Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 21, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
From golden missions to untamed landscapes – Autodesk technology was used to create complex digital characters, environments and visual effects and to perform digital colour grading for the season’s best films. Studios using Autodesk solutions include Sony Pictures Imageworks, Framestore CFC, Rainmaker UK, Luma Pictures Inc. and EFILM, a division of Deluxe Laboratories, Inc.
Marc Petit, Senior Vice President at Autodesk Media & Entertainment: “The Christmas season is a special time for filmmakers and cinema lovers alike. Technology from Autodesk makes this possible – because it enhances the film experience. Artists can create magical stories that audiences look forward to year after year. Audience appetite for digital visual effects – from subtle, barely visible effects to breathtaking scenes – continues to grow from year to year, and Autodesk is proud to be the leading provider of the creative tools that bring human imagination to life.”
EFILM is a worldwide leading studio for digital intermediate processes in film and TV. EFILM’s EWORKS colour-grading system, consisting of a proprietary configuration of Autodesk Lustre and Autodesk Incinerator, was used to perform digital colour grading for numerous films this Christmas season, including: “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium”, “No Country for Old Men”, “I Am Legend”, “Charlie Wilson’s War”, “The Great Debaters”, “The Spiderwick Chronicles”, “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”, “The Comebacks”, “Rendition”, “Borderland”, “Lions for Lambs”, “Southland Tales”, “Lust, Caution”, “In the Valley of Elah”, “The Seeker: The Dark is Rising”, “Across the Universe”, “The Brave One” and “Good Luck Chuck”.
Framestore CFC, headquartered in London, used the Autodesk Maya modelling, animation and rendering software and Autodesk Inferno for visual effects to shape “The Golden Compass”, a fantasy film about epic missions between parallel universes. “Autodesk Maya was used as part of our visual-effects pipeline to create and light all the difficult polar environments with ice and snow shots in the film,” says Laurent Hugueniot, CG Supervisor at Framestore CFC. The studio also used Maya to create and animate all shots of a massive armoured polar bear that takes on one of the heroic roles in the film. “With its far-reaching flexibility, Maya has always proved to be an excellent package for us, enabling easy and efficient integration of our in-house tools and other packages within our pipeline.”
Maya was also used by post-production studio Rainmaker UK for “The Golden Compass”. The studio’s artists used custom shaders to model, manipulate, animate and light computer-generated (CG-) doubles in Maya. The software was used, for example, to create one of the film’s chase scenes in which two Samoyed warriors plunge over a cliff into an immeasurable abyss to their deaths.
Paddy Eason, Visual Effects Supervisor at Rainmaker, explains the studio’s work on “The Golden Compass”: “For ‚The Golden Compass’ we used Maya very frequently. We used the upper area of the cliff and the distant mountainous horizon of the original image and extended the landscape downward into the depths. The warriors were completely replaced by digital doubles, and the original camera movement was replaced by a CG movement that increased the slope of the rock. Animated noise deformers for the 3D geometry helped simulate fast fabric and wind dynamics. In addition, extra snow-particle effects were developed to add interaction with the environment.”
Sony Pictures Imageworks used Maya and Autodesk Flame for visual effects to help shape the science-fiction thriller “I Am Legend” about the last man on Earth. “Autodesk Flame is an important tool at Imageworks for creating live-action and CG films,” says Senior Lead Flame Artist Lisa Deaner. “In the case of ‚I Am Legend’, it was difficult to stage and match the numerous integrated layers, particularly because of the complicated scenery of fast street scenes in New York. The CG deer, plants and ageing elements all had to be accurately integrated and prioritized. With its Tracker, Paint, Modular Keyer and Sparks functions, Flame helped us overcome these challenges effortlessly. Flame is the universal solution for complex, problematic composite shots and the accompanying subtleties.”
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