Rebecca Bishop

The Third Floor is excited to announce that Cyclops, our cutting-edge iOS AR virtual production tool, is now available on the Apple App Store. With Cyclops now on the App Store, we can reach a broader audience, allowing more people to explore its features, and usher in a new era of creativity and innovation in virtual production for all users.

Cyclops was initially created to serve the needs of our large-scale Hollywood clients. However with the release in the App Store, Cyclops is now available to productions of all sizes. Filled with features developed for demanding on-set VFX workflows, we hope that Cyclops can become the preeminent AR tool for VFX, Filmmakers, and Archvis.

Download on the App Store HERE.

Visit the Cyclops website for more information HERE.

Subscription Levels

Cyclops from the App Store will be available on a subscription model. There will be three subscription levels available based on the Modes in Cyclops.

Maps Subscription – Access to Maps Mode in Cyclops
Assets Subscription – Access to both Asset Mode and Maps Modes
Pro Subscription – Access to all modes in Cyclops

We wanted to give users the flexibly to only pay for the features that they find useful. Each subscription has multiple subscription lengths from 1-week up to 1-year. Users can select a subscription length that works for their needs.

Check the Apple App Store for subscription pricing for your region.

*All subscriptions will auto-renew

Learn more about Cyclops subscriptions HERE.

The Third Floor’s involvement in Sony’s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire helped craft the film’s visual narrative and journey. Collaborating closely with Director Gil Kenan and VFX Supervisors Eric Brevig and Geoffrey Baumann, The Third Floor seamlessly integrated previs, techvis, and postvis to the production workflow to craft the filmmakers artistic vision.

New life was breathed into beloved entities like Slimer and the Mini-Pufts, while introducing mesmerizing new apparitions such as Pukey, the Possessor, and Garakka. Visualization Supervisor Justin Summers states “We worked closely with filmmakers, using previs as virtual sandbox to ideate upon the look and feel of multiple sequences and explore different angles, actions and gags. The previs acted as a shooting plan for production crew, to visually show how and where the action unfolds. Information such as staging, camera information and narrative of each shot and where it will fit in the sequence and story arc, is extremely beneficial for the production crew to know, especially as there were so many otherworldly creatures which would be added in post”.

Production plate photography ©SONY

Postvis: The hungry Slimer escapes the containment unit and seeks refuge in the Firehouse attic in search of food. ©SONY

Production plate photography ©SONY

Postvis: Mini-Pufts inflicting violence on themselves ©SONY

Previs: The entity Possessor, possesses a lion statue outside of NYC public library ©SONY

Production plate photography ©SONY

Postvis: The Possessor attempts to attack Ghostbuster veteran Ray Stantz ©SONY

Garraka, the malevolent antagonist of the film, harbors an age-old vendetta against humanity, driven by a desire to obliterate all life on Earth using the power of ice. Every entity unfortunate enough to cross paths with Garraka finds themselves succumbing to a frigid demise, frozen in the icy grip of their fate. Summers adds “Director Gil had a strong vision for the design of Garraka. We began with building a model based off of concept art and then further refining it in postvis. Through previs we also explored some different approaches to how Garraka might move, from movements fairly slow and spectral to more staccato and unearthly. As a foundation we took inspiration from the way Harryhausen animated, which translated very well into Garraka. This type of movement is seen most notably when Garraka appears in Nadeem’s apartment to reclaim its horns”.

Previs: Signifying the arrival of Garakka, NYC goes from a hot sunny day to Ice Storm ©SONY

PREVIS: Ghostbusters come face to face with the formidable force ©SONY

PREVIS: Garraka fights fire with ice and freezes over the Fire Masters initial attempt at battle ©SONY

Postivs was used extensively throughout the production. With filming split between a stage in the UK and select exterior shots captured on location in New York, Summers elaborates, “We were entrusted with seamlessly blending plates from distinct locations, each captured with varying lenses, while integrating our bespoke previs environment to augment the stage setting.”

