Creatures made of tree branches and roots seem to have a firm place in the history of
VFX. Just think of Treebeard in The Lord of the Rings, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinoccio, Groot or the creature in Seven Minutes Past Midnight. In this tradition we created woodland – an animated short film that we produced under the direction of Prof. Jürgen Schopper in the VFX programme at the HFF. Even though our forest creature may look rather frail next to many of his wooden colleagues, he more than makes up for it with his musical talent.

In search of ideas

Even before active story development began in October 2023, our team had come together. Woodland is the result of the creative work of Jim Obmann, Emil Pogolski and Vanessa Chu. We wanted to create a film in a fantastic, surreal environment, far removed from the world we know. For months we played through different scenarios, wrote countless script drafts and created concepts of fantasy creatures and environments. Our ideas took us from the deep sea to the highest mountain peaks, caves, abandoned cities and desert planets. In these Lived whales, golems, basilisks and other fantasy creatures – including a “moon calf”, which played the leading role. Among these figures was a rough sketch of a gnarled forest creature playing a flute… However, in view of the countless options, we didn’t immediately recognise the potential of this character.

Although the settings and characters of our designs were very different, there were fortunately
also many similarities: Survival in a desolate world, a melancholic, sometimes gloomy mood, the contrast of light and shadow, the magical effect of the music – all of these elements appeared again and again. In the end, we were able to agree on a final film plot that united these motifs. The old forest creature reappeared as the main character. In months of work
Woodland took shape in this way: The story of a wooden creature, who, as the protector of nature, must save his forest from endless darkness. His only hope: a fragile flower flute. For only the music of this flute can dispel the clouds that block out the life-giving sunlight.

From text to image

It all began with a spontaneous pencil sketch. The bent, asymmetrical posture of the drawn figure, as well as her melancholy expression. Numerous digital drawings followed, which refined the design more precisely. The aim was to develop a clear design language without sacrificing seemingly natural elements. The aim was to find a balance between heaviness and fragility. This is why the final Concept Pieces of bark layered like scales on the head and torso alternate with flexible root strands that form the creature’s arms, neck and stomach.

Vanessa Chu and Jim Obmann designed the concept of the “flower flute” according to a similar principle: the wafer-thin petals are arranged in a spiral around the stem which functions as a sound box. In order to play the flute, the petals have to be pressed shut so that the knotholes in the stem of the flute are covered – similar to the keys of a clarinet. This allowed us to combine an interesting design with functionality.

Storyboard & previsualisation

Prof Michael Coldewey and Dr Rodolfo Anes Silveira supported us in creating the storyboard. We created pencil drawings for each shot, which we cut out and rearranged again and again. This gave us the opportunity to play with different editing variations. We drew the final version digitally. Here we fine-tuned the Composition and an initial colour script that would later help us with the lighting.

Before we started with the 3D previs, we decided to take an additional step as preparation: we filmed a “real film version” in the Ebersberg forest. Our storyboard served as a template. By filming with a real camera, we got a very good idea of which pans and movements were realistic. In doing so we moved more in the direction of more static camera work, away from the often unrealistic possibilities of a 3D camera. This calmer concept lent more authenticity and clarity to the story. Storyboard and live-action film together created a stable basis for the 3D previs. A rough animation of the character and the first sound concept soon made it possible to assess the overall effect of our film and to make final changes to the pacing.

Pipeline & workflow

Jonas Kluger was always on hand to help us plan an effective workflow. He explained how to use Shotgrid and Prism software, which made Project management a lot easier. Even in the deepest jungle of linked Blender scenes, rigs, FBX files and textures, we were able to keep an overview.

A forest creature is created

The challenge now was to realise our drawn concepts in 3D. Emil Pogolski used Zbrush to sculpt the forest creature. Our character went through a series of metamorphoses until we finally succeeded in sculpturally reconstructing the expressiveness of the drawings.

In addition, the model was edited with regard to the animation. We opted for a mixture of ball joints and mouldable elements to give the character enough freedom of movement despite its sometimes rigid wooden structure. This also applies to the facial expressions: while the eyelids, nose and mouth are united in a single mesh, the eyebrows move separately from the head as a mosaic of fixed wooden panels. All of the figure’s blendshapes were created (also in Zbrush) using sculpting layers.

