DarkSlopeStudiosWelcome

DarkSlopeStudiosWelcome

Introduction

Thank you for your interest in Dark Slope Studios.In this welcome document you will find general information about our studio, Dark Slope contacts, and a brief FAQ.

Dark Slope is a Virtual Production focused studio. From video games to Virtual Reality; from linear television production to Augmented reality experiences, our team is focused on innovative solutions to complicated problems and exciting new forms of entertainment.

DarkSlopeStudiosWelcome

Location

Our studio is located in the Lower Junction Triangle at 213 Sterling Road, Toronto, Ontario M6R 2B2, Unit 211https://goo.gl/maps/5euCNobEhDodK2bw8.

We are located on the second floor of the building which can be accessed using the staircase in the main entrance or the freight elevator.

The main entrance to the building is located on the north side of the building next to Sterling Rd.

Please organize parking with our studio staff beforehand to accommodate all production vehicles.

DarkSlopeStudiosWelcome

What does our studio offer?

Dark Slope Studios offers state of the art motion capture and animation virtual production. Our stage is a 3000 sq. ft. stage and is configured to track 5 performers at once. All cameras can be repositioned to focus on smaller spaces, and additional cameras added as needed.

Next to our stage are two boardrooms that can be used for crew and cast holding.

Dark Slope Studios has built a robust international production pipeline that spans across the world. With staff and contractors overseas we are able to work across the globe regardless of timezone.

Dark Slope has made remote working a cinch! Directors, Art Directors and Producers are provided with remote access to comment, review and be a part of captures in real time. Pre-visualized content can be reviewed right within the Game Engine offering the opportunity to block while you shoot, test effects and lighting treatment.

DarkSlopeStudiosWelcome

COVID 19 Workflow

Dark Slope has been on the front foot of safety for its staff, contractors and all visitors.As a result of COVID 19, We have put in place a comprehensive policy overview that exceeds the requirements outlined by performance union regulations ensuring a relaxed safe environment for production. From thorough daily sanitation protocol and social distance markings to remote access for directors, our skeleton crew remains efficient and ensures the safety of our staff, the performers and our guests.

DarkSlopeStudiosWelcome

Motion Capture

Our studio uses 36 Optitrack cameras consisting of twenty eight 17W’s and eight 13W’s running through three connected PoE switches for ultrafast data transfers. We offer several different pipelines depending on the project from motion capture for game assets to motion capture for television.

Our studio will provide everything necessary for capture on the day to ensure a smooth production. We ask that you provide us all with sizing for actors so that we may ensure the motion capture suits they are using will be cleaned for the production day.

DarkSlopeStudiosWelcome

Virtual Production /Real Time Production

Dark Slope is an Unreal Development studio on the forefront of Virtual Production.Combining the use of the Unreal Game Engine as part of the Production Pipeline with our motion tracking capabilities, our Technical Director and team of artists can take assets produced in a myriad of different software tools and import them into the Unreal Engine for blocking, pre-visualization, collaborative direction, lighting and real time rendering.

This unique capability can allow for highly flexible, cost effective production. Dark Slope’s green screen capabilities allows for further flexibility to support your project be it live action with CGI effects or 100% animation.

DarkSlopeStudiosWelcome

Data Cleanup

Our team of capture technicians can clean one minute of data capture per humanoid character in 30 minutes before passing the data through either Unreal Engine or sending the data through to our team of in-house artists and animators for retargeting and/or extended animating. Our current pipeline involves real-time retargeting and visualization in either Unreal Engine or Motionbuilder depending on the preference of the project team.

This type of workflow allows us to easily work with directors and actors to ensure the blocking and performance is exactly as intended at capture rather than spending extra time tweaking performances in the animation cleanup stage.

DarkSlopeStudiosWelcome

Facial Capture

Our team of motion capture technicians can walk you through doing facial capture from any studio in the world. Using real-time, deep learning facial capture solutions, lip sync has never been so easy. During your dialogue recording sessions we ask that performers wear the headset we ship out to the recording studio, our motion capture technicians will walk you through the set up process every step of the way.

DarkSlopeStudiosWelcome

Animation

Our in house animation team can turn motion capture data around on a dime. Utilizing purpose built rigs that serve both motion capture and traditional animation techniques, our team of animators use our motion capture data to drive the bulk of scene blocking and posing.

Utilizing the motion capture system as the base layer of our animation process allows our team of animators to spend more time creating beautiful animations with incredible nuances and subtleties rather than getting characters from point A to point B.

DarkSlopeStudiosWelcome

Art

Our experienced in-house team of artists can service any need from the most technical rigs to beautiful models and textures. Our team of staff and contractors ranges from international award winning directions, senior project management, and artists who are able to work from end to end of the production process.

Our artists are trained in optimizing any asset for real-time animation workflows without sacrificing any quality in the look of the assets. Whether it’s 3D assets or 3D made to look 2D, our team of artists can take any project anywhere.

Our team of technical artists also assist our animation team in creating unique physics driven assets to drive part of our animation process that both speeds up animation and creates a truly realistic look and feel to the world.

DarkSlopeStudiosWelcome

Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality

Dark Slope development team is a leader in the production of large scale Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality experiences.Dark Slope was the first third party studio to license warehouse scale VR content to the Zero Latency platform for theme parks and entertainment centres. Large scale multi person games, projection mapping location based experiences, and multi-person augmented reality headset experiences are just some of the innovative unique properties our team is capable of realizing with our Virtual Production team of artists and developers.

DarkSlopeStudiosWelcome

Contact

At Dark Slope, we are up for the challenge. Please contact us to discuss your unique needs and projects.We are happy to put forward a recommended production overview and quote! You can reach me dan.fill@darkslope.com