What does it take to craft exotic planets and form futuristic environments for the Emmy® Award-winning series “Star Trek: Discovery?” For four seasons, Pixomondo’s veteran team of VFX artisans have transported audiences to distant lands with the help of KitBash3D assets. We asked VFX Supervisor Fausto Tejeda how Pixomondo creates vast, highly-detailed scenes under tight deadlines and what role KitBash3D’s model library plays in accelerating their cinematic world-building process.
What was Pixomondo’s scope of work for “Star Trek: Discovery”?
“Star Trek” is an ideal show, as we get to do a little bit of everything, including creatures, spaceships, characters, environments, and effects like explosions – where we have a lot of creative freedom. We receive a lot of incredible concept art from the production team, and then it’s up to us to take it to the next level and make it as realistic and plausible as possible.
How are you using KitBash3D model kits and assets on the show?
When it comes to a television pipeline, projects have very tight deadlines and require quick turnaround on delivery. Tools like KitBash3D have been essential in enabling us to deliver on time and at a high level of quality.
For example, on season three of “Star Trek,” there was a huge timeline jump to 900 years in the future, and we had to develop a futuristic San Francisco. We used KitBash3D’s Utopia kit as the basis for the environment, then further customized the asset and added new textures. We ended up transferring that asset to other vendors on the show, and to this day, versions of this environment are still being used not only on “Star Trek: Discovery” but also on “Piccard.”
"It's all about speed nowadays, and the immediacy of tools like KitBash3D that we can rely on and use confidently is instrumental to our workflow."
How are you using virtual production workflows on the series, and how does KitBash3D fit into that process?
We started incorporating virtual production workflows for season four, and moving forward, we're looking to do more for season five. Obviously virtual production is a pretty new process for the industry. “The Mandalorian” opened the floodgates for a whole new realm of possibilities for directors, cinematographers, and VFX in general.
Using KitBash3D assets allows us to lay the groundwork and do the blocking within a scene. The assets have been essential for enabling us to rapidly get iterations out. We’ll quickly “KitBash” a scene with massive environments, then we’ll get them up on our huge LED volume walls to gauge if the scale and distance are working (and things like that). It helps us get work in front of the client as fast as possible, which is critical.
When we have Zoom meetings with clients, we’re also able to do quick demos or show work in Unreal Engine, then change or swap out assets in real-time. From there, we’ll continue to build upon the assets to reach our final desired look. It’s all about speed nowadays, and the immediacy of tools like KitBash3D that we can rely on and use confidently is instrumental to our workflow.
"With KitBash3D, you know what you’re getting every single time. You know it will be clean and ready to use as soon as you download it."
How much time would you say that using kits on the show saved your team, and what aspects of production did it allow you to prioritize?
KitBash3D saved us at least a couple of weeks of building models, shaders, and textures. Having the assets as a base allowed us to focus more on the beautification of shots. This includes aspects like lighting, making sure things are in direct position, layout, addressing any client notes on what specific buildings need to be up-ressed or enhanced, etc.
What do you enjoy most about using KitBash3D model kits?
Definitely the quality of the assets from the get-go and ease of use. There’s very little that needs to be done in order to integrate them into our pipeline. There are great textures, shaders, and everything’s very organized.
A lot of times you buy model kits from various websites, download them, and realize that they come in a bunch of triangles or geometry that’s not working. You have to spend hours after the fact cleaning something up. With KitBash3D, you know what you’re getting every single time. You know it will be clean and ready to use as soon as you download it. You know you’ll have options to use it as a hero asset or background asset, or with Unreal Engine or Maya. We know that we can rely on KitBash3D every single time.
Are you seeing the industry transition to becoming more open and accustomed to using prebuilt assets?
Absolutely. The scope of work has changed so much over the last few years. Projects are getting bigger and the demands for higher quality deliverables are continuing to grow. We try to focus more on the complexity we can build into shots, rather than spending our resources on creating one tiny building in the background that no one will even notice or see. It’s better to spend the time developing a more complex environment, rather than each individual little asset. So, having something like KitBash3D’s libraries that we know we can rely on to look good is pretty important.
For more information on Pixomondo, visit: https://www.pixomondo.com.
