COAL MINE A - KHADAAN - HUNGAMA SERIES | VIRTUAL PRODUCTION [2025]

COAL MINE A

Coalmine-A was designed as the wide-open exterior landscape for the MasterCave MN9 hero environment. It acted as the key establishing location—setting up scale, atmosphere, and visual continuity before we moved into the darker, more claustrophobic cave interiors.

The idea was to create a world that could support not just the live-action on the LED stage but also serve as a fully production-ready CG environment for insert shots, cinematic transitions, and background plates. So, the approach was always hybrid—built for real-time, but detailed enough for post.

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1. Tools & Workflow

We kept the pipeline lean but powerful.
• Camera: Sony VENICE 1 (shooting at 25fps)
• Tracking: N-CAM optical system
• Engine: Unreal Engine 5
• Playback: nDisplay with real-time sync
• Display: LED wall at 6912x2112, 2.9mm pixel pitch

Everything was genlocked and time-synced using AJA and blackmagic decklink 8k Pro setups to maintain consistency across frames and ensure frame-accurate playback.

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2. Research & Previsualization

Before touching Unreal, we spent time digging deep into real-world references. We focused on mining regions across Madhya Pradesh—places like Singrauli and Umaria. These weren’t just mood boards; we collected ground-level imagery, drone shots, and footage from old documentaries.

We noted everything: the dusty terrain, the way machinery was placed, the clothing miners wore, even how coal dust hung in the air. All of this informed our layout and asset design.

We did multiple previs passes using greyboxes and blockouts inside UE5. That helped us finalize camera angles early and lock down LED wall coverage. This phase was crucial not just for creative clarity, but also for giving the DoP and director a clear sense of movement and space before stepping on stage.

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3. Environment Creation

For terrain, we started with real-world GIS data and brought it into UE5. This gave us topographical accuracy from day one. We layered on custom geometry and modular kits for rock faces, slag mounds, and terrain transitions.

To avoid repetition and flatness, we split the landscape into large mega-assemblies—modular environment chunks we could shuffle around depending on shot needs.

I built a shared material system using landscape master shaders, photogrammetry blends, and a modular texture approach. This let us maintain texture richness without bogging down the GPU. Most of the rocks and ground materials were PBR-accurate and pre-optimized for real-time LED playback.

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4. Scene Dressing & Detailing

We leaned heavily on procedural scattering to populate the terrain—rocks, broken carts, tools, debris, and layers of dry foliage. We also brought in mining vehicles (some rigged, some just looping in sequencer) to give background movement. These weren’t just visual fluff—they were carefully timed to the main action and synced via nDisplay triggers so that everything felt integrated once we started rolling.

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5. Character Activity & Population

We used MetaHumans to represent miners—dressed them using our collected reference and baked simple motion loops into the scene. These characters weren’t central to the action but added realism around the edges of the frame. We made sure their positions didn’t interfere with frustum tracking or overcomplicate the LED wall rendering, especially during shots with fast camera moves.

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6. Camera Tracking & LED Volume Integration

We ran the full N-CAM system integrated with Unreal’s nDisplay setup. Tracking data came in clean, and I personally handled the offset tuning, lens calibration, and frustum accuracy tests.

The LED wall was synced with Blackmagic Design 8K pro and SDI DISTRIBUTION UNIT and AJA Gen10 tri-level sync—ensuring tight frame lock for parallax-sensitive shots. This was especially important for wider angles, where any misalignment would break immersion.

I worked closely with the lighting team to match exterior sun intensity and falloff with LED wall brightness. That real-time blend between virtual and physical light was key for maintaining continuity in the final grade.

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8. Post-Production Usage & CG Integration

Even after principal photography, Coalmine-A proved to be one of the most used environments in post. A ton of insert shots—like coal mine worker close-ups, sweeping transitions, and VFX-heavy background extensions—were rendered directly inside Unreal Engine.

We treated the level like a fully CG-ready asset—capable of pushing cinematic quality renders for moments where LED wasn’t involved or when new shots were needed in editorial. All the groundwork we’d done in previs and material setup paid off big time here.

I was responsible for ensuring the environment scaled correctly across departments. That meant optimizing for LED, but also keeping enough fidelity for offline renders, color grade passes, and compositing work.