Let You Popularize Hypnosis, Do You Shoot Inception?

In the script of "Inception", this "Cube City" has been fully described.

That is, Leonardo's Cobb, and Alan Pegg's Ali Redney, walking down the streets of Paris with the folded scene upside down.

While Warner Productions designed the art department, it provided the initial blueprints for the final effect.

But they didn't transform the ordinary cityscape of Paris into something extraordinary.

That is, turning the whole city upside down overhead.

The drawbridges in Paris are actually particularly fascinating, as some ships need to travel between the canals.

So the suspension bridge is raised and lowered several times a day.

If you stand on La Salle Street, one of the canyons of skyscrapers, and look at the river, it will feel like a dream.

Since the sides of the bridge cannot be seen, only the pavement and all street furniture are suspended.

It looked like the whole world had been pried up.

So Qin Feng thought it would be very interesting to fold the streets of Paris with this method.

When thinking about how to fold the city, Qin Feng thought about how the drawbridge over the river was raised during the production of "Batman 5: Hour of War".

This became the basis for the folding streets of Inception.

A series of plates connected by chains rose, in an arc when Cobb and Ali Redney looked from the ground.

It was as if the entire street had risen, including the sidewalks and streetlights.

In the film, Ari Redney experimented with the effects of gravity in dreams, as she folded several streets in a Parisian neighborhood.

At the same time, pedestrians and vehicles were not affected and stuck to the street.

Qin Feng used satellite imagery to give a visual preview of the effect.

Then on the streets of Paris, a live shoot of Leonardo and Alan Page.

As the characters in the film watch the folded world, the two actors take cues from the timing control of the visual preview.

The actor is then rotoscored from the background to synthesize photogrammetric environmental reconstruction.

This required a combination of extensive photogrammetry and radar scans of the city previously done.

Fortunately, these Warner Films Paris crews have already completed it for him in advance.

The production of the inverted scene of the street was a big challenge.

As the street surface slowly folds up, the intersections of the buildings need to be covered with some tricks.

Either hide them behind other geometry or move the camera in time.

The design of the lights also requires skill, because when the sky is obscured by geometry, it needs to look very realistic.

To a certain extent, while using the projection of the folded building, other lights also play a role in the folding process.

A telephoto lens covers nearly 1000 frames of footage, so in the process of shooting this telephoto lens, the skills need to be used freely and without flaws.

The 3D preview produced by the crew is a very good design, so it is used until the appearance of the finished product, and the animation of the street comes from the design in the 3D preview.

Qin Feng liked this shot so much that he made a series of consecutive shots around this design.

In addition, Qin Feng conducted a 3D preview on the computer.

Then in Paris, tell Leonardo and Alan Page to remind them to look in the right direction at the right time.

The pictures that are not on the horizontal plane are made by computers.

In some scenes, CG architectural drawings also stand the test of full screen.

For example, in this scene where Alan Page and Leonardo walk up to the wall, the entire environment is computer-generated.

Computer-generated detailed pedestrians, and animations of traffic were added to the footage to complete the picture.

Although this dream world is surreal, the dream city has to make it look absolutely realistic.

The setting of the Parisian streetscape, with its ornate architecture and daylight during the day, was one of Qin Feng's bigger challenges.

Because every neighborhood is unique, everything has to be absolutely believable and work seamlessly with the details captured.

Qin Feng's processing of shadows and lighting is relatively advanced technology, including the new Ptex texture mapping technology.

This allowed the CG team to revolve around the texture coordinates, and thus be able to concentrate on creating more perfect textures.

As the director of "Inception", Qin Feng can be said to have achieved the ultimate by himself.

Save as much effort as possible for the rest of the crew.

It is also to complete the production of "Inception" as soon as possible, and to contribute my due strength.

The night before Qin Feng went to Paris for the on-site shooting, Warner's visual effects team had already made a detailed survey of the four major districts of Paris.

Provides millimeter-accurate panoramic scans and takes countless high-resolution stills.

These stills are the benchmark for a whole set of digital models, which are used to replace the material templates provided by Qin Feng, and finally form the real architectural drawings.

In the film, Leonardo and Alan Page see the streets of Paris, fixed above them, forming an upside-down cube world with a rotating perspective.

