I Remade Narnia in 1 Month #arts #digitalarts #entertainment #vfx #digital #digitaleffect

Under this is my entire childhood. Narnia. Follow me. And today I'm gonna recreate one of my favorite scenes from the films and maybe even try calling on Aslan himself. For as long as I can remember I've loved the Narnia universe and I've even recreated a few scenes from the films already. But one moment I still haven't dared to touch is Lucy's dream in Prince Caspian. Just the flowers, the moving trees and the best of all, Aslan. It's definitely one of my favorite scenes and now after years of practicing the effects it's finally time to put my skills to the test. But first I need to prepare. First up I needed to find a similar location. So with the company of my dad and my dog Lucy, you can probably guess who that name was inspired by, we went deep into the forest to find a perfect spot. Which was way harder than expected. Some places had way too many trees and others barely had any. And the ground was so wet and swampy or the grass was so tall that I'd have to jump through it like Lucy here. Which wouldn't look very glamorous. And after three years... After three hours of searching and questioning all my life choices, we finally found it. It was a dry ground, spaced out trees, gorgeous ferns and even a little path running through. It was perfect. In Prince Caspian, Lucy wears this beautiful red medieval looking dress. And as you might have seen in way too many of my videos, I wear the same white dress. And for once, it just didn't stand a chance. It was time for a change. So I started a hunt. This should be easy, right? Right? Well, it wasn't at all. I ended up spending a whole day scrolling, clicking, comparing and every dress I kind of liked was either sold out or would take forever to arrive. But then, in my depths of despair, I finally found this Norwegian girl who makes these stunning fantasy clothing. And I knew I'd found the one. It's me, I'm the one. No, not this time. With all that figured out, I was finally ready to film. But Norway had other plans. You see, where I live, it rains a lot. And I mean a lot. So after days of waiting for the sun to finally arrive, I threw on my outfit and rushed outside. In order to get that soft, creamy light, we went to film in the afternoon. But that meant we didn't have a lot of time to pull it off, considering we had 20 shots to replicate. And even though the sun was low, it was one of the warmest days of summer. And I was struggling. When we finally reached the first location, we started filming straight away. I've done lots of recreations in the past, but I've never done it shot by shot before. So this was a whole new challenge. We tried our best matching the lighting, environment, and even the timing had to be just right. On top of that, I had to walk barefoot the whole time, which my feet did not appreciate. These hurt so much. And after four hours and lots of sweating from Erik, I feel like that guy, do you know the meme? Yeah, you'll find the meme. We were finally done with the first part. Yeah, just the first part. We then started the journey to the next spot for the Aslan scene. The only problem was, Do you think it's there or there? Oh, we're at another crossroad. That we, I think it's there. Got lost. Are we lost? I don't know. Maybe. When we eventually did find a place, it was too late because the sun was all gone. So I headed back home to start editing what we shot so far. First up was the magical flower lady. I started by creating the base woman. I then broke her down into a bunch of points and replaced them with these leaves that I found. It's a start, but we're still missing a lot. Next, I had to figure out how to make the leaves move in a natural way. I started by animating the rotation and then used noise to animate their position. I then painted a mask for the skirt and connected this to the geometry system, which gave me full control over where the leaves spread out. But something felt off. She looked a little too messy and it was almost hard to tell she was even a person. In the movie, the leaves kind of follow the curvature of the woman, which actually makes a big difference. It took me forever to figure out how to do this, but after hours of researching, I finally cracked the code. On top of that, I added some extra position noise across her whole body so she looked more flowy and organic. I then turned the most important nodes into controllers so I had quicker access when animating her. Next, I cut out her face and built a separate system using smaller and more leaves so her face would be more visible. The woman has beautiful flowy hair trailing behind her. So to recreate this, I modeled the hair, animated it using shape keys, and then turned it all into leaves. Voila! But then, I noticed a big problem. Some of the leaves were just disappearing out of nowhere, and I had no idea why. I searched and I searched, and after a whole day of suffering, I still had no answers. In the end, I realized you could barely notice it unless you looked very closely, so I pretended that I never saw it and moved on. With the setup finally done, I tracked all the shots and placed the leaf woman into each one. And we were done! I wish. It took days matching the timing and animating both her and the leaves to line up with the movie. The most challenging part was the transformation shot, where the spread out leaves morph into the woman. I literally spent two full days experimenting just to get the speed and flow right. It was so hard, but seeing it finally come together made it all worth it. Ever since I saw Narnia for the first time, I felt a connection with it. There's something about that world that makes me feel so drawn in, like I somehow belong there. It wasn't just the magic or the beautiful story, it was the feeling that it left behind. A kind of homesickness for a world I've never actually seen. But over time, I realized that maybe it wasn't Narnia itself I was longing for, but more what it pointed to. C.S. Lewis, the author of Narnia, describes that feeling beautifully in The Weight of Glory. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them. It was not in them. It only came through them. And what came through them was longing. These things, the beauty, the memory of our own past, are good images of what we really desire. But if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself, they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. And when I first read that, something clicked, because that's exactly what Narnia feels like, a glimpse of something that's actually real. So Lewis believed that the beauty we experience here is just a sneak peek of somewhere even greater, a place where all our longings finally find their home. Maybe that's why Narnia means so much to me, because every time I look at that world, I feel a little closer to the place I was truly made for. And as Lewis once wrote, if I find myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. I love that quote. But enough about that. Let's get back to work. Next up were the moving trees. I started by tracking all the footage. I then found these tree models, made some small adjustments to them, and then placed them in the scene and matched the lighting. But they didn't feel very integrated, so I took a look at the movie to see how they did it, but noticed something interesting. Take a look at this. Okay, so you see Aslan here and Lucy petting him. Everything's good, until you see the background. The tree, it's floating, and the texture looks so fake compared to these ones, which I'm guessing are real. But it's a good reminder that not everything has to be perfect, as long as it's not the main focus. But the trees are a lot more visible here than in this example, so we need to add some ferns to blend them in with the real ground. I then animated the trees to move just like they did in the movie, and gave some subtle motion to the leaves using a noise modifier for more realism. I did this with all the other shots as well, and finally hit render. It was now time to go back outside again to film the scene with Aslan. As we arrived at the location, it was all cloudy, so while waiting for the sun to show up, we practiced a bit and found other ways to entertain ourselves. But then suddenly... Oh, oh, the sun! It broke through. There's sun! Summer is coming! And it was goat time. In the movie, you see Lucy interacting with Aslan, and they actually used a lion doll for reference on set. But I didn't exactly have a life-sized lion doll lying around, so I went with the closest thing I could find, my dad. So this is Aslan. I'm honored. It's a big honor. In movies like Twilight, they actually put the actor in a suit when playing the animal, so the interaction is more realistic once the CGI is added. So I somehow managed to convince my dad to do the same. So this was my carnival costume when I was like eight years old, and we're trying to fit dad in it. Wait! Will I be able to see anything in this thing? Yeah. I don't know if you'll be able to breathe. I can't move. I feel a bit stuck. Where do I go? We managed to film the first shot, but then... Did you hear that? Really big thunder right there. The sun was gone again, and a storm was on its way. We quickly tried to film the rest of the shots, but it was so hard to act when it looked this ridiculous. I missed you so much. You've grown. More than once. And for the first time ever, I actually had a few lines. You've grown. Gotta practice. I recorded the lines closer to the camera for better sound quality. I missed you so much. Which was interesting. For sound design, I pretty much always replace original sound with higher quality sounds, and this is where Artlist, who's kindly sponsoring this video, has saved me so many times. Just listen to the difference. This is also the place where I find all the music I need for my videos, including the one you're listening to right now. But sometimes it can be tricky to find just the right song. Luckily, that time is finally over, because you can now find your favorite tracks on Spotify or YouTube. Paste that link into Artlist, and boom! It finds lots of similar songs for you. I've been wanting a feature like this for years, and I just can't believe it's finally here. Also, a few weeks ago, Google released a new AI model called Nano Banana, and it blew everyone away with its image consistency. And now it's actually available on Artlist. It's super handy for creating clean plates for VFX, editing photos, and so much more. It can even give you inspiration on how to furnish your home, which I desperately need for our new office. It's so sad in here, but I'll fix that in my next video. So if you want all this, you can use my link to get two months for free, and thank you to Artlist for supporting the channel. And now it's time to complete the final and probably the most challenging shots. Aslan. It actually took two years bringing Aslan to life. The team made a full skeleton and muscle system underneath his skin, and managed to get every tiny movement and wrinkle to transfer through the fur. Without those subtle movements, he wouldn't have been able to express all the emotions that he did, which was crucial for the film's success. Because if audiences didn't care about Aslan, if they didn't believe his sorrow or feel the weight of his sacrifice, the entire film would probably collapse. On top of that, they added 5.2 million hairs on his body, and lion hair isn't soft and cozy like a cat's, but more rough like bristles. So they had to perfectly match the thickness and natural clumping as well, which is probably why just a single frame took 10 hours to render. But it was definitely worth the effort, because even though the movie came out 20 years ago, Aslan is still one of the most impressive CG characters ever made. And now it was my turn. No pressure. Considering they spent two years building Aslan, I knew there was not even a point in me trying to model Aslan all by myself. So to not ruin the whole shot, I thought it'd be best to just buy a model online, and I eventually found the perfect one. First up, I dropped him in the scene and changed its colors to look more like Aslan's. I then added the ground and some ferns, and turned them all into shadow catchers, so we got realistic shadows. To match the lighting, I actually removed Aslan and temporarily added a human character instead. This way I could look at how the light hit me, and then try matching the lighting on the CG character. Using a HDRI as a lighting source, I was able to get it pretty close. Next was summoning back Aslan, who's now finally lit correctly. Creating this scene was definitely one of my favorite parts of the whole project, because this isn't just any lion. This is Aslan. And if you've grown up with Narnia, you know what I mean when I say there's something different about him. He's not just strong or majestic, but he carries this quiet authority. He doesn't shout or rush, but when he speaks, everyone listens. Not out of fear, but out of trust. After all, he's not a tame lion. No, but he is good. He challenges characters to grow, and asks them to be brave and patient, and to trust without having all the answers. He doesn't promise an easy road, but he promises to walk it with them, even when they can't always see him. And the films did such a good job bringing him to life. The way they animated his face, the emotions, the subtle expressions. He didn't feel like a CG animal. He actually felt real, and somewhat familiar. In your world, I have another name. You must learn to know me by it. And I think that's why Aslan had such an impact on me. Because in the middle of this magical story, he actually leaves you thinking about your own reality, our own world. Anyways, it was now time for the most difficult part, animating. And if you know me, you know that I have no idea how to animate. So I did my best animating every part of his body, to match as close as possible to the way he moves in the film. And the first shot actually turned out pretty okay. But where do I even start with this one? It's a lot more close up, which makes it way easier to spot all my mistakes. And his even talking? I ended up spending a few days to get this right, and after a lot of experimenting back and forth, I think I finally made it. It's at least good enough. A trick they often use to make characters cuter and look more alive, is to add a small fake light reflection in their eyes. They've even done it here on Aslan. So I of course did the same thing, and then hit render. And now, after weeks of work, it's finally time to put everything together. I start by importing the leaf lady. I then matched her colors to the footage, and added a subtle light wrap so she looked more integrated. Next, I matched her colors here as well, and rotoscoped my head to put it in front of the leaves. I then added a defocus to the leaves, and animated it to turn off at the end. As a final touch, I gave her some subtle glow. And the process was pretty much the same for all the other leaf shots. For the trees, I start by matching the colors. I then rotoscoped myself over the trees, as well as this one. But the trees looked a bit too dark here, so I drew a mask and made them brighter towards the top. Lastly, I added some extra trees to all the other shots as well. And now it's finally time for Aslan. I imported him to the scene, matched his colors, and then added a shadow where I hugged him so it felt more real. But it looks quite sad compared to this, so I created some light rays to make it look a bit more magical. For the close-up, I painted out that, added Aslan, and matched his colors. I then rotoscoped out my hand to put it over Aslan, but something was off. It lacked shadows. To fix this, I keyed out my dad and isolated the shadows. But since you couldn't see them very clearly, I added some extra ones, as well as making my super pale hand a bit tanner. To integrate my hand even better, I used this grassy texture to make it look like my fingers were slightly obscured by the fur. After compositing the rest of the shots, I threw them all into DaVinci, did some color grading, and found some epic sounds from Artlist. And we were done! This has been the biggest project I've ever done, and there's been so many ups and downs. But my favorite part was how it led to a spontaneous road trip with my sister, where we filmed some of this video. And if you want to see more behind the scenes, she actually filmed a super cozy vlog about the whole trip. But now it's finally time to reveal the results. Every year you grow, so shall I. I'll miss you so much. Every year you grow, so shall I. Follow me!