The Mandalorian S3

Many of the sequences ILP worked on takes place on Mandalore. The planet was once the homeworld of the Mandalorians, now abandoned and desolate after many years of war. The environment work spanned from full CG shots to set extensions for bluescreen or LED volume shots.

An exciting part of working with the Mandalore environments was creating the ruins of what was once a mighty civilization, like this destroyed domed city.

We contributed to several sequences taking place underneath the crust of the planet, where Mando and his companions explore underground cities, water filled temples and caverns with foes lurking in the dark. The work included full CG environments and set extensions but also creatures and water FX.

In several sequences we were challenged with the task of travelling through and above the clouds of Mandalore, perhaps most notably in the big sky battle between Moff Giddeon's Tie fighters and bombers and the Mandalorians' Imperial Cruiser.

Zeb Orrelios, a character known from the animated television series Star Wars Rebels, made his first appearance in a live action format in episode 5 and ILP was tasked to bring this Lasat rebel to life. With concept designs and models from the art department as a starting point, we developed the asset to be as appealing and realistic as possible, while always keeping the characteristics of the animated version from Rebels in mind. All animation, including face shapes and lip sync, was keyframed, using footage of the voice actor Steven Blum as reference.

We also had the opportunity to help establish the Adelphi base, a rebel outpost located on a sunny island in the middle of the ocean. Drone footage and photogrammetry were used to capture the ocean and coastline and the rest of the island and the base was designed and built as a digital environment.

When developing the rebel base and island, we did several concept iterations throughout the various phases of asset and shot production. The concepts started out as rough sketches to get us going with the overall layout and gradually became more refined. As the 3D assets and layout started taking shape, we'd continue to do paint overs exploring layout changes, lighting, and detailing. Having the concept and environment team work closely together was a great way to always keep creativity and story in focus and to quickly test out new ideas.