Production plate photography ©SONY

POSTVIS: Set extension of the iconic Firehouse ©SONY

The Third Floor played a crucial role in the creation of the Avatar: The Last Airbender series, offering previs, techvis, and postvis services across all eight episodes.

Avatar Aang and signature arrow tattoo signifying an airbending master.

Under the leadership of Visualization Supervisor Shawn Hull, The Third Floor collaborated closely with Directors Michael Goi, Roseanne Liang, Jet Wilkinson and VFX Supervisor Jabbar Raisani. Hull states ”The Third Floor received environment models from the Art Department which were then prepped and optimized for use in the Unreal Engine. This allowed us to have live scouting sessions with the directors. Placing markers, characters, and cameras in locations where action would take place. The scouting information was passed to previs shot creators, rendered out in the Maya viewport, and then edited together for a first pass delivery to the directors. From there we added lighting, fx and rendered out of Unreal through The Third Floor’s Mercury pipeline.”

Hei Bai chases Aang, Sokka and Katara in the forest of the Spirit World.

With the series being shot using an LED volume, the previs work was key to the planning process for wall shots and content. Hull explains “Previs shots were translated into bird’s-eye view techvis using Unreal, informing precise camera and cast positioning within the volume for action sequences. Techvis helped the director, DP, and visual effects team visualize what the camera was viewing on the LED Volume, visual limits on where they could shoot, and distance limits on where actors and props could be placed relative to the volume environment.”

Volume placement was decided in previs and categorized by scene and location. Each volume had an alphanumeric address textured on a transparent model which was used to represent the real volume on set.

Aang soars high on his glider.

Aang displaying powerful airbending abilities.

Aang visualized in previs (above) and postvis (below) interacting with spirit guide Appa, the flying bison.

One of the most challenging sequences, the Pohai Stronghold escape, involved extensive action scenes filmed on location. Hull states “This sequence involved partial live action set builds with extensive CG background replacements. Color coding emerged as a fundamental aspect of the visualization process, demarcating scenes shot on sets versus those requiring greenscreens, ensuring clarity and efficiency throughout production.”

Fight sequence ensues on the Pohai Stronghold with Aang and the masked intruder.

For Avatar: The Way of Water, The Third Floor’s artists traveled back to Pandora and collaborated on environment and sequence building teams at Lightstorm Entertainment that would visualize content and prep camera loads for filmmaker virtual camera (VCAM). From New Zealand, The Third Floor’s Head of Virtual Production Casey Schatz served as Simulcam Supervisor, helping link the real and the virtual through innovations with techvis, eyelines, simulcam and motion control during the live-action shoot.

Previs was built based on concept art, script pages and guidance from Director James Cameron and VFX Supervisor Richard Baneham. The content took in assets from the art department and motion capture of characters to represent environments, lighting and action, and shots were developed and lensed by the filmmakers’ virtual camera, running Weta FX’s Gazebo engine. The Third Floor’s scene assembly group, with key leads Mark Nelson and Jason Brown, concentrated on sequences like the RDA landing, the Mag-Lev train attack and other story beats. Key artists also included Environment Supervisor Motoki Nishii and Technical Environment Lead Maria Ramos, who created environments, props and characters for virtual production and scouting.

Casey Schatz was a core crew member on set in New Zealand, working with camera operators, stunt coordinators, grips and visual effects personnel to inform filming day to day on the live-action stage. Collaborating with the director, Cinematographer Russell Carpenter and multiple departments, Schatz created on-set techvis using digital scans of physical sets to accurately simulate live-action filming setups ahead of time with the teams. Distances and speeds for cameras, positions for actors and the relationship of these to a wide range of specialty production equipment — from water tanks to vehicle rigs, could be assessed in real time, with the ability to see how new ideas and adjustments would affect the shot setup immediately.