We built the flower flute in Blender, also using Blendshapes for the wilting of the petals. A rough reference model of the flute served as a template in Zbrush. The hands and fingers of the forest creature were adapted to the final model. This ensured that the character and asset were a good match. For the modelling of the bud from which the flute was to be modelled, we took a close look at the growth of real plants.

In the virtual forest

The most challenging task during the creation of our film was the environment. The aim was to build an ancient forest whose trees were slowly decaying from lack of light. Here, too, we attached great importance to a detailed elaboration of the tree bark, leaves, roots and undergrowth.

This task would have been almost impossible to complete using traditional modelling methods in the time we were given. As a solution, Jim developed a system of geometry nodes in Blender with which we were able to procedurally design a large number of unique trees.

Curves were used to define the basic shape of the trunk, while the leaf density, number of branches and structure of the bark could be controlled with specially created parameters.

In addition, we allowed clusters of tree fungi to grow on the bark, including procedurally variable fungal size and density.

We also had the same flexibility with the shape and thickness of the tree branches (which we could let hang down sadly if required). Depending on the layout, we distributed self-made 3D scans of rotten tree trunks, rock formations and roots in the environment. This completed the overall impression of a dark, mystical forest.

Texturing

We wanted Woodland to be a tactile, detailed film. That’s why we decided early on in favour of PBR shading with high-resolution normal and displacement maps. In Zbrush, Emil modelled larger details such as the eye wrinkles and coarse Bark structures of the character. In the next step, we projected this highpoly Model in Substance Painter onto the lowpoly mesh, which had previously been cleanly retopologised in Maya. We distributed the texel density of the lowpoly mesh over several UDIM-tiles in order to maximise the good performance of the blender scenes despite the high level of detail.

Rigging

The humanoid proportions of our character allowed us to use the Blender add-on Autorig Pro as the basis for the rig. Vanessa manually adjusted the weights to anatomical features, such as the forest creature’s flexible neck.
After a few iterations and the support of Benc Orpak, the body rig was ready. For the facial expressions, we built a control panel to quickly control the character’s 20 blendshapes quickly. This also made it easy to create combinations of several blendshapes. Jim rigged the flower flute completely by hand. Its complex rig made it possible not only to manipulate each petal individually, but also the overall shape of the flute. So the growth of the flower from a bud to a fully unfolded flute.

Performance capture

Before the shoot, we had already tried to empathise with the role of the forest creature and
possible movement sequences. It quickly became clear that Jim would be best suited as a MoCap actor. David Emmenlauer was on hand on the day of filming with valuable Advice on the day of filming. He explained how to use the Xsens suit and the associated software so that we could get the most out of Jim’s performance. We used sandbags, elastic bands and a heavy rucksack to restrict our performer’s freedom of movement. This allowed us to bring our idea of a frail forest creature even closer. The foundation for the animation was laid.

Animation

Retargeting turned out to be a challenge: the bones from the MoCap data had to be manually transferred to the final rig. The edited motion data provided an initial starting point for the long animation process that followed. Only the Blender add-on Animation Layers allowed us to bring the forest creature fully to life. We first corrected all imperfections in the MoCap data in order to edit them using manual animation. All the nuances of the flute playing, the the intricate hand movements and the expressiveness of the facial expressions were animated by Vanessa and Jim by hand. They received feedback from Melanie Beisswenger, who also taught us the theory of animation technique. Seeing how, step by step, a vivid character with convincing emotions was a fascinating experience with every new shot.

Light and shadow

Light is one of the most important elements in the story of Woodland. What mattered to us was a strong contrast between light and dark. The oppressive mood of a dying Forest was to be set against the dawning of sunlight. But how do you tell the absence of light without plunging the film plot into darkness?
We decided to solve this problem with a clear colour scheme. The dark forest is bathed in a cold blue-green colour, with a tinge of violet in the shadow areas. In contrast, warmer colours return to the forest with the sunlight – the blue-green is replaced by light ochre and orange tones. To achieve this effect, Emil used numerous area lights in Blender in combination with a volume.

This volume allowed us to create a depth effect and make the rays of sunlight visible. We also sorted all the lights into light groups so that we could adjust them later in compositing. This enabled us to visually separate the character from the environment even in the densest tangle of branches and to bring out all the details even in the dark forest.