Qin Feng made digital models of distant cars and pedestrians based on the textures in the negatives.

Use motion capture to move the character, make it, and with custom modifications, allow the actor to maintain local gravity.

Afterwards, the slanted sunlight emitted from the gaps conceived between the mirrored building and the park illuminates the interior of the closed cube world.

When Leonardo and Alan Peggy walked to the end of the alley, there was a 90-degree shift in the center of gravity, and they stepped on the vertical plane in front.

Qin Feng filmed Leonardo and Alan Pegg, flying over the walls of an L-shaped swirling object.

The way to accomplish such a shot was to set up a small section of sidewalk, and the walls of Parisian streets, as a green screen.

Have Leonardo and Alan Peggy walk straight forward, and when they reach the vertical wall, rotate the scene so it looks like they are walking towards the wall.

Then Qin Feng added buildings, streets, cars and pedestrians, and adjusted the timing of the actors' movements.

Basically replacing the entire environment around Leonardo and Alan Page.

The cobblestones on the street surface didn't quite match the texture in real life, so they were removed altogether.

Likewise, Leonardo and Alan Peggy both vibrate slightly forward as the scene rotates and tilts.

So Qin Feng separated the two of them and adjusted the timing of their movements.

Then hand-painted the parts of their bodies where all of their movements lingered, and finally put them back into the environment.

Based on the simulation established by the location shooting, the intersection was planned to be folded up, and a visual preview of the subject was produced using the satellite imagery captured on the location.

The street was simulated moving up, forming an arc in the air, pressing down on the building behind Leonardo and Alan Page, creating a cubic universe.

"This is exactly what I want!"

When everything was finished, Qin Feng could not help clenching his fists and roaring when he saw the first visual preview.

Seriously, Qin Feng liked it very much after watching it.

At this time, the effect shown on the display screen cannot be very similar to that shown in "Inception" during the earth period.

It can only be said that it is exactly the same!

To design the environment as a high-resolution 3D version, Qin Feng used multiple angles of the survey texture to project onto the geometry of the street.

Then draw inconsistencies and shadows.

Relighting the model like a unique 3D object requires doing a lot of material, adding window reflections and details.

So in the end, except for the foreground, it was almost completely CG shots.

To attach vehicles and pedestrians to the sloping road, Qin Feng uses a crowd simulation tool.

With this tool, cars and pedestrians can be sampled and simulated from a motion capture looper.

There are many references to pedestrians walking and cars driving in the negatives. Based on these, vehicles and background people are designed and then filled into the streets.

When the street folds up, people still continue to walk in real-world fashion.

Normally, turning a mocap clip upside down would break the animation.

But crowd simulation tools can confine the center of gravity to the local area, so that when the streets are folded, each character's world stays 'up'.

The scene was then lit to simulate a folded street that blocked the sun.

But Qin Feng deduced that in the world of cubes, there should also be cracks.

Because in the real world, sunlight can flicker between buildings or pass through a park.

This gave him the leeway to bring the sun back to life in the final shot.

In the next dream, Ali Redney designed a cast iron and stone Victorian flyover, and the Debir Hackham Bridge suddenly appeared in front of her.

Qin Feng created this special effect using radar scans, photographic survey textures and negatives.

90% of the shooting of the bridge building was made in CG environment, the negatives were segmented, sorted, and then the environment was reconstructed in 3D and 2D.

The bridge is pure 3D, as are the cars and the road.

Many of the walls and backgrounds on the far side of the road were drawn in 2D and then shot as photographic textures.

The 3D art animates the flyover while showing a mechanical feel, with stone pillars retracting and wooden slats popping into view.

In the film, in a conversation with Cobb outside a Parisian café, Ali Redney learns how to manipulate the dream environment.

She controlled the turning of a pair of huge glass doors under the iron bridge, creating a reflective passage across the Seine.

Qin Feng's inspiration for this effect actually came from a real natural building - Debir Hackham Bridge.

He had the special effects team make giant glass, chain it and place it between the arches of the bridge.

This is the basis for the illusion of reality.

Then, using on-site measurement, rotoscoping, lens tracking, and digital rendering, the stitching of the two glasses was created, with a near-infinite reflection effect.

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