Another focus for Schatz was making Cameron’s VCAM moves happen on set via the Technodolly. Schatz staged the director’s VCAM in a 3D LIDAR version of the actual shooting space, made speed and tempo translations for scale and ported the camera-ready move to the physical crane. Shots like the one of General Ardmore taking Colonel Quaritch on a construction tour of Bridgehead is an example of this VCAM-to-Technodolly workflow, used to capture plates for a believable walk-and-talk that matched what the director had done in VCAM, with Edie Falco’s Ardmore in the SkelSuit and Steven Lang as a digital Na’Vi.

Shots across the movie where live-action humans share scenes with digital characters used a new eyeline approach to enhance spatial awareness to the digital characters during live-action photography. The eyeline system played back facial capture reference on small HD monitors mounted to a small cable cam system and was designed by Lightstorm Entertainment’s Ryan Champney, with Schatz overseeing implementation and alignment on set. Ensuring the system replicated the Na’Vi character movement through space but did so safely was of utmost importance. This was accomplished by simulating the movement of the eyeline system and its cabling in Maya with LIDAR of the real set to verify there were no collisions.

Other areas of Schatz’s work included on-set simulcam and motion base programming, particularly for the Matador and Picador boats. These among the movie’s many other production and visual effects advancements worked hand in hand to help achieve a seamless marriage of live-action photography and digital imagery.

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

Visualization takes to new heights to support the stunning WWII streaming series Masters of the Air. The Third Floor collaborated with VFX Supervisor Stephen Rosenbaum and the show team across multiple production phases to support visualization for the look and action of scenes. Visualized shots were also used on wrap-around LED walls for immersive reference during portions of the filming.

A key goal was for the aerial battles to have a cinematic documentary feel, with cameras as grounded as possible most of the time, and shots that would transport audiences into the dangerous missions experienced by the bomber crews.

“To help with the creation of previs and guiding our team to really capture this feeling in visualized shots, I took private flying lessons and spent time in flight simulators with WWII aircraft,” said Visualization Supervisor Matt Smart, The Third Floor London. “We used these experiences to get a correct sense of the planes, to see how they operated and understand the types of movement that would be expected for certain maneuvers. With the amount of action that takes place in aircraft across the series, this was very helpful as shots and ideas were developed throughout the visualization process.”

Visualized shots show bomber crews in their extremely confined and dangerous environment.

Previs shot, depicting planes forming up in preparation for the battle ahead.

Visualization of planes, clouds and explosions as the action ensures.

Many sequences of the American Bombers taking off and completing their missions on various targets across Germany were visualized. This included scenes where the Luftwaffe would arrive, resulting in epic aerial battles and a depiction of what the crew went through to survive each onslaught.

Two episodes focus on the Tuskegee Airmen and their P51 fighter planes as they slip behind enemy lines and assault ground targets. Smart comments, “These scenes were a nice contrast to visualization on the bomber episodes. With these shots, we were able to explore what the action would be like from a more high-speed interior cockpit.”

High-speed aerial battles were visualized from inside the cockpit.

Previs frame, visualizing bombs dropped over Berlin.

Techvis was produced for certain visualized moves that the filmmakers wanted to reproduce in camera. Visualized shots provided reference for live-action filming, with camera operators lensing moves in keeping with the hand-held style of the show.

For the aerial battle sequences, production mounted sections of a B17 bomber on a hydraulic motion base and surrounded them with an LED projection wall showing the previs. This gave the actors a fully immersive environment, with built in lighting and eyelines and versions of the imagery to reference.

“The team created previs ‘master scenes’ – long stretches of action lasting around 5-10 minutes that provided uninterrupted sections of the battles as a reference backdrop that the actors could see and react to,” said Virtual Production Supervisor Michael McCrea, The Third Floor. “Unreal Engine was utilized to give the previs additional dimensions of realism, and to help us enact ideas and changes in real time as we visualized a vast quantity of planes and enemy fighters, along with clouds and cities. We could cue up and trigger previs elements like explosions if they wanted to see that effect happen on the fly in the on-screen ‘vis, and easily change time of day or weather based on the needs of the film team.”

