Produced By - Insight #25 - Jad Deeb: Introduction to Virtual Production by Experienced Technical Artist

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

Jad Deeb is a real-time technical artist and programmer with a strong knowledge of Unreal Engine and Houdini, currently working as a senior technical artist at London based game studio Omeda Studios. Born in Lebanon, Jad moved to the UK a few years ago looking for a better life and opportunities after his native country began experiencing a crisis. It allowed him to pursue his passion for gaming and he enrolled in a foundation course in graphic design followed by a bachelor's in 3D games and animation. Jad took an active role in honing his artistic skills outside of the classroom and started working as a freelancer, which enabled him to establish a strong body of work and open doors to the industry before graduating. Starting in virtual production, Jad begins by introducing us to this industry, sharing specifics on what it's like to work there and discussing some of the projects he worked on. He later relocated to the gaming industry, where he is currently employed, developing games and supporting other artists. Listen to this episode to get an introduction to virtual production and gaming, receive some helpful tips from a seasoned artist and discover more about gaming for PCs and consoles in general.     Connect with Jad: ⁠https://linktr.ee/Jaddeeb⁠  ⁠https://jaddeeb.com/⁠   Predecessor: ⁠https://www.predecessorgame.com/⁠   Episode quotes: “It taught me a lot of things personally and professionally to take care of in the real world aside from my technical skills on the computer. And that was definitely very eye-opening and taught me a lot that I still carry over until today.“ “It’s important to be able to take a lot of random information. You don't specifically need to understand it 100% but you need to be able to get that idea in your mind straight ahead and apply it in one way or another.” “It was mostly about me trying to sell myself as a very experienced person that can go on. And I think a very important mentality to have is that you're not asking for a recruiter to take you. But you're offering your services to someone and they want you.“ “Compare your work to the work of the professionals in the industry. That's what they are looking for. Unless they're specifically looking for interns if your work doesn't look on par with what the current talent is offering.”   Connect with the podcaster: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tomasloucky.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://twitter.com/TomasLoucky⁠     Follow the podcast: 🌐 Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://produced-by-podcast.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🔗 Links: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   💬 Contact: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://produced-by-podcast.com/contact⁠⁠⁠ 📷 Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://instagram.com/produced_by_podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  🎥 YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT5LHnM6YCaeVzIr0WatOsw⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  🎵 TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@producedbypodcast⁠  👾 Discord: ⁠⁠https://discord.gg/8j3zNzwqJg⁠ ⁠ ✉️ Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Spotify: ⁠https://lnkd.in/e5Y8Wscx⁠  Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/produced-by/id1684669642⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📨 Newsletter: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7092551882589528065 ⁠   If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it on ⁠Patreon⁠. ❤️ 🤩 If you enjoy listening to the podcast, please, leave a review on your podcast app, subscribe or share it with your friends. You can also send us a message and share any feedback, advice and tips for guests. 📭 Subscribe at ⁠⁠⁠https://produced-by-podcast.com/subscribe⁠⁠⁠ so that you don't miss out!    #producedbypodcast #producedby #enterthespotlight     Enjoy! Connect with Tomas:X: https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠⁠⁠Stan: https://stan.store/TommenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠Unproduced:Newsletter: https://unproduced.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unproducednotesSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033Ddo8ibDlLYoaP7FFLIWMore:Links: https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/⁠The Podcast Club: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25420030/Tools & gear that support the show:Metricool: https://f.mtr.cool/HRJBZKRiverside: https://riverside.sjv.io/vDnDodFavikon: https://www.favikon.com?fpr=tommenRa Optics: https://ra-optics.myshopify.com/discount/TOMMEN?rfsn=8803777.591d19JamX: https://jamx.ai/podcasters-offer?ref_id=e02d48af-ef66-4e76-b804-c2e8d282a8bfSome links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you find them useful, using these links helps keep the podcast running. Thank you!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

If you imagine someone who doesn't know anything about virtual production, give us an idea so that we can imagine what do you do, how do you do it and some information. Yeah, that's cool. So like virtual production in general has been mostly focused or like dominated by Unreal Engine. And virtual production can have a lot of different approaches or applications in it. There's different LED stages, like massive stages of LED screens where it's like it's like play. playing visuals and your actor or talent, which we call them, is inside this LED screen and we film around it to replace a green screen and you end up with the talent or the actor is like more immersed within the scene and can see like more of the effect around them.

