Table of contents for February 2020 in 3D World

1. CG CAR A CG vehicle was modelled based on a real car that had been scanned and photographed. “The Bentley was a big asset for the whole show,” says Milk VFX 2D supervisor Matias Derkacz. “It’s a big part of the relationship between David Tennant and Michael Sheen, so we needed to make sure that it looked as real as possible.” 2. COMPOSITING APPROACH Compositing was handled in Nuke, where artists laid the CG car animation over a live-action plate. This shot involved the camera going from a fully 3D vehicle to being inside the car with the actors. “That was really challenging because it was two completely different shots,” notes Derkacz. “One is completely in the studio and the other one was shot on the street.” 3. FINAL…

1. Creating movie props Weta Workshop is now taking advantage of AR to give clients the freedom to explore and modify practical effects before they’re built. www.wetanz.com 2. Design Car manufacturers like BMW are experimenting with AR to immerse customers in various models before they buy. AR would also be helpful when viewing and designing furniture for new homes. bit.ly/33FFDwQ 3. Education Learning Kits from companies such as Scope AR could provide staff with visual instructions to operate complex machinery, or even help you cook a new dish. www.scopear.com 4. Healthcare AR could ensure surgeons always have the most crucial vital statistics and information front and centre during their work. Companies like AccuVein are also working to make simpler processes like finding a vein much more efficient. www.accuvein.com…

Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders is a spatial computing experience where hyper-realistic, life-sized robots invade your home through port holes that appear in your walls, floor and ceiling. The player dons a Magic Leap One that lets them move freely around the room, inspecting allies and enemies up close while defending Earth with an assortment of ray guns. For Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders, we not only wanted to give the player an arsenal of rayguns to dispatch the oncoming menace, but we also wanted to give them feedback that was visually informative and reflected the nuanced interaction achievable in spatial computing. In this breakdown, we will dive into how we created each of the elements for one of our raygun effects. We’ll show you how, when these are all put together, you can…

Steve King, USA Nick Epstein replies Pose-based texture blending is a technique we used during Alita: Battle Angel to achieve a more realistic skin response in certain poses. Rosa Salazar’s performance as Alita was deep and nuanced, and had to be preserved with consistent fidelity across the nearly 2,000 shots Alita appears in. It was vital for us to transmit every bit of life that Salazar gave the character. Skin movement and appearance is one of the key areas where you see something come to life and pose-based textures helped us get there. Pose-based texture blending achieves a more realistic skin response in certain poses. The following is a high-level overview of how we applied the technique to Alita starting with scans of Salazar. We could have used generic textures…

Weta was not merely tasked with animating photorealistic dogs, they were tasked with creating dogs (and cats) that look and move exactly like their live-action counterparts — rescue animals with demonstrably unique personalities, signature habits and recognisable grooms. The characters had to talk and emote and their performances also needed to embody key attributes of the talented voice actors behind them. These VFX shots would be bookended with shots of the live-action dogs and director Charlie Bean had a clear mandate: the viewer should not even think about which dog was real and which one was Weta’s work. The first step Weta took was to gain a deep understanding of not just what these dogs looked like but what made them tick and who they were as living, breathing performers.…

Avengers: Endgame presented a unique challenge for the FX department at Weta Digital, which was responsible for the myriad of FX that underlined the final battle. We combined a high volume of pure FX with tasks mainly influenced by animation, such as tracer fire, thrusters, squibs, explosions and missile trails. To accomplish this, we examined the shots in previs and tried to identify repetitive tasks that could be set up procedurally. After the FX look-dev process, the result from the animators’ shot work could directly flow into compositing. This freed up artist time and allowed the data to be processed automatically for use in downstream departments. As part of this, we broke up the traditional assembly line approach by using procedural assets and reducing or eliminating smaller FX tasks completely.…

1 HEADCAM CAPTURE Will Smith wore a bespoke head-mounted stereo camera and had a number of markers on his face. Two witness cameras, in addition to the main film camera, were also employed for the 120 fps capture. 2 TRACKING THE CAPTURE DATA Weta Digital’s facial motion capture department tracked the head-cam footage, tracking the markers to create a 3D point cloud and applying this to an actor puppet of Smith. 3 THE ACTOR PUPPET A digital double of present-age Smith was created first. Only when the team were happy with the performance on this digital double of the current 50-year-old Will would they then move over to young CG Smith. 4 FACIAL SOLVES Weta Digital’s facial solver was used to translate the facial capture into animation. The studio used…

1. KEEP YOUR SCRIPTS CLEAN VFX is a team effort. Sooner or later someone else is going to have to pick up one of your scripts, finish the job or use it as a reference. Try and make it as easy as possible for them by keeping your scripts organised and tidy, using backdrops and labels for different sections with a clear main spine running down your script. This will also be massively helpful when you have to do breakdowns months after a show has delivered. 2. FIND REAL-LIFE REFERENCE With sites like YouTube and Google image search, you have a wealth of reference at your fingertips and there’s no excuse not to use it. Even if VFX is used to create things that don’t exist or cannot be filmed…