Rendering & compositing

We decided early on to render with Cycles. This allowed us to achieve the desired Quality of all transmission, subsurface and volume effects. For the necessary flexibility in compositing, we created masks for the forest creature and its flute for each shot. Nevertheless, we struggled with rendering errors – which were eventually overcome with even more patience. The effort was worth it: the final renders lived up to our expectations. We now put all the render passes together in Nuke to create the finished overall image. Here we came a lot closer to the desired look. We increased the visual clarity the visual clarity of the shots, directing the audience’s gaze to the important image elements. In Nuke we also animated the sunlight, which we had always rendered in a separate light group.

Colour grading

Together with colourist Claudia Fuchs, we achieved the final look, corrected minor rendering errors and added grain. With a subtle radial blur at the edges of the image, we underlined the sometimes dreamlike mood of the film. This put the finishing touches to all the scenes – the work on the visual part was complete.

Wood creaking and flute music

As our film manages without any dialogue, the music plays a very special role. In Woodland, it is not just “background music”, but a fundamental part of the film’s plot. It guides the audience through all the emotional states of the forest creature: from Self-forgetfulness to sadness to hope. This music is the work of our great Composer Lukas Stipar, who, in addition to film music, writes pieces for video games and theatre plays. The sound design took place under the direction of sound engineer Stefan Möhl. The forest was now given an atmospheric sound backdrop, while the gnarled joints creak and crackle with every movement. All animations and textures suddenly seemed even more believable as the sound gave the film a whole new depth.

Retrospective

Working on our first animated film at the HFF demanded a lot of perseverance from us. It was an instructive, exciting journey to the final version with one or two unforeseen twists and turns. We spent almost a whole year in the virtual forest of Woodland, so that in the end we found it difficult to detach ourselves from our work. It always seemed just one or two opportunities for improvement. But the finished film comes closer to our expectations than we initially thought possible. Now we can look back with satisfaction on a long, successful teamwork – and are already looking forward to the next VFX project!

The team

Munich University of Television and Film presents: A film by Vanessa Chu, Jim Obmann, Emil Pogolski

Woodland

Screenplay / Modelling / Texturing / Rigging / Animation / Lighting / Compositing: Vanessa Chu, Jim Obmann, Emil Pogolski
Producer Konstantin Kunze
Composer: Lukas Stipar
Overall management: Prof. Jürgen Schopper
Project supervision: Dr Rodolfo Anes Silveira
Visual Effects Pipeline TD: Jonas Kluger
Mentor 3D Computer Animation: Berter Orpak
Production Management: Ina Mikkat
Team Assistance Production Management: Ron Sikkes
Team assistance: Petra Hereth
Assembly supervision: Prof Beatrice Babin, Prof Michael Palm, Yuval Tzafrir
Colour Grading: Claudia Fuchs
Mixing: Stefan Möhl
Postproduction Supervisor: Christoffer Kempel
Room scheduling: Beate Bialas, Sabina Kannewischer
Editing: Christine Schorr, Yuval Tzafrir
Technical support: Benedikt Geß, Florian Schneeweiß
Equipment HFF Munich: Rainer Christoph
Studio management: Peter Gottschall, Andreas Beckert
Conforming: Martin Foerster

Sirius string quartet, clarinettist Eve Georges

Thanks to our lecturers Prof. Melanie Beisswenger, Prof. Michael Coldewey, David Emmenlauer, Kathrin Hawelka, Benc Orpak, Dr Walter Stehling.

Special thanks to Edgar Bauer, Mayra Ebensen, Paula Wodniok, Silvia Loose, Franz Stöcker, Felix Zachau, Hannes Werner, Alexander Hupp, Ines Timmich, Franziska Bayer, Valentin Dittlmann

Producers Comment

When I started at the HFF, I wasn’t even aware that there were animated films in addition to documentaries and feature films that we production students were allowed to accompany as producers.

by Konstantin Kunze

In the first few weeks of my studies, however, I gradually found out that we could get this opportunity and be allowed to produce an animated film. I approached Vanessa and offered to help her and the team with the production. The offer quickly became a reality and I became part of Team JEV: Team Jim Obmann, Emil Pogolski and Vanessa Chu.
Every week we met with the other team and the lecturers from the VFX department for weekly meetings in which the film was shaped step by step. Starting with brainstorming, script development and then everything to do with the animation and completion of the film. What I’m describing here so casually and briefly was a process that took months and ultimately lasted a year. A process in which I learnt what in-depth character and story development means and what it means to track the progress of an animated film in Shotdeck, to get to know and understand general terms and the workflow of an animation project.