During post production, postvis artists would enhance or add visuals to footage that had been filmed on LED walls or eliminate green/bluescreens in temporary composites for editorial.

Smart adds: “One main task for postvis was adding planes in the air to complement the motorized ground B17 hero planes filmed by production. The absence of practical, flying B17s meant that digital flying versions needed to be blocked for moments when the planes took off from airfields or were already airborne in the shots.”

Multiple B17s are lined up and ready to take off in a postvis comp.

The Third Floor’s virtual production tool Cyclops allowed additional aircraft to be visualized within the filmed airfield locations. Several practical B17s had been built by production to film on set and further planes would be added later in post to complete the visual of dozens fighters queuing up on the runways. Through use of Cyclops AR, digital aircraft could be visualized and framed in context to the real planes and ground/sky environments.

B17s on the runway seen through the viewfinder of Cyclops AR.

Marvel Studio’s most-loved galaxy-savers return to screen in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, written and directed by James Gunn. The Third Floor again worked with the filmmakers and key crew to visualize shots and sequences to support ideation and planning for the third film in the popular franchise.

During pre-production, the team collaborated with the director, art department, set designers, props department and visual effects department to depict versions of scenes and various aspects of production through previs. VFX Supervisors Stephane Ceretti and Daryl Sawchuk and VFX Producer Susan Pickett were key in guiding the team to visualize a high volume of shots covering most of the film, many of which involved visualizing integration of visual effects and CG characters.

The Guardians of the Galaxy stand strong after defeating Octo-Hyena. Previs frame, The Third Floor @MARVEL

“Animated characters are essential elements of the storyline in a Guardians film, and this was especially the case for Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3,” said Jim Baker, Visualization Supervisor. “The design of the action, with CG characters who interact freely with live actors, is a unique part of the franchise and always a rewarding challenge when visualizing a shot.”

“There’s a lot of interaction between live and CG characters across a large amount of screentime,” commented Visualization Supervisor Caitlin Rupert. “It’s to the point where CG characters are essentially treated like regular characters that simply need to be visualized naturally within the scene both physically and aesthetically. When visualizing characters, we needed to make sure that the connection between real and VFX entities was convincing and brought out the emotions and composition that the filmmakers envisioned for the shots. This was a particular challenge throughout postvis work.”

One example of this, Rupert notes, is the opening/main title sequence of Rocket in the streets of Knowhere. “It’s essentially a long walk-and-talk involving multiple CG characters with varying numbers of limbs and gravitational directions mixed in among several live actors.”

Another example, Rupert continues, is postvis work where Evo instructs young Rocket. “The connection had to feel real. The artists had to carefully integrate our previs Rocket character into the plates with the actor, who performed the scene with a ‘stuffie’ stand-in. The visualized shot needed to convey the connection and emotion between the two performances.”

Rocket is visualized through postvis in a moment from the past. Postvis by The Third Floor (above). @MARVEL

Final shot by the VFX team (below). @MARVEL

Action for a range of fight scenes was quickly blocked by bringing motion capture of the stunt team into previs. Multiple environments – from a quirky space-station world on Orgoscope to facilities constructed on a familiar-yet-artificial Counter-Earth had to be visualized and represented as well. One section of action called the Orgo Adventure takes place on a fleshy planetoid. Following initial previs, backgrounds were extensively visualized in post, and techvis helped inform plate shoots with multiple actors.

Plate photography of Drax, Nebula, Mantis, Star-Lord and Gamora floating toward the Orgoscope. @MARVEL

Shot with backdrop visualized in postvis. @MARVEL

Final shot by the VFX team. @MARVEL

Various action scenes with CG backgrounds, effects and characters were visualized across the third act in previs and postvis passes. ‘Vis was used to represent scale, placement and shot composition with live actors and large-scale creatures, like the Abilisks.

