For the new Rezurrection addon of Call of Duty Black Ops, Activision decided to create a trailer. Rocky Morton directed this fun story explaining how scientists do their best to kill efficiently zombies on the moon.

Eight VFX was in charge of the visual effects. VFX supervisor Fred Hopp chose to use the photogrammetry suite Enwaii to reconstruct the several sets shot for Call of Duty Rezurrection : "The point was not to reconstruct the sets to create assets with textures. We wanted the reconstructions to check the accuracy and consistency of all our matchmoves and find the lights positions."

Fred explains : "The shots were done between 7PM and 11AM. Shooting during night implies that many people are really tired. A mistake is more likely to happen and we don't want to pay the price once back at the studio. The director used 4 cameras for the shot, so in case there's a mistake in the script notes about which camera is used on which shot, or if there is a last minute unexpected change, we have a safety net. It is easy to detect and correct a mistake or cope with a change with a model of the set available. It is also useful to get the accurate position of all the lights."

"So we took a few photos of each set. Knowing we would rebuild them quickly with Enwaii, we were more relaxed for the rest of the shot. Because we did not need a full reconstruction, it was really quick to get a CG version of each set and at the end of the production it saved us time and gave us more security."

Laboratory set

Photogrammetry techniques can help in other ways than rebuilding a textured environment or prop. To use a CG set to check and correct matchmoves, to find the lights positions, or to use the mesh for collision or occlusion is also a pretty common scenario in VFX. Getting the meshes and the lights was even more easier for Eight VFX because of the native integration of the Enwaii pipeline inside Maya.