How FOLKS VFX helped create many environments for the Apple TV+ show.In this new interview at befores & afters, FOLKS VFX visual effects supervisor Lionel Lim and CG supervisor Felix Arsenault discuss their contributions to the Apple TV+ series, Dark Matter. FOLKS delivered 12 different environments for the show, crafting worlds with CG builds and DMP.In the series, snowy environments, a desert world, views of Chicago variants and more, were made by the visual effects studio. Theres also one sequence that involved building the city for a lengthy elevator scene. Here, the pair break down the work.b&a: Where did you start with the city landscape shots? Can you talk about gathering references of Chicago (and any other cities), acquiring any data, doing any concept work, and then what general approach you took to crafting variations?Lionel Lim and Felix Arsenault: Every parallel world we worked on at FOLKS is some variation of Chicago. After our initial conversations, we started gathering as many references as possible to the city itself from various sources, including pictures, footage, maps, etc. Having a real city to match helped us a lot, as it gave us a nice ground truth we could always stick to and go back to when in doubt.To produce Blake Crouchs vision of the different worlds, our art department created concepts for each of Chicagos variations using early footage to get an early look approval.In parallel, our CG team started very early on by building a rough model of Chicago using satellite data and maps. We focused first on just recreating the actual location from real life. This environment then went through multiple iterations as necessary throughout the show. Some sections are more accurate and detailed than others, as we really focused on what we would see on camera.Later on, once we had our approved concept arts, this Chicago environment was then used as a base to feed each world variations. We then built specific props and assets to use as set dressing for the city, incorporating the unique visual language of each world, whether its snowed-in trees, snow banks, destroyed buildings, sand dunes, boats, sci-fi buildings, etc.Due to the big variety of biomes throughout the different Chicago worlds, mixed with the nature of the shots themselves, often having camera movements, we decided on using a mixed 2.5D shot-based approach. This way, we would avoid too much heavy rendering. We had detailed matte painting over 3D in almost every shot, using as good a render as we could as a base for almost every world. This allowed for quick iterations and a lot of flexibility, which always comes in handy when doing episodic work.Because we decided to go this way, we had to be very rigorous with having proper layout steps so that we would never change camera orientation once we started painting environments. We went from macro to micro so we wouldnt waste time on things we wouldnt see.b&a: Tell me about the snow world in episode 4. What approach did FOLKS take to building a snowy/city landscape here?Lionel Lim and Felix Arsenault: We generally used our 2.5D approach, but the challenge was really in making the world itself believable. We were briefed on making the snow world look grounded without it steering too much toward fantasy.The visual language for these shots focused on capturing the appearance of snow drifts, as if a massive amount of snow had accumulated over time and was then sculpted by the wind, both on the ground and around buildings. We werent looking for heavy, wet snow or something too icy for the cityscape itself.There are inherent qualities to a snowy landscape and snow in general that were fairly tricky to recreate. There are a lot of different types of snow, and snow fields themselves are very layered by nature. It both needs to reflect light a certain way but also refract some light so as to not feel too solid. Its easy for it to look like white sand, which we often had to fight against. We looked at plenty of pictures from not only our beautiful home country here in Canada but also from the Arctic and Antarctic.We also had this snowed-in house that we recreated digitally. Most of what we see is the second floor and then only hints of the ground floor, beneath the snow. It was also seen in the show through both a snowstorm at night and then in broad daylight. They built a piece of that houses second floor on-set, which we were really grateful for. It helped a lot with scale and believability when we rebuilt it in CG and added all that snow and ice.There was also a frozen sea with giant icebergs. Its not something we often see alongside city shorelines in our day-to-day. The biggest challenge was making sure it didnt clash too much with the rest of the snowy landscape, as it has very different qualities compared to the cityscape. What really helped was making sure we had a gradual transition in shape, material, and frequency: going from a few big icebergs to a lot of smaller broken ice sheets that all culminated into this big ice wall along the shore.b&a: Can you talk also about particular challenges of compositing live-action footage/characters into these snowy landscapes?Lionel Lim and Felix Arsenault: For this world, we were lucky enough to get footage that already looked like winter, which often had some interaction between characters and snow.Most of the challenge was making sure we matched the new lighting introduced by CG and developing this look. Otherwise, we had various additional enhancements added to the footage: Burying the house in the snow and adding snow to its walls, adding snow dunes on Chicagos buildings, subtle windy snow on some edges and surfaces, replacing trees with heavy snowed trees, making the snow trails the characters were going through deeper, etc. In the snowstorm sequence, we had to add all this windy snow, which was made of particles and smoke, and change the ground accordingly. But even then, we had something to lean back on to keep things grounded.b&a: For the elevator up to the restaurant in ep7, what was filmed for this scene? How did you build up the required environment outside the glass?Lionel Lim and Felix Arsenault: For this specific sequence, only the foreground elements with the actor were filmed. Everything outside the window is CG using our 2.5D approach. We went through a few iterations where we tried using drone footage, but we ended up realizing that CG would be the best approach.One important thing that helped us move forward on this one was ensuring that every camera in those elevator and restaurant shots was looking at Chicago in the right direction relative to the fictional buildings location and orientation within the city. This is where having a proper layout was key. It allowed us to only focus on what was seen but also have everything be accurate relative to the real world. We also spent some time figuring out how fast we could go up in space without it looking odd, as the elevator is supposed to go hundreds of floors up.b&a: With that elevator scene, what things do you feel really helped sell the environment shots? Lionel Lim and Felix Arsenault: Being able to sell the huge parallax you would have from going up so far so fast really helped sell this shot. To this end, layering details in depth was an important part of our process.This layering was in part achieved by having not only futuristic solarpunk buildings and greenhouses but also older historic buildings, which really helped ground it in reality.Having different types of atmospheric details also helped: atmospheric perspective, subtle god rays sandwiched between buildings, cloud shadows breaking up surfaces, feeling the curvature of the earth at a distance, having CG clouds layered around the buildings, having the camera go through those clouds, etc. All of this contributed to selling the incredible height the elevator was reaching and making the vista itself believable.