Welcome to Seattle: Explore our Emmy-nominated work on The Last of Us Season 2!
Uncover our work on the latest season of HBO's hit series.
Following our award-winning work on Season 1, we were thrilled to return to this cordyceps-infested world to bring Season 2 of HBO's hit video game adaptation to life!
As a lead VFX partner on the The Last of Us Season 2, one of our team's key challenges was to bring post-apocalyptic Seattle to life, rebuilding the city’s skyline and coastline with some of the most complex environment work we've tackled to date.
In a series of recent interviews, our very own Stephen James (VFX Supervisor) and Melaina Mace (DFX Supervisor) have been sharing behind the scenes insights into the VFX work that our amazing teams delivered for this incredible show.
Read on for a closer look at our Emmy-nominated work!
Seattle Skyline
A large portion of the second season takes place in post-apocalyptic Seattle. In order to achieve the level of realism required, our team visited Seattle to chart the skyline, capturing LIDAR scans and roundshot photography, considering elements including camera angles and framing, and taking note of variations in lighting at different times of day.
Speaking with Digital Media World, Stephen said, “We informed our work as far as possible with what the real shooting conditions would be. If the characters were going to run out on a rooftop, we went out on various Seattle rooftops and captured images looking down into the desired areas, in the right conditions.”
In an interview with the Art of VFX, Melaina added, "Photogrammetry, LiDAR scans and roundshot photography are really the backbone of building out a full CG city. We spent a week on location in Seattle with our Shoot team, led by Chris Stern, capturing as much data as possible – from LiDAR of specific streets and buildings to texture reference and roundshot photography of the city skyline."
This was especially important for iconic landmarks such as the Aquarium and Great Wheel. Stephen told Art of VFX, "We knew these had to be hero builds, so we went all in on reference. We captured LiDAR scans, photography, and drone photogrammetry of each structure, then rebuilt them in CG with added layers of decay and adaptation."
Initial reference photography also included flyovers of the coast to support with the storm sequences later on. Stephen told Animation World Network, "We did flyovers of the water, looking down at the city, going down the coast, or looking through the Ferris wheel, which is one of our shots in Episode 207. The show combined real-life locations, on-set builds, and some game assets. For the Great Wheel and Aquarium, we had to build high-fidelity new assets. The cool thing about both of them is that they are built out over the water on dock structures, which is fairly unique, which made their collapse plausible and justified Ellie’s need to travel by boat.”
Weather also played a role in determining the look of the post-apocalyptic city. Seattle, a coastal city known for its rainfall, allowed our team to introduce water and storm damage with eroded coastlines, submerged roads, and buildings collapsed due to water damage. Speaking with Animation World Network, Stephen explained, “Think of those moments in nature where we have massive storms and ask yourself, ‘If there is no one to clean it up or rebuild the dams, what would happen over time?’ In terms of how we designed the city collapsing into the water, we made sure that the silhouettes and the way everything was sloping leant itself to looking as if it was sliding into the ocean rather being destroyed by bombing. It had to feel like you could see the ground beneath the buildings collapsing into the water.”
Ivy Overgrowth
It wouldn't be The Last of Us without ivy! Similar to Season 1, a big part of our environment work involved visualizing how nature, particularly moss, ivy and overgrowth, would reclaim the streets. Our team built the sequences based on the real-world locations, from set and reference photography.
Melaina explained to Animation World Network, "The show is meant to feel grounded and real. So even when we’re dealing with surreal destruction or vast plant overgrowth, it’s all rooted in physical possibility."
In many street scenes captured on location, the production team only dresses the centre of the street where the actors are, often limited by local regulations against interfering with surrounding sidewalks or buildings - which is where we came in. Talking to Digital Media World, Melaina said, "The challenge was to make all the ground vegetation match local Seattle vegetation as well as the set dressing. Depending on the shoot day, we would often have to simulate wind to match what was captured on set.”
Stephen added, “Our inspiration came from what is in-camera and what works for the whole sequence in the story.
Building on our existing library of Megascans groundplants and SpeedTree trees and plants from the first season, we updated it to include more ferns and coniferous trees to match the vegetation of the Pacific Northwest.
Again with an emphasis on grounding the work in realism, Stephen spoke with Animation World Network about ensuring the vegetation made sense narratively, showing how nature reclaimed Seattle. "For instance, a collapsed highway might allow a meadow to form. The vegetation guided the viewer’s eye and supported the environment’s logic.”
The Storm
The epic season went out with a bang - Ellie travelling across a raging sea in the middle of a lightning storm - and our team delivered multiple sequences involving CG water, including crashing waves, animated boats, digi-double soldiers and custom FX simulations.
In the final episode, the key to realism meant layers upon layers of detail, with flood simulations layered over completed environments to reinforce realism. Stephen spoke about the process to Art of VFX, explaining, "Each hero asset had a wet look variant, which included things like procedural raindrops on top surfaces and water sheeting on each flat side. FX added drips, spray, and water pouring out of areas where it would naturally accumulate. Compositing then took it even further by adding practical elements of drips, rain splashes, which added a final layer of imperfection and believability."
To ensure consistency in wave direction and height during the storm, our talented water FX team had a base ocean that they used, matching it to plates received from the shots that took place on-set in the water tank or dry rig. Stephen told Digital Media World, “For that, we relied on strategic timing. Alex Wang set up a simulation to show us what was intended to happen on set – like the rise and fall of the boat – that we could match to.”
Speaking of the process, Stephen explained to Art of VFX, "We were very fortunate to have an FX team experienced in water, supervised by Roberto Rodricks, as well as many established workflows from our award-winning FX team. That allowed us to hit the ground running with the water work, and gave us some bandwidth to further improve our water FX with improved water shading, and even fine details like each rain drop causing splashes and ripples across the surface."
The scene of Ellie boating along a flooded coastline was one of the most complex of the season. Shot on a dry rig against a bluescreen, the team then placed her in a CG ocean with layers of storm simulations and lightning that reveals the city skyline behind her. Speaking with Animation World Network, Stephen says, "Every element was thrown at her to evoke a sense of isolation and fear. It’s a shot packed with some of our longest and most complex water simulations. You may not notice everything, but you feel it.”
In addition to the water, our crew also matched other elements such as lightning and rain to the plates, using it as a bar for the quality we needed to strive for. Stephen told Art of VFX, "Even though our work is often heightened and larger than life, we always use plate photography as anchors throughout any given sequence. That allows us to hopefully blend seamlessly between VFX and non-VFX shots."