Time is everything in Loki, Season 2! Artists from The Third Floor led by Visualization Supervisors James Burr, Matt Smart and Brian Carney worked with the series team to visualize characters, sets, story and effects for sequences across the show’s multiple timelines and historical time jumps. Previs was used to block a variety of action beats, with techvis produced to help plan setups for the shoot. Artists also visualized story-driven effects like timedoors, time-slipping and “pruning” animation, as well as screen graphics, AI/monitor replacements and set extensions, throughout the episodes via postvis.
Mobius wears a special tethered suit out to the Temporal Loom. Previs, The Third Floor, © MARVEL
In several scenes where characters venture out to the physical visual timeline known as the Temporal Loom, The Third Floor helped illustrate the progression of shots and visuals along the gangway.
“It was important to capture the feeling of tension and suspense that would be building in the scene,” London Visualization Supervisor James Burr recalls. “Mobius’ suit starts deteriorating over time due to the environment so we needed a way to communicate those effects. We experimented with different ways to sell the idea, eventually using a combination of the suit FX from the previs together with particle FX visualized in postvis to demonstrate the deteriorating effect.”
To complete the postvis pass, artists added the Temporal Loom environment from previs together with CG extensions to the practical gangway and suit.
Temporal Loom visualization, The Third Floor, ©MARVEL
Final VFX shot ©MARVEL
In a later scene, Victor Timely suits up on the same gangway. The background and Loom were visualized with photographed plates in postvis to support editorial cuts and final VFX for these shots.
Filmed plate, © MARVEL
Background and Loom visualized with postvis, The Third Floor © MARVEL
The Drydock action sequence involved a massive fight that breaks out as time travelers arrive into a scene.
“To visualize what the scene and effects would be like, we needed to add time doors, Loki teleportation effects, magic blasts and a gigantic magic explosion,” Burr said of the postvis work. “Incorporating time doors required tricky plate clean up as we had to have characters traveling in and out of them, which meant people would disappear in or out of the action. For some shots we would have to stitch multiple element plates together with the main plates to create one single shot. An example of this was for the explosion, where we stitched together over eight individual stunt element plates of characters falling over into the final shot to help sell the action.”
Time door effects visualized in postvis, © MARVEL
The Third Floor in L.A. worked on several sequences, notably the Chicago World’s Fair scene and fight in Episode 3, “1893.” Setup and layout for the scene, which involved a very large and unique environment with a ferris wheel as its hero set piece, provided some unique visualization challenges.
“The Ferris Wheel fight was a unique scene, where an entire fight needed to be placed in the environment,” said Visualization Supervisor Brian Carney. “Some of the main challenges included visualizing shots and camera positions in a small space while keeping continuity of backgrounds as the wheel rotated. We created techvis based on a single carriage, working with the team on how cameras would move relative to it. We simulated the rotation as well as the movement of the background carriages.”
Techvis was also used to demonstrate the effect of different variations of travel speeds and angles and what might be seen from the individual carriages at certain points throughout the sequence. Timing and placement work continued in postvis, where the team helped demonstrate where the carriage was on the wheel at different points in time, mapping the location using graphics and overlays on the edit to help info final VFX shots.
Previs of the World’s Fair ferris wheel and environment, The Third Floor ©MARVEL
Final VFX shot ©MARVEL
Techvis for the Ferris Wheel fight, simulating carriage position, The Third Floor, ©MARVEL
Plate filmed in the carriage, ©MARVEL
Postvis with background visualization, The Third Floor, ©MARVEL
Final VFX shot ©MARVEL
Other work in Season 2 included visualization of Miss Minutes, visualization of story beats and effects for Loki/Brad Wolfe intimidation/interrogation scenes, shots showcasing Timely’s proto-loom device and a 1700-frame opening one’r shot at The Citadel at the End of Time.
Miss Minutes visualized in previs, The Third Floor © MARVEL
Miss Minutes blocked into the shot plate via postvis, The Third Floor © MARVEL
Previs visualization of a tense moment in the alleyway, The Third Floor ©MARVEL
Final VFX shot ©MARVEL