Mantis tames the tentacled Abilisks with her empathic powers. Previs frame, The Third Floor. @MARVEL

Signature shots, such as one of the High Evolutionary observing Phyla-Vell’s abilities, used techvis and motion control virtual production to plan the paths for on-set camera rigs. Envisioned as a 2001:A Space Odyssey-type shot, a character runs around a hamster wheel that has its own gravity.

“The ‘A’ plate of the hamster wheel itself had already been shot, so we needed to film a matching element of the actress running around the wheel,” said Techvis Supervisor Ari Feblowitz. “We didn’t actually have a zero gravity wheel, so she had to be on a treadmill, which meant the camera had to do everything the wheel was meant to do. We knew this needed a motion control robot-style camera since we were matching another plate that already had its own camera movement, but then the camera also had to mix the original motion with the relative motion of the wheel.”

Final shot by the VFX team. @MARVEL

To pull this off, the actress wore a motion capture suit and was recorded running at various speeds on the treadmill. “We put that data into postvis to see what it would look like to run that speed around the wheel,” Feblowitz noted. “Then we baked the camera around the wheel relative to her motion and ‘froze’ her motion to stay in place on the treadmill. This caused the camera to not just spin around in circles, but also to physically move around in an oval shape.”

For some of the closer shots in that beat, the camera move needed to be scaled so as not to move beyond the motion control speed. “We had some handy scripts made by The Third Floor Head of Virtual Production Casey Schatz that helped us maximize each axis of the rig to achieve as near as possible to max speeds. We made sure the perspectives looked realistic ahead of time so that the same result could be easily set up and replicated during filming.”

Technical visualization of the “hamster wheel” shot, with an on-set test. @MARVEL

The hamster wheel sequence used revolving camera techniques, worked out virtually, where the on-set camera inherited all of the motion and rotations of the actress running around the wheel.

Visualization of a Knowhere street scene, with CG set extensions and CG characters represented through postvis. @MARVEL

Working on everything from floating felines to mysterious jump points, The Third Floor LA and London collaborated with the filmmakers to depict science fiction and super-powered concepts, effects and action set pieces from pre-production through post.

In the previs phase, storytelling and pacing were explored for scenes like Captain Marvel and Goose free-falling from their ship to investigate an anomaly on a dead planet, and creative and fun beats where Carol, Kamala and Monica discover that their powers entangle and they swap places when using them. The characters begin to master these abilities across multiple locations. Looks and function for jump points, light-based powers and other cosmic effects were explored and evolved through visualization as well.

The team created techvis with VFX to depict sun positions, shadows and the behavior of elements in space, guided by a real scientist hired for the production. Accurate details, such as the S.A.B.E.R. Space Station’s path and distance from Earth, were based on real-life information, allowing shots to be developed that were grounded in scientific accuracy. Techvis was also key for planning helicopter shots and camera paths as characters navigate diverse environments.

Some CG elements were visualized directly from set using The Third Floor’s Cyclops virtual production tool. This included views of CG spaceship interiors in real time on stage. Across post production, plates and live-shot photography were combined with CG previs to deliver working postvis versions for editorial and screenings.

“We collaborated closely with VFX, the DP and filmmakers to build previs from rough boards and help develop looks and effects based on the director’s love of real-world science,” said Visualization Supervisor Patrick Haskew. “We were also able to produce previs and techvis at Pinewood Studios during the shoot and work alongside editorial and VFX throughout post production. It was great to be part of the storytelling process from start to finish, as three heroes, one villain and a multitude of kittens coming together across the vastness of space – a real treat for a space nerd like me!”

“Stop running and let the kittens eat you. You will be fine.” – S.A.B.E.R. Intercom. Visualization of “Flerkitten” action/effects, The Third Floor, © MARVEL

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