I can only repeat it again and again and take my hat off to Vanessa, Emil and Jim. What you three have achieved over the last year is incredible and I am deeply grateful to you for letting me go along for the ride. Your skills and abilities have made my jaw drop more than once. Seeing how you have grown together as a team and how everyone in the team has found their role based on their skills makes me proud. Proud of your work and especially proud of the three of you.

A big thank you to everyone in the VFX department for their commitment and time, and to everyone else involved, especially the production manager Ina Mikkat and her assistant and good soul in the production department, Daniel Zitzer. If there’s one important thing to take away from the last year, it’s a newfound understanding of what it means to work in VFX. Even if it was only a small insight into the big VFX world, you can now better appreciate what it really means to produce visual effects or animations and that it is not just a ‘job on the side’, as it is often seen in the film industry. Vanessa, Emil and Jim, it was a pleasure to produce this film with you, and if this is your start, then we can’t help but look forward to all the wonderful things to come from you.

The post Through the Woodlands first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by HFF Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München.

Once again, a panel of experts advised me on this article (see below). Instead of relying on grading influencers, who are dependent on publishing new content at regular intervals, I have once again
content at regular intervals, I am once again relying on the experience of four senior colourists with decades of experience. Added to this are several weeks of intensive research, expensive further training (Resolve Colourist Advanced) and paid online platforms (Lowepost). In the end, I take on the role of a curator with the aim of collecting sensible solutions for frequently occurring problems.

In commercials, skintone treatments and spot adjustments are the order of the day. However, I also learnt from the experts that beyond this, for example with the rejuvenation of people by a decade, the limits of what is technically feasible are always being scratched. Of course, colourists always hope for the stroke of luck that complex shots are handed over to retouching experts.

The professionals also report that the time requirements in other areas, such as feature films, documentaries and image films, are now so high that professional colourists can often do little or nothing in the beauty sector. Of course, they are also less likely to work on complex cases: A production whose budget can afford external grading often also has at least one professional make-up artist on set. As a result, any abnormalities that are difficult to correct are moved to post. The extent to which the fact that such retouching is almost exclusively carried out on female actresses is socially questionable is something we unfortunately have to leave out of this article.

During my research, I learnt that some actresses, for example, have certain retouching steps contractually guaranteed. In addition to the rest of the grading of the feature film, between half a day and a whole day is then estimated for these edits. In order to ensure that this person does not stand out as having been retouched, their counterpart in the scenes in question often has to be retouched as well.

Even today, there are still clear differences in how much effort is put into male and female actors. For male actors, skin retouching, such as red discolouration or spots, is often retouched. For female actors, however, the adjustments are often more extensive. In this case, the adjustments go far beyond retouching the face, such as skin retouching or changing the colour of lipstick. For example, the hands are also worked on by adjusting the skin tone (often too reddish because there is no make-up) or rejuvenated using various techniques. Sometimes even the entire body contour is shaped with a grid (the Warper effect in Resolve). In commercials, the entire image is sometimes simply scaled down by 4 per cent to make the actress appear slimmer.

Nevertheless, editing steps in the beauty area can also be worthwhile for smaller productions, for example in the image film sector. They can be used to remove temporary blemishes from the protagonist, increase the production value or simply draw attention to other aspects by reducing details in a part of the image.

Face refinement

The often-discussed internal Face Refinement plugin is actually (as I have learnt from our experts) also used time and again in a professional environment. Both for skin retouching and for dark circles under the eyes or forehead wrinkles.
However, if the tracking or placement of the outline does not go well, the beauty plugin included in the delivery can also be used. For example, if the camera moves too much or the head is turned too far, the face refinement plugin gets confused again and again. The short shot length naturally benefits graders in the advertising sector, as the automatic analysis function of the plugin is less likely to fail. If it is wrong, very little can be adjusted manually. Whether the outline can be rotoscoped at some point is still up in the air. As a result, this tool is extremely polarising: it is often an enrichment, but in some cases it is also completely useless. In the following, we therefore use tools that can be used as alternatives and that allow a high degree of manual customisation.

