Loacher Films - Youtube star powered by Unreal and Rokoko

Loacher Films is the viral Youtube channel focusing on making Star Wars and the Halo short films. Loacher Films’ workflow is clean and efficient - after recording mocap using the Rokoko Smartsuit Pro, he processes and retargets the data in Maya, and then can jump into Unreal Engine to put the scenes together. Following the cultural success of The Clone Wars and the re-release of the Halo games, Péter has drilled down into the personal struggles of the characters we often don’t get to see up close. Although self trained as an animator, Péter has been folding the Rokoko tools into his workflow with great success.

Péter has drilled down into the personal struggles of the characters we often don’t get to see up close. Although self trained as an animator, Péter has been folding the Rokoko tools into his workflow with great success. 

Péter grew up making stop motion films with his father, which is when he was bitten by the filmmaking bug. He eventually found his way to the CG world through Source Filmmaker, the free animation software powered by the Source Engine. SFM comes with a plethora of premade, high quality assets and animations, so Péter was able to take those tools and teach himself the basics of animation, lighting, cinematography, storytelling, etc. As his interest and skill grew, he began producing content on Youtube around his favorite franchises - Star Wars, Halo, and Team Fortress 2. As his ideas became more ambitious, however, he turned to motion capture solutions to reduce the amount of time he spent keyframing character animations by hand.‍

“I don’t have to worry about putting a lot of characters in my scenes anymore - I can just put the suit on, capture their animations and put them in,” said Péter of starting to work with the Rokoko Tools.

Péter’s recent film “BETRAYAL - Star Wars: Order 66” follows a group of clone troopers and their Jedi commander and examines the experience of the troopers receiving Order 66 - the order to kill all Jedi. Péter envisioned Order 66 as a rewriting of the troopers' memories concerning the Jedi, twisting their minds so that they eventually turn on their commander. The audience gets to see this rewriting in real time, which is a great example of the innovative and creative storytelling that Péter has mastered. He used the Rokoko Smartsuit Pro to create all of the character animations, including lightsaber fights and stunts from the troopers.

“An inertial suit can be used pretty much anywhere - if I’m using motion capture I want to use it for everything. Not just simple animations, I want to run, I want to fall, I want to do stunts… I was impressed on every front by the Rokoko Smartsuit so that’s why I chose it.”

Péter’s workflow involves recording the mocap in Rokoko Studio, then retargeting and processing the mocap data in Maya - and then finally bringing those animations into Unreal Engine 4 and doing all the FX and physics simulations. 

“I want to grow with each video, and I want to outdo myself with what I did with the last one - telling new stories, showing new perspectives, but also growing in a technological sense and skill set sense.”

Péter’s short films are an excellent example of what you can accomplish when you bring together the Rokoko mocap tools with really high quality storytelling, visual effects and fantastic camerawork. We’re so excited to have Péter as a part of the Rokoko community, and can’t wait to see what he comes up with next!