Peaky Blinders Opening Credits Tribute

And here's the final one !

 If I had had more time I would surely have improved a lot of things : sculpted and modeled all the characters on Zbrush and Maya, took time to think about how to disintegrate the grooming, improve Fx and simulations, improve the projection effect on characters...

But given that the challenge of the project was also to be as efficient as possible in a relatively short time , I'm pretty happy with the result.

It was a pleasure to share my work with you for this contest, I wish you all a happy new year !

Here is a small breakdown of two sequences from the last compositing phase, and my Nuke viewport of one of the sequences !

So I considered this Opening Credits as a face to face with the Peaky Blinders, like a gang confrontation.

My main idea was to represent the physical and moral violence that the Peaky Blinders perpetuate, but which they also undergo in the series.

I thought of a disintegration effect on the characters, to support the idea that this brutality consumes them.

I used video projections on the characters to recall other intrigues of the series : brotherhood values in the Gang, their criminal activities, the industrial environment, the moral consequences of the First War on certain characters ...

I rendered my sequences with Renderman, and composited my images on Nuke. I added some footages of smoke, particles, embers to improve the atmosphere.

Then I looked for some archives videos from the start of the 20th century of horse racing, London gangs, and archives of the First World War to project them on my 3 characters.

Later I exported my simulations in alembic cache, and started to do some lighting tests. I first tested some cold and blue tint lighting, then I came back to something hotter, to recall the burning factories of Birmingham.

Here are my first tests with some compositing and my lighting setup in Maya !

This is a first editing test with with a first lighting intention.  Sorry for the poor resolution !

Music credits " You want it Darker" by Leonard Cohen.

I decided to add a sequence at the end of the video, with the gun falling into a liquid, like molten metal. So I used Bifrost for the liquid simulation, and Bullet solver for the simulation of the falling gun.

One of the challenges of the project was to achieve the disintegration effect of the characters. I wanted a slightly fluid, organic appearance, a bit like fabric or paper that breaks down and tears apart.

Actually It was not that complicated, I cut my objects into several pieces, detached the faces, then I assigned a Ncloth to the mesh. I used some turbulence cages to better control my simulation, and that's about it.

Here's my process !

* Snap ! *

I also added a gun asset that I had already modeled and textured for an old project, a Smith & Wesson Revolver from 1917. 

I used Substance Painter for texturing.

As we had little time to carry out the exercise, and especially another big group project in parallel, I had to make certain choices to be able to optimize my working time.

In order not to waste too much time modeling the characters, and knowing that it was not the challenge of the project, I decided to use MOCAP models with the same outfits as the characters of the series. I modeled a beret to complete their outfits.

I wanted Thomas Shelby to be recognizable among the three. So to quickly model Tommy's face, I used a very practical plugin on Nuke, Facebuilder by Keentools.

The plugin allows me to easily create a resembling face with a few reference images. To add detail, I then worked on his hair using Xgen, and worked on a normal map for the skin on Substance Painter.

Hi !

 I'm going to show you a project carried out last year about the Peaky Blinders gang, and that's good because that's the subject of the contest.

 I will try as best as possible to transmit my initial intentions, the main stages of my work as well as the difficulties I have faced.

This project started first as an exercise requested by my school to test our skills in Cfx / Fx acquired during the year. The subject of the exercise was rather free, so I choose to create a opening credit sequence of my favorite series.

So first, I started to collect references of ambiance, lighting , and existing opening credits.

I was inspired in particular by the opening credits of Westworld, for its slow and sleek aspect, and the one from True detective for its double exposure effect.