A day in the life
Eric Jacobus gives 3D World the lowdown on Superalloy Interactive and his action-packed career so far
Stunt performer Eric Jacobus describes a typical, jam-packed day at action design studio Superalloy Interactive
Eric Jacobus has been an actor, stuntman and action coordinator since 2001, as well as having a background in programming. He has gone on to have a varied career that includes producing, starring, stunt coordinating and directing. Jacobus also co-founded Superalloy Interactive, an action design studio that specialises in motion capture, combat design and previsualisation. He recently sat down with 3D World to discuss an action-packed day in his life.
What does a typical day at Superalloy involve for you?
Every day, I’m up at 5am to read my Bible and see my kids when they wake up. Otherwise there is no typical day. For shoot days, I arrive at the studio at 7am to set up any tech for previsualisation, motion capture or virtual production. Then at 9am we will begin eight hours of choreography, previs, mocap, falls, reactions, attack animations, navigation or cinematics. Some days it’s 12 hours of what I call ‘WEEC work’ – workout, email, editing, calls. Other days are travelling, consulting, trade shows, meetings.
Can you describe your role as co-founder of Superalloy Interactive?
I was in the world of stunts and filmmaking for decades, but my first job was actually as a PHP and Visual Basic programmer, so I’m like a techy-stuntman-filmmaker who can do action design using Unity or Maya. The market is shifting so quick, so if we want to innovate with action design and choreography, we need to understand these tools.
What’s the best thing about your role?
One day I could be consulting for a German sci-fi cinematic, the next could be mocap on a Polish indie action game, and then wirework for 3D previs on an Indian film. It’s a stream of interesting projects. I have to bring the best talent for every job so I don’t miss a beat. The best part is I’m only working ten miles from my wife and kids. And my work allows me to keep the Shabbat (Sabbath) on Friday night, when I stop working for 24 hours.
What kind of day-to-day challenges do you face?
Mundane challenges like server problems, hardware issues, or internet outages are common
for any tech-based company. We push ourselves to innovate, like when we created a virtual camera system combining HTC Vive and Xsens motion capture, but the technology is often totally unpredictable. That’s the cost of innovation. We just have to constantly test and test to make sure these issues don’t pop up when we’re with clients.
“WE CREATE A TRANSPARENT AND SIMPLISTIC INTERFACE BETWEEN TECH AND PHYSICAL PERFORMANCE”
How do you work with clients to bridge the gap between action and game design?
Our clients usually don’t live action the way we do. We open that window into the world of violence and combat in a digestible way. This lays the foundation for our client relations. We tailor our performers’ movements to best fit the needs of animators, or we’ll design action that will look the best for the cinematic director’s filmmaking vision. We create a transparent and simplistic interface between tech and physical performance.
What kind of software and technology do you use?
We use Capsule, Trello, Slack, Dropbox, and Box to manage our workflow. We shoot mocap using Xsens MVN and bridge a HTC Vive puck-based vcam using Brekel, pipe it into Motionbuilder for the client to see the live rig, stream over Zoom using OBS, maybe deliver retargeted anims using Maya. I’ll prototype combat in Unreal, or edit a playblast in Unity’s Cinemachine, export videos into Adobe Premiere, and post online using Wordpress.
How does a typical day end for you?
At the end of a shoot day we debrief, break down everything, de-marker and wash the suits and offload, before processing and compressing our footage or mocap. After work it’s dinner with my family, shower if I have time and sleep like a rock.