That's one part of virtual production, which is LED screens. There's green screen where again, completely green screen. The actor exists. We key them out and then we place them in a virtual. environment. There's AR where its characters exist and there's visuals happening on top of them or behind them or whatnot. What does it stand for? AR. AR, so augmented reality. And that's where a camera is just shooting something. We have different trackers. So we know exactly where we are in 3D space and in the real world and different effects we can start piling up inside of each other. This also can go with the

green screen and with the LED screens. And there's finally projection mapping. So you have a projector and it's shining light on big surface or a big object. And we play visuals on these big surfaces to make cool effects. I see. I think I read it just maybe with Mandalorian that it was filmed that way. They did the LED screens thing. Mandalrians basically screwed everyone because the way they said it was that LED screens

are simple. They're easy. everyone should film everything inside of LED screens. And that started like the big loophole of every single person and their mother wanting LED screens and to work with them, expecting them to be magic solutions that you can change everything in one go. But yeah, they did boom the industry of LED screens. But it's not that easy, right? Absolutely not.

You still need to build the scene. You still need to light it. You still need to make all these assets. Yes, we can move the assets in real time right in front of. of you, but once you want the entire scene changed, we can't do that in a single button. And that's something that you get a lot while working on LED stages, the client coming at last minute and asking to change everything, basically. And I often heard actors complaining or saying that they don't feel that immersed in a scene

if they are not acting in the natural environment, but they are just around literally green screens. That's why LED screens came in. So you're no longer just looking at green blobs. You're actually immersed in the environment. You can see the colors. You can see the light reflecting on you. And you build on from there. The only difference is that you're not breathing fresh air.

You're breathing a lot of air conditioners and the heat of the LED spines is boiling you alive. But it is what it is. So what is your role in this process? So as a technical artist, it really depends on what we're working with. I mostly work as a journalist. So I take care of the pipeline. I make sure it runs well in real time. So there's no lagging.

There's no spikes. Everything's running smoothly in front of the client. I make sure that the assets work nicely, look nicely. If there's any problems, bugs, errors, I need to take care of that on spot. And sometimes I even need to model the different things that we need to work with, different functionality. So if different cards need to go from the... ground and show you stuff. I also work on that functionality. So what was your first position, just to imagine where basically you are on a hierarchy, if you are like a junior supervisor, something

between? Yeah, that's fine. So I would say first full-time position and move. I actually never been a junior to begin with. I started at mid straight away because most of my freelancing just got me up within the hierarchy to say the least. So started straight on. I think it was a scene for BBC sports. It was a Wimbledon tennis tournament. And they just gave me a scene. They were like, you know what?

We want this an engine. We don't care how you do it, what you're doing. You have this deadline we need it in. That was literally the brief. So did you match? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We actually crushed it.

Ended up looking like pretty gorgeous in the end of the day. It was a really cool theme. I think it was Samt as a senior technical artist. there was Julio or Julian Julian and he was like this 3D artist that came on later on and took care of the entire lighting at that point

my lighting slash color theory wasn't on point so I asked for help on that Julian came in and did like an amazing job at it so that was his role and yeah I had to like set up all the Unreal Engine virtual environment Sam took care of taking this environment from Unreal Engine and placing it in the real world, making sure the camera

tracks it correctly and whatnot, took care of the lighting and virtual space and we merged all of those together basically. So then when viewer is watching, the goal is so that it looks realistic, right? So it's beautiful and everything. Yeah, pretty much.

They want like production, value product within a budget and then not sell. And this is how it ended up, give or take. They had the stage. So they had their seats and they had a nice desk and a setup. And we mask that out and place the environment all around it to make it seem massive and proper. And to get an idea, how long time do you have to finish such a project?

And virtual production, time is a social construct. They just want you to push stuff out in seconds. They expect you to get everything rolling. That's one of the reasons why I work in games about and a lot less in virtual production. Because of this, there's a lot less planning and a lot more. people with money asking for stuff and you can't tell them no because they have the money basically. Can you just roughly say like a month or two months? It depends per project. I've been on projects where I've had two weeks to change something

from an image to a complete 3D reactive scenes. I've had a couple days to taken already existing 3D scene, change half of it and then push it on. And I think the BBC Sports one took maybe around a couple months, more. most probably around that, yeah. Mm-hmm. So if I understand correctly that in games, you've got more time, and there's also more money involved in games? Less money involved, but more time.

So virtual production is the highest amount of cash you can ever get to any different industry, I would say.