Realising the Virtual

What we do uniquely at Lexhag is think about our creative challenges with all the tools available to us, which includes SFX and practical techniques. To illustrate this we decided to make a workflow piece to show how a shot can be designed from the start to end using a range of techniques in both…

Building Bridges

A typical project for us consists of many exciting challenges. If you read our other posts, you’ve probably realised that we’re not just VFX people. We have knowledge and skills in all aspects of getting that shot and Jericho was no different. We had a vast range of different challenges that you’ll have an insight…

Beardy Weirdy

Hair and Beard Grooming with XGen and Arnold What We Did We did a full beard groom in Maya using Xgen splines and rendered it out using the new Standard Hair shader in Arnold 5. Standard Hair is a physically based shader to render hair and fur, based on the d’Eon model for specular and…

Back to our Roots

When we needed to capture hair at a macro level we tested an old trick but a good one; the practical route. For more about our digital hair work for the same project, check out this post. The world of FX requires a ton of testing. This is where silly ideas become great ideas, it’s…

Frontside 360°

Shooting interior vehicle shots can easily turn into a big number, creeping over you like Freddy does, while you sleep. Traditionally, they can be shot for real, on a low loader or with a specially modified vehicle. You can also shoot them in a nice warm studio, which is what we were tasked to do….

Witness the Fitness

Quick, easy and high spec. That was our brief for the Witness system we built. For our recent New Pictures and Netflix production, The Innocents, we needed to build something that we could employ quickly, wouldn’t be intrusive onset and met a particular price point.  Capturing multiple angles, performances or moving objects enables a smoother match-moving…

It’s a Wrap – How we wrapped a set

When you can’t find a 1940’s London Street scene that’s been demolished because of the bad things that happen, you build one in a BBC carpark in Glasgow. That’s what Pat Campbell’s team did for Rillington Place. Lexhag worked closely with Pat’s team to make a giant PBU (Photo Blow Up) with a twist. Traditionally the art department…