This movie recently came out in South Korea.

To make it happen, I had to share my talents with a whole bunch of studios that created all sorts of smoke effects, pebbles, cars, and even little people running around them.

These are the names you shouldn’t forget: eNgine visual wave, Ateamvfx, GreenFX, and MRP (let’s call it that). Thanks to my collaboration with MRP, I had the chance to work on the effects for a pretty intense shot in this “Concrete Utopia.”

The crazy destruction in the background was handled by the Rockstars team — those guys love to generate and demolish cities, just like in Warriors Of Future or Invasion. My last task before I left the company was… cleanup. :)

But don’t be scared, it wasn’t just cleanup… I’ve never had such a variety of tasks on a single project during my time at MRP. I recalled how to model and texture, learned to shade with MaterialX, dabbled in Solaris, twisted assets in Vellum, scattered particles, patched everything I could reach with a tracker, keyed glass, and finally cleaned up everything the tracker couldn’t reach. :) Naturally, we did this together, constantly shuffling tasks between us.

In such conditions, you really start to feel your true level: you better understand where you don’t get it and what you know at this moment.

The monitors inside the teams were ablaze too. There were a lot of graphs in the shots, but it didn’t feel like making a cartoon. :) Heavy simulation renders and those tricky solutions for spinning them in the shots accompanied every daily meeting we had.

And, as is tradition, I didn’t like the final compositing of the shots in the movie compared to what I saw in raw form in the viewing room. I keep trying to remember to book an appointment with the eye doctor, but I keep forgetting. :)

The film was released in Korea in early August (they call it 콘크리트 유토피아), and I think it’ll make its way to Russian theaters in about six months. In the meantime, take a look at these names and their duplicates:

This time, you don’t have to remember, but know that they’re important. :) Without them, we wouldn’t have such a beautiful breakdown: