Interstellar and Baymax at FMX

Archive notice: This article was originally published on February 24, 2015. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.

Renderers for Film Hits

The talks on the freshly Oscar-winning films "Interstellar" by Christopher Nolan and Disney’s "Baymax" (see also the current issue of DP) will take place as part of the "Lighting & Rendering Track". Olivier James is Chief Scientist at Double Negative and will explain how the virtual creation of wormholes was produced with the help of a relativistic, proprietary ray-tracing tool.

Brent Burley, Principal Software Engineer at Walt Disney Animation Studios, reveals how the features of Disney’s Hyperion renderer were used for the cuddly robot film "Baymax". This lecture series also illustrates how Weta Digital realised the effects for "Planet of the Apes: Revolution" (also read "The CG Apes Are Loose", DP issue 06/14). In particular, Head of Rendering Research Luca Fascione analyses the use of the physically based in-house renderer Manuka, which led to the photorealistic ape result and was also used primarily on the final part of the "Hobbit" series.

Lighting Supervisor Craig Welsh, on the other hand, will speak about the renderer developed in-house by Animal Logic for the animated hit "The Lego Movie" (see also "Lots of Colourful Bricks, DP issue 03/14).

The European Animation Scene

In the lecture series "Animation: The European Scene", which is devoted to European preproduction, there are is, for example, a talk on the Oscar-nominated animated film "Song of the Sea". The likewise Oscar-nominated short film "A Single Life" is the focus of a Maxon workshop.

Finding Dorie

The second part of the successful Pixar film "Finding Nemo" will be released in September 2016. At FMX, there will already be an exclusive insight this year into the renderer development of a new form of path tracing for "Finding Dorie". Further content already confirmed comes from the transmedia field, which this year will once again focus, among other things, on the Virtual Humans Forum.

You can find all further information about the "FMX 2015 Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Transmedia" here.

Image: Reiner Pfisterer