Skin Tone

As Alexis van Hurkman impressively explains in his “Colour Correction Handbook” (Peachpit Press – is.gd/cc_handbook), the skin tone is a so-called memory colour. In other words, a certain hue range that is determined by the blood circulation and the oxygen content in the blood and is therefore very similar in all healthy people within a certain spectrum (see image).
The experts agreed that a healthy skin tone is an extremely important element that should always be kept in mind. But exactly how this is defined is a matter of taste. The preferences of the director and camera department are therefore clarified in preliminary discussions. There are also often personal preferences when it comes to saturation, i.e. how pastel the skin tones should be. The Skin Tone Indicator therefore definitely makes sense as an aid and general reference.
However, whether the skin tone is processed separately from the rest of the grading depends more on the type of production. In commercials, it is almost always treated separately with qualifiers and masks – in feature films it is never actually treated separately. There, you always try to grade largely with primaries, looking at the whole picture and the skin tone, and only use secondaries if it is either not possible otherwise or if two actors have very different skin tones. Professionals see the advantages of primaries in terms of speed and, above all, consistency within the image.

Skin retouching

Midtone Detail is usually used for general skin retouching. This tool increases the contrast at edges, but only in the medium and light brightness areas. This at least does not increase the noise in dark areas and is therefore also suitable as a general sharpening method. In combination with a coarse mask, for example around the head, and a qualifier on the skin, you can often achieve good results with Midtone Detail – the professionals agree. With the qualifier, however, care should be taken (for example with the saturation parameter) not to include the eyes or lips in the key. If you also want to give the skin more shine or a porcelain-like appearance, you can also use the key you have just created directly for this and simply raise the centres (gamma) with the wheels. This makes the skin a little softer in terms of contrast and at the same time usually reduces the saturation with the increase, making everything a little more pastel and porcelain-like.
If the focus is less on the general appearance of the skin and more on specific areas of skin, other tools are used. Sometimes a tracked mask with a blur on the area in question can be enough.

If this is not enough, a reduction in contrast (using Pivot), a slight blur and colouring with the wheels (most likely Offset) often helps to beautify the masked area and adapt it to the surrounding skin tone. The next stage, which is also used by our professionals, is node sizing. To do this, we first mask an area that is “flawless” and matches the skin structure and illumination of the area we want to enhance as closely as possible. In the Sizing area, we select the small Node Sizing tab and use Pan and Tilt to move this beautiful area to the unsightly area.

Now all we have to do is track the mask and adjust it to the size and, with a bit of luck, we’re done. Another option is called Patch Replacer and is also a supplied effect. It works like the clone tool in Photoshop by defining a source and a target. The many setting options would go beyond the scope of this article, but here is another important tip for tracking: switch from window tracking to FX tracking. Only then can a manually set tracking point be tracked. Then simply drag the target circle of the plug-in to the correct position and it should move correctly. Patch Replacer is only slightly different from Node Sizing, but for some it offers a more pleasant UI and a few more options for the settings. If none of this helps, there is probably no way around a compositing programme.

Circles under the eyes

Personally, I have always achieved very good results with dark circles using two very similar techniques. Both first require a tracked, soft mask around the dark circles under the eyes. Then it is basically a matter of increasing the brightness of the dark skin area, reducing the contrast in order to visually flatten the skin and adapt the skin tone to the surrounding skin.
In the first method, we reduce the contrast considerably and use Pivot to adjust the brightness to the surroundings. We then mainly use Offset (and Saturation if necessary) to give the area the right colour.
The second method is similar, but usually results in slightly more realistic skin tones with less reduction in the darkening of the eyes. First lighten the shadows with Lift until a light-coloured area is created. Now the 32 bit floating point calculation of Resolve comes into play: With Gamma we now lower the centres until a suitable brightness with a view of the surroundings is created again. If you now use the Lift and Gamma wheels to give the area the right colour, you often get very nice results.
Of course, both methods require good tracking and masking. If you have to render with handles or if shots are added, adjustments in this area are of course difficult, but you should keep this in mind with all the techniques in this article. Speaking of..

