Artec has been involved in this for quite some time. Major blockbusters such as “Jurassic World”, “Terminator Genisys” and “Operation Zombie” have all utilised 3D scanning technology and obviously achieved great success with it. In the short or long term, however, the question arises as to whether it makes more economic sense to outsource such services or to use an in-house 3D scanner to create CGI props.
The former method
Visual Effects Director at FXTC Inc. Boyd Shermis opted for the second option for the production of “Fear the Walking Dead”, even though he had always outsourced the 3D scans required for numerous other well-known films such as “Speed”, “Just 60 Seconds” and “G.I. Joe – Secret Mission Cobra”. At that time, objects or even the actors themselves had to be sent to an external scanning service provider or the latter had to come directly to the studio. Although the results were always professional and of excellent quality, if you add up the scanning costs as well as export and import costