Case Study:
Lexhag

How Expert Thinking helped Lexhag to validate innovative use cases for AI in the visual effects sector using AWS.

Visual effects is a cornerstone of modern film and television, enabling studios to bring even the most ambitious visions to life. The sector is also at the bleeding edge of emerging use cases for generative AI.

A trusted creative partner across major film and TV projects, Lexhag is one of Europe’s leading visual effects studios, responsible for pivotal content in some of the most talked-about productions of recent times, including Ballad of a Small Player, Gangs of London and The Thursday Murder Club. The Lexhag leadership team were quick to identify the potential for ethical AI to increase productivity and support creativity.

Expert Thinking brings proven experience within the VFX sector and AI, implementing AWS’s newest offerings such as Deadline Cloud to maximise cloud adoption as well as delivering generative AI solutions for some of our other clients

Accordingly, Lexhag partnered with the team at Expert Thinking, to leverage their cutting-edge expertise in AI innovation and knowledge of the VFX Studio industry.

Together, the teams focused on three specific industry challenges:

Producing 3D artworks from 2D photography of objects

Using legacy techniques, the early stages of this task can be lengthy and tedious - the latter stages afford the greatest opportunities for artists to add real value to the work.

Managing and cataloguing film set wardrobe and assets

This job is essential for effective budget control and asset management. This is still generally completed manually which is often time-consuming, labour intensive and potentially inaccurate.

Generation of Moodboard / Concept artwork

This artwork is pivotal in communicating creative ideas within and between teams, creating by hand can be laborious and can potentially limit the detail that can be included.

Expert Thinking helped us explore what’s possible with generative AI in a way that was low risk but high impact. The PoC gave us the confidence that these tools can streamline production, without compromising the creativity that defines our work.

Tom Lewis,
Managing Director,
Lexhag

We know that our clients want to get as much value for their budget as they can, so we need to stay on the cutting edge of new technology in our industry. Projects like this help us to do that.

Tom Lewis,
Managing Director,
Lexhag

Many tasks in visual effects require a lot of groundwork before the artist can exercise any true creativity. We’re working out how to shortcut that, so our artists can spend more of their time on the details that set their work apart.

Tom Lewis,
Managing Director,
Lexhag

Solution

Lexhag was keen to explore what could be achieved with the sustainable and ethical implementation of Generative AI, while minimising business risk. The Expert Thinking team were able to leverage their partnership with AWS to build a business case for AWS’ PoC fund in which AWS covered full cost of the project.

The Expert Thinking team created a PoC solution which used ComfyUI – an open source node-based workflow design application for generative AI.

Each of the solutions had their own custom workflows and utilised different models and nodes tailored to the problem statement.

The 1st workflow was a solution to give an editable 3D render frame for use in DCC applications from a still 2D photograph of any object. With legacy technology, creating a 3D representation of an object can require hundreds of images to recreate effectively. There was also a second workflow of this solution which allowed multiple shots (front , back , left and right) to allow for more detailed capture of the object.

For the 2nd workflow Expert Thinking developed an AI image recognition framework, which can ingest photography of actors, extras and even props on set, recognise the components of the image with refined text prompts, and to eventually output them to a database. This system can help enforce continuity between scenes and makes it easier to search, review and document wardrobe and prop inventories.

Finally, the teams worked to streamline the ideation cycle. Refining ideas and communicating them requires many sketches and other artwork, which all take time to create. Whilst commonly available AI image generators are typically not precise enough to do this – Expert Thinking managed to deploy the workflow which allowed the user input suitable reference images and further refine with targeted textual prompts. This approach generated new images which used the originals as a foundation to allow the rapid creation of visual assets for the moodboards to utilise.

Benefits

Rendering: artists’ time used more efficiently

The project showed how AI can carry some of the burden of the routine elements of 3D rendering and artwork development. What has historically been a significant drain on the resources of creative teams can be greatly reduced, allowing them to focus on the elements of the task that add most value to the finished product.

Set Wardrobe and props: more effective asset management

For the first time in this industry, this project proved that an AI-driven system can carry out some of the work of managing and cataloguing wardrobe and asset items on set. This takes on a routine, time-consuming and more often than not manual task, meaning wardrobe professionals are free to concentrate on more creative aspects of their work.

Storyboarding: streamlined creative process

Expert Thinking and Lexhag together were able to demonstrate that a properly managed AI image generation tool could be used to support and streamline the conceptualisation process, helping creative teams to accelerate the preliminary stages of their work, and focus on the high-value details of a production.

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Case Study:Lexhag

How Expert Thinking helped Lexhag to validate innovative use cases for AI in the visual effects sector using AWS.

Producing 3D artworks from 2D photography of objects

Managing and cataloguing film set wardrobe and assets

Generation of Moodboard / Concept artwork

Expert Thinking helped us explore what’s possible with generative AI in a way that was low risk but high impact. The PoC gave us the confidence that these tools can streamline production, without compromising the creativity that defines our work.

We know that our clients want to get as much value for their budget as they can, so we need to stay on the cutting edge of new technology in our industry. Projects like this help us to do that.

Many tasks in visual effects require a lot of groundwork before the artist can exercise any true creativity. We’re working out how to shortcut that, so our artists can spend more of their time on the details that set their work apart.

Solution

Benefits

Rendering: artists’ time used more efficiently

Set Wardrobe and props: more effective asset management

Storyboarding: streamlined creative process

Talk to thecloud experts.

Case Study:
Lexhag

Talk to the
cloud experts.