Artist Profile: Lucan Visuals

So who, what and why is Lucan Visuals?

Lucan Visuals is a 3d Projection mapping collective based in Cape Town, South Africa. It was founded by three like minded friends, all of whom have a background in the animation and VFX industry. We have always found projection mapping to be an exciting and intriguing medium with infinite possibilities and we wanted to explore it further. After many hours of researching the possibilities and brainstorming our ideas we started piecing together what is now Lucan Visuals.
By utilizing what we have learned as VFX artists, we aim to add something unique and innovative to our work.

How did you approach your projection mapping project? What software did you use to create the visuals, and how did you go about it?

It started with some initial concept set sketches which were then modeled in Autodesk Maya, after some refinement and tweaking we decided on the final set. Through a process of trial and error, our mock up set was then cut from polystyrene according to our measurements. We used a combination of Maya and After Effects to create the visuals.


Any major stupid mistakes that you can laugh about now, but made you feel like an idiot then?

We patiently awaited our order of 30 sheets of 4.5 x 4.5 meter cardboard, for the building of our set. After it having to be airlifted onto our driveway we quickly realised our weekend job turned into a, well, not a weekend job. We traced our set blueprints onto the sheets and then carefully started cutting and folding the cardboard. After what felt like 4 years of building, our cardboard set was finally complete. We were overly excited and rushed into painting the set. The next day we applied our first layer of white paint, being a water based paint our glorious set warped, buckled and collapsed in on itself. Needless to say, we were no artisans of set building.

What about the tech? What sort of gear do yo have in that basement?

In the basement we have a leaking kayak, a finless surfboard and some old wine.
For the tech we used a SIM2 ProC4 4500lm projector and an Asus i5 notebook.


How does Resolume fit into all this?

We needed something that would allow us to focus on the creative side of things rather than going back and forth with tricky software. After doing extensive research on which software would best serve our needs, it became clear that Resolume 4 was exactly what we needed. It is user friendly and has a large community and support base, which appealed to us and any technical difficulties we experienced were swiftly dealt with.

And what about the future? Where is Lucan Visuals headed?

We set our sights on raising the bar with each project we take on. Generating quality designs and innovative solutions that explore the potential and push the boundaries of projection mapping. Seeing other people getting excited about this as much as we are is a great reward in itself.

Hopefully we make enough money along the way to fix our leaking kayak...