The digital doggy leads in Lady And The Tramp were created as doubles for their real-life counterparts to act as stand-ins when they had to perform anything a real dog can’t do. Our main characters had to not just look like their real-life canine counterparts, but emote and speak with enough feeling to completely engage with the audience. At Weta Digital we have a dedicated facial motion department that works across all creatures and characters, pushing the boundaries of photorealistic facial performances and the specification for facial puppet rigging, then moulding it into a visually entertaining experience. In any film, an actor’s delivery of dialogue can make or break the story. It’s never just talking, but rather a vessel for revealing character and plot. In the case of Lady And…

Jerry Hawthorne, North Carolina James Doyle replies What a loaded question! In my opinion the three most important things for any 3D artist to nurture are fundamentals, creativity and originality. Although I have taken on many different roles in the VFX industry, for now I will speak from a sculptor’s point of view. When I say fundamentals, I’m talking about the study of form, anatomy, lighting and colour. Don’t overlook these things, they are so important. Work practically every now and then. Don’t underestimate the impact that picking up a pencil or some clay can have on your work. These practical mediums force you to work slowly and think about what you’re creating. Foster creativity. Sketch. Play around with ideas and don’t be over critical of the ones that don’t…

Tanya Ross, San Diego Simone Riginelli replies The impressive battle in The Long Night is hauntingly revealed in fiery attacks that crash through the darkness. The first charge of the Dothraki begins with a vast army wielding swords that are ignited in a wave of fire by the will of Melisandre. Our job was to set every Dothraki sword on fire to persuasively signify the battle had begun. We initially approached the task through our standard pipeline, building a library of fire swords in FX and tracking them as 2D cards. But when we received the turnover, we realised how time-consuming this would be, especially for comp. There were hundreds of Dothraki and each fire element would need to be hand-tracked, as well as the timing offset to match the…

November 2009 saw Weta Digital’s first internal release of its current Deep Compositing toolset, replacing tools written for compositing Avatar in Shake. The switch to Nuke was an opportunity to update and improve the tools. That initial release contained just four basic operations as separate nodes. By November 2019, 230 releases later, there were over 80 but the underlying framework remains. In-house tools rarely last so long without being redeveloped, so why have our deep tools stood the test of time? Deep Compositing is based around Deep Images, where pixels contain a variable list of the objects they represent, keeping the depth, colour and opacity of each object separate as independent ‘samples’. This allows deep images to be combined more accurately and for individual objects to be isolated and modified…

Edward Denton Edward has over ten years of experience in the film industry at Weta Workshop working as a technical 3D artist, model maker, manufacturing project supervisor and recently as a concept artist and art director. www.artstation.com/edred REALISM I created this image to help me solidify my pipeline for creating highly realistic renders of concept models, without having to UV or texture my models. P-2.92 SIDE EJECTION PISTOL 2017 Software Octane, Rhino3D, Megascans…

Over the past few decades, Weta Digital has been continually innovating in the area of digital humans, especially digital faces. Now, with Ang Lee’s Gemini Man – which saw the creation of present-day and younger CG versions of actor Will Smith – the visual effects studio’s artists have crafted what may well be Weta Digital’s most photorealistic synthetic humans yet. Several factors made this possible, including the approach to the performance-capture of Will Smith, translation of capture data to CG puppets, animating the character, and the rendering of the final imagery using the studio’s proprietary spectral renderer, Manuka. All of that – plus other techniques – helped Weta Digital deliver digital humans that would be shown at 4K and 120 fps, and in stereo. In addition to this, two new…

We’ve gone deep into building Satan, raising Hell Hounds and setting a Bentley on fire in this special series about the visual effects pipeline and the artists at Milk VFX. Now we complete the journey with an analysis of where it all comes together: in compositing. Using case studies from Milk’s major recent show, Good Omens, the sci-fi series Origin, and the stormy setting of Adrift, we look at the tools and techniques that go into taking live-action, computer-generated and simulated elements and finessing them in 2D to form the final shots. SOMETIMES THE BENTLEY IS THERE, SOMETIMES IT ISN’T Compositing can run the gamut of visual effects work. Sometimes it’s about bringing together a live-action foreground plate and a live-action background plate. Sometimes it’s about incorporating a CG element…

INSIDE MAGIC LEAP The key features of the Magic Leap One, the creator edition of the mixed-reality headset Data lightfield technology Uses photonics to narrow the gap between real-world and digital objects, so the human brain can be more comfortable processing lifelike virtual objects generated by the device. Visual perception A powerful sensor suite that detects objects, planes and surfaces so virtual objects can interact with the surrounding physical world. Persistent object Room-mapping so that if a user mounts a virtual TV on a real wall and leaves the room, the TV will still be where it was placed upon their return. Soundfield audio For as much immersion as possible. Next-generation interface Support for multiple input modes such as eye tracking, head pose, gestures, and voice inputs. Player hardware Includes…

