Archive notice: This article was originally published on August 25, 2009. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Autodesk takes its hat off to hundreds of artists from around the world who worked together to create nearly 1,500 visual effects shots for the action-packed film “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra”, released this summer. The Autodesk solutions used to create the visual effects for GI Joe include Autodesk Flame, Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Softimage, Autodesk MotionBuilder, Autodesk Mudbox and Autodesk FBX software.
“Encouraging creative collaboration is a central element of our software development strategy,” explained Stig Gruman, Vice President of Digital Entertainment at Autodesk Media & Entertainment. “‘G.I. Joe’ is a perfect example of the success of our strategy. This film showcases the work of six extremely talented visual effects studios, all of which used a range of Autodesk tools to complete this enormous project successfully while delivering astonishing visual results.”
Digital Domain (Hollywood) – A team of 175 worked for over a year to create 320 visual effects (VFX) shots for two important film sequences – a chase scene in Paris culminating in the destruction of the Eiffel Tower, and another scene featuring a massive convoy attack. Digital Domain relied on Maya as its tool for core animation, modelling, lighting, character scripting and rigging, and on Mudbox for modelling sketches. Animation Supervisor Bernd Angerer explained: “The Eiffel Tower was transformed into a huge model consisting of millions of polygons with an extreme level of detail. Using Maya, we were able to control this massive data load and accomplish the task. Maya is incredibly powerful in many ways, but the ability to integrate this software into a pipeline is the truly decisive factor for success.”
CIS (Hollywood and Vancouver) – For 265 shots in five film sequences, resulting in over 20 minutes of footage full of visual effects, CIS drew on an entire arsenal of Autodesk solutions to handle a variety of tasks, including hard-surface modelling, digital stunt doubles and virtual environments (GI Joe headquarters, the Sahara Desert, the energy rod, an underwater obstacle course and an Arctic ice cap). “The film really is bigger than big, and I simply could not imagine realising such a complex presentation without Maya and Flame,” said Bryan Hirota, CIS VFX Supervisor. “Alongside Maya, we used 3ds Max and the FumeFX plug-in to make creating and rendering dynamic fire and smoke easier. We also used MotionBuilder to process motion-capture data and Flame for complex 2½D and 3D compositing.”
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MPC (The Moving Picture Company) (London) – MPC created 168 VFX shots, most of which were used for an epic action sequence on a gigantic underwater rock surface. The entire environment is completely digital. Greg Butler, MPC VFX Supervisor and head of a 100-strong arist team, explained: “Having already worked on ‘Poseidon’ with Boyd Shermis, the VFX Supervisor for ‘G.I. Joe’, we knew we were in good hands. For this film, we relied on Maya as our main tool, using Mudbox for metal bulges and MotionBuilder for some motion-capture tasks. Autodesk solutions have become the industry standard, making it easier for our internal research and development team to program application-specific code. Thanks to FBX, we did not have to program special scripts or perform elaborate tightrope acts to exchange data, which ultimately made the work process considerably easier.”
Prime Focus VFX (formerly Frantic Films VFX – Hollywood, Winnipeg, Vancouver) – The 55-strong Prime Focus team delivered 124 VFX shots making extensive use of previsualisation, digital environments, fluid simulations and particle rendering. In the action-packed finale, for which Prime Focus’s work was primarily used, viewers are shown an aircraft eaten away by so-called nanomites (a high-tech weapon for breaking down metal), an enormous digital environment and stunning 3D cloud and sky environments. Chris Bond, Senior VFX Supervisor and President of Prime Focus VFX, explained: “3ds Max and Maya were our tools of choice. Using 3ds Max, we constructed a special animation pipeline with our proprietary volumetric particle renderer Krakatoa to render the billions upon billions of particles needed to depict the nanomite swarm.”
CafeFX (Santa Maria) – “It was really exciting to be involved in bringing a great American icon to the screen,” said Seth Lippman, CG (Computer Graphics) Supervisor at CafeFX. The 50-strong artist team created over 100 shots, including the complex organic transformations of the faces of the main characters Destro, Zartan and NeoViper. He added: “We used Maya for character animation and camera matchmoving, and Softimage for CG animation effects and lighting. We were particularly pleased with the dynamic Softimage ICE (Interactive Creative Environment) engine and its ability to run simulations in multiple threads. Softimage and mental ray are integrated with each other, which in practice provides a smooth transition between effects and lighting. The best thing about using Maya and Softimage together is the flexibility that allows us to use the tools best suited to the respective talent pool.”
Framestore (London) – Framestore created numerous enormous environment shots used in the film – a helicopter taking off from an air base in Afghanistan, a matte painting of Paris, a huge underground missile silo and a CG aircraft carrier on stormy seas. “This film required extensive Python scripting to carry out our tasks precisely,” said Jon Thum, VFX Supervisor at Framestore. He added: “Maya’s real advantage lies in its customisable scripting functionality. Maya is so flexible and extensible that it is already deeply integrated into our pipeline and has become our tool of choice.”
