ray
with GI, atmospheric effects, caustics,
was definitely an important factor and a
reflections and refractions, everything s
fantastic tool that made our job easier.
so integrated that it becomes complex to
We switched from our previous renderer
extract elements and reconstruct them
to V-Ray two years ago. We spent some
back in comp. I believe in leaving the
time figuring out nice preset settings that
shader balancing to the 3D artist whose For our underwater shots, however, it was
worked for a wide range of scenes and
daily job is to analyze materials and lighting essential to use the render elements in
scales. Today the time we spend on look
conditions. That way our compositors order to be able to dial the fog effects and
development has heavily decreased which
can focus on the images as a whole. caustic intensities by our compositors.
leaves more time for the artist to actually
make a shot look beautiful. In the
production of Kon-tiki we used all of
V-Ray’s advanced features such as GI,
caustics, camera motion blur/depth of
field, fog, volume caustics, render
elements etc. and it worked really great!
We put a lot of effort in the modeling
and texturing of our CG creatures. We
carefully balanced our shaders during
the look development process.
Then when we stuck the HDRI domes
we shot on set, the look was pretty
much there.

Highlights
Kon-tiki was an
extraordinary exciting
and challenging
project for us. V-Ray
was definitely an
important factor and
a fantastic tool that
made our job easier.


Chaos Group
www.chaosgroup.com


2
The Storytellers
Looking Pirates.

3

4
Please share more about your Highlights Learn about the production challenges in Kon-tiki and
latest projects.
I think it is a very
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Customer benefits
I would love to share a sneak peak on
another very exciting project that we are common dream among Find out why ILP decided to use V-Ray as their
main renderer.

working on. It is an animated short film CG artists to be able to
directed by a very talented friend of mine,
Nicklas Andersson.
create a short film and
put all your experience
It is a little story about a factory worker
from the “dark side” who struggles and and knowledge into a
dreams of a life on “the other side”. personal project that
I met Nicklas when I was living in London. you are really
Nicklas has been working as an animation passionate about.
supervisor at Framestore for many years
and during his spare time he has been
developing and animating a very
interesting animated short. Now Important
Looking Pirates is producing this short
film together with Nicklas.

We are very excited to be a part of this
project. I think it is a very common dream
among CG artists to be able to create a
short film and put all your experience and
knowledge into a personal project that you
are really passionate about. We feel that
this is our chance to excel and to really
create something special.

All the concepts and animation are
almost complete and we now work on look
development and effects work. We really
want to go nuts on this project and make it
visually astonishing. We are about 40-50%
complete, but a project like this takes time
since we don’t have any external funding.
This leaves us really being able to work on
it only in between our regular projects.
I am looking forward to sharing this with
you in the future!


Chaos Group
www.chaosgroup.com


2
The Storytellers
Looking Pirates.

3

4
Why did you decide to use V-Ray for Learn about the production challenges in Kon-tiki and
the visualization of your creative

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projects? Customer benefits
Find out why ILP decided to use V-Ray as their
We had multiple reasons for switching to main renderer.

V-Ray as our main render engine. First and
foremost, as mentioned earlier, it makes
the look development process extremely
efficient. V-Ray has a lot of ways to get very
fast feedback while keeping all the fancy
features like GI. You can get a quick read on
how your lighting will look and when you
are satisfied, you can increase the settings

Highlights
V-Ray has a lot of
ways to get very fast
feedback while keeping
all the fancy features
like GI. You can get a
quick read on how your
lighting will look and
when you are satisfied,
you can increase the
settings with a very
predictable result.

with a very predictable result. Two other
good reasons are the pricing and the
excellent support.
We have still not gotten around looking
into RT. I am really looking forward to take
a deeper look into that. I feel that has great
potential in speeding up look development
process even further.
Copyright © 2012. All Rights Reserved. All images Courtesy of ILP
http://ilpvfx.com/work/view/showreel2012/


Chaos Group
www.chaosgroup.com

Chaos Group: Interview with Niklas Jacobson, VFX Supervisor & Co-founder of ILP

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Chaos Group: Interview with Niklas Jacobson, VFX Supervisor & Co-founder of ILP