Once Miguel and Tran nailed the aesthetic, the next challenge was pushing through the grueling schedule they gave themselves. They’d work daily as a small team of professional artists, only taking breaks to teach their classes. Tran admits that if this project was done in a traditional pipeline, it probably wouldn’t have been finished, crediting how productive Unreal Engine’s real-time workflows can be.
Adding vocal and kinetic depth
To further immerse viewers in their African-inspired world, Miguel and Tran decided to alter their script from English to Swahili, a language commonly spoken in East Africa. Casting it was easier said than done though, a fact Miguel and Tran learned the hard way when they began searching for Swahili-fluent actors in Los Angeles. “We got hundreds of submissions and none of them spoke Swahili,” says Miguel.With LA out, you’d think they’d find their solution in an African talent agency. Only they couldn’t find one. Seeking a solution, they turned to audiobook translators for the voiceovers. It was a huge success. Even with no prior acting experience, all three actors amazed Miguel and Tran with their performances. And now, Miguel and Tran can confidently say they’ve not only made one of the only animated African horror stories told in Swahili, but they did it with people from Africa.
There was still a problem, though. The actors were on another continent, which means they would have had to travel thousands of miles to attend a shoot. So Miguel took the mocap process on himself, recording the facial capture with a head-mounted iPhone and MocapX, which was later touched up in Maya.
Ala and Coa’s body capture data, on the other hand, was captured on a professional green-screen stage at their producer Gnomon‘s campus using Xsens’ MVN Awinda suit and gloves. Initially, Miguel recorded himself to create the temporary animations for the characters, but for the final animations, they enlisted the skills of Kaitlyn O’Connell, who had previously collaborated with them on The Ningyo. This ensured more accurate and authentic movements, particularly in terms of capturing the essence of a young girl.
Source: Unreal Engine Blog