One shot, six stages. This is the pipeline every hybrid CG/VFX shot runs through at DotXLab: the camera plate is respected, the creature is built and finished by hand, and the result is delivered into the editor's timeline.
Raw Plate
Final Composite
The shot as it came off the camera: a lone figure on a stone bridge, flat log gamma, nothing added. We inspect exposure, lens distortion and motion before touching a pixel.
SH_042 · Plate
01:02:14:00
A 3D camera solve from tracked features on the bridge and rock towers gives us the real camera path, so anything we add moves with the shot instead of sliding on top of it.
SH_042 · Track
01:02:15:07
The figure and bridge are rotoscoped into a clean alpha so the creature can pass behind them. Wire or rig removal and paint-out happen here on the clean plate.
SH_042 · Matte
01:02:16:14
The creature is blocked in as clay and wireframe over the plate to lock scale, pose and where it sits in the frame. Generated groundwork is refined by hand at this stage.
SH_042 · Lookdev
01:02:17:21
Everything is layered together for the first time. It is deliberately ungraded: the creature is still too bright and cool against the plate, edges are hard, no atmosphere yet.
SH_042 · Comp v01
01:02:18:04
Relight to the plate's key, add atmospheric depth, match grain and lens, then grade in ACES and deliver as EXR into the editor's timeline. The shot reads as photographed, not generated.
SH_042 · Final v07
01:02:19:11
Plate and CG merge behind the roto, get relit to the plate's key, graded in ACES, regrained to the lens, and written out as EXR. The same tree, every shot.