AUTHOR Rusty Hazelden Rusty Hazelden is a visual effects artist, writer, and YouTuber based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He makes videos on YouTube about movie visual effects techniques. YouTube.com/RustyHazelden PART 2/4 For over 30 years Pixar's RenderMan has been used in the film industry to render movies featuring ground-breaking animation and visual effects. In this four-part tutorial series, we're going to discover how to harness the power of RenderMan for Maya by taking an animated shot from start to finish, and learn all of the techniques required to create a photorealistic animation. No steps are left out and every detail is explained with easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions. Creating photorealistic renders has never been easier. In this series we're going to begin with untextured objects in Maya, and learn how to create…

Epic battle shots always need atmosphere. Be it clumps of dust kicked up from the feet of enemy soldiers, plumes of smoke from crashed starships, misty elements dressed in to silhouette the shape of mountains or general battleground haze, the right amount of atmosphere brings life to a shot. At Weta Digital, the compositing department traditionally dresses shots with smoke, dust, fire and other elements. If specific interaction is required between elements, the FX department simulates the unique events for rendering by the lighting department. However, with fluid simulation tools like Eddy being integrated into Nuke, some of these more straightforward interaction tasks are now handled by comp, allowing more time for FX artists to work on hero simulations. Having a varied library of 2D elements is an essential tool…

Joseph Lawrence, Romford, London Fabio Paiva replies It would be easy to say that it's just time and experience; the more you do it, the better your work will get. I believe that's true to an extent, but not always the case. I clearly remember getting to a point where I just couldn't see what was wrong with my work. And to make matters worse, I had the skills to make really good copies of old masters. So there was clearly a gap between seeing and creating. Trying to get to the core of this became my focus. The answer came with the understanding that the tendency to want to try and copy nature is the start of doing art, but it can't be the end. Art is about interpretation,…

Glen Hamilton, Kansas Paolo Emilio Selva replies Weta Digital has created many digital jungles and forests comprised of unique trees and plants. We used to create them using our in-house tool Lumberjack, which procedurally grew individual trees in accordance with the principles of nature. Once the initial growth was done, artists could edit all aspects of the plant then hand-place it in the scene. The final look was effective, but the process was time-consuming. Our work on War For The Planet Of The Apes called for an immense, snow-covered forest of pine trees that gets annihilated by a powerful avalanche. We needed a faster way to build the forest without compromising our ability to art-direct each element, including the FX simulation for the avalanche. We had to consider that trees…

The opening and closing credit sequences of Lady And The Tramp are a mix of hand-drawn illustration, classical 2D animation, 3D photogrammetry, sky replacement, city extension, CG trees and lights, particle snow simulation and several separate cameras stitched together into one fluid shot, both inspired by the visuals of the original 1955 Disney film. The result is a truly magical shot that starts with an exquisite illustration of Anytown, USA, and seamlessly ends inside Lady’s living room as a live-action shot several thousand frames later. For both shots, Weta Digital turned to their digital matte painting department to create traditional hand-drawn artwork in the classical Disney style. After experimenting with many different techniques, Marie Tricart and her matte painting team ended up with a 3D approach to the illustration, which…

Nick Keller hails from Tauranga, New Zealand, and is now living in Wellington with his wife and two sons. He is a VES and Tui award-winning concept artist and illustrator currently working at Weta Digital. How would you describe yourself as an artist and what inspires you? What was your journey to becoming a concept artist? After completing a bachelor of engineering degree, I was intent on abandoning my career path in favour of something artistic; drawing and painting had been a childhood love. I knew of Weta Workshop by their astounding practical effects work on The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. I naively sent them a portfolio in 2006 consisting of high-school art projects, illustration commissions and random sculptures. Something must have resonated with them and I was dropped…

For so many years, Weta Digital was associated almost solely with film visual effects. But in more recent times, the studio has applied its considerable feature film expertise to other areas of entertainment, including television, special venue projects and immersive experiences.> One unique immersive experience Weta Digital helped realise was part of the three-day Pharos music festival in Auckland, New Zealand, featuring Childish Gambino (aka Donald Glover). Here, a 3,000-strong audience, situated in a 160-foot-tall inflatable dome, witnessed the singer perform live while a raft of interactive moving imagery was projected around the venue. The concert came to life thanks to a partnership between Weta Digital and studio 2n Design. Real-time tools from Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, a VR testing approach and some serious projector power made the large-scale experience…

Follow the link to download your free files www.bit.ly/3DW-256 BUILD A RAYGUN IN UNITY The team at Weta Gameshop show you how they create fantastical augmented reality experiences for the Magic Leap headset, using Unity. RENDER LIKE PIXAR: PART 2 Download the assets for Part 2 of Rusty Hazelden’s RenderMan tutorial. Q&A The artists at Weta help you to overcome your CG problems with their years of experience. NEXT MONTH His Dark Materials, Houdini 18, Games Workshop and more! ON SALE 28TH JANUARY Subscribe today: www.bit.ly/3dworld-subs…