Eyes

First of all, it must be mentioned that adjustments to the eyes themselves are very difficult to transfer consistently to many settings. Either the tracking runs away from you or you have to adapt your editing to the lighting conditions, which is sometimes not always easy over many shots. As this is “only” a question of (rotoscoping) effort, we still don’t want you to miss out on the tricks.

If, for example, digital eyeshadow is to be applied, this is very straightforward with short shots. Simply apply a mask around the eyelid area, set softening, track and now adjust both the colour and the brightness with the gamma wheel. This creates both smokey eyes and different colours in a very natural way. When it comes to the iris and the white eye skin, the opinions of the experts differ, as an eye skin that is too light and desaturated looks extremely unnatural. One suggestion from the professionals was to increase the sharpness with a negative blur, with which I have often achieved beautiful results myself. This makes the eyesight a little more prominent, which makes the eye appear more reflective and therefore shinier, and the additional sharpness of the iris also draws the eye more to this part of the image. With the same intention, you can also enlarge the mask and “put on” the subject a mask that resembles diving goggles in shape and size. To lighten the whites of the eyes and the iris, Contrast together with Pivot is much more suitable than working with the Wheels, as this creates unnatural contrasts more quickly
unnatural contrasts are created more quickly. But as with everything in this area, less is often more. Enhancing the colour of the iris, on the other hand, is difficult as the surrounding eye skin and the eyelid are often difficult to keep out and are therefore also enhanced in saturation, which creates unwanted colour clashes.

Hair and beard

According to our experts, adjustments to long hair (for example in shampoo adverts) are often passed on to dedicated specialists or tackled during and before the shoot with lighting, styling and choice of model. However, if only minor retouching is required, this is already done by the grading department.

If, for example, the shine on the hair needs to be emphasised more, our experts mainly help themselves by increasing the contrast in these areas and sometimes adding a little sharpening. If there is discolouration in the hair, simple but very precise qualifiers are combined with tracked masks to precisely address the area in question.
Beards or light-coloured hair are rarely processed, according to our experts. In most cases, however, this is done with tracked masks and a little darkening. In my projects, I have already achieved really beautiful results when darkening areas of the beard or the entire beard, as they appear much thicker afterwards. All in all, a lot can be achieved with simple means in grading without having to go straight to the big compositing stage.

The experts

Sebastian Göhs
Sebastian Göhs is a freelance senior colourist from Berlin and works mainly on feature films, TV series and commercials. Most recently he worked on the Amazon show “Der Greif” and İlker Çatak’s feature film “Das Lehrerzimmer”. Sebastian began training as a film and video editor at Geyer Berlin in 2002. After graduating, he moved to Digilab and advanced to Senior Colourist. This was followed by the development and management
of the image department at Rotor Film and finally became self-employed. www.sebastian-goehs.com

Stefan Andermann
After training as a film and video editor at ARRI Film and TV Services, which lasted three years, Stefan Andermann worked in the dailies colour grading department for around two years, but was quickly given the opportunity to take on fine corrections. In the following 12 years, he worked in commercial grading at ARRI. He has specialised in feature films for around seven years and works at Pharos on cinema productions, for streaming services and TV productions. www.pharos.de

Andreas Brückl
Andreas Brückl started as a colourist at Bavariafilm in 2005 and worked as a freelancer from 2010. After four years in the advertising industry in Istanbul and a stopover in Malaysia, he moved to India in 2017. After four years of chaos and colour saturation in Bollywood blockbusters, he moved to Dubai for two years. He has been back in India with DNEG as a supervising colourist since 2023. www.baselight-colorist.com www.vimeo.com/colorgrading

Florian Wolf
In 2003, Florian Wolf began his career as a career changer in post-production and telecine at Pictorion das werk. He worked there as a junior colourist until 2009. From 2009 to 2011, he moved to ARRI Commercial Munich and was promoted to Senior Colourist. After a brief intermezzo at das werk Munich, he took the plunge into self-employment and has been working as a freelance senior colourist since 2011. In addition to colour grading, he offers the production of commercials, image films and music videos from concept to shooting including the entire post-production. www.flowolf.info

The post Beauty-Grading in Resolve first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by David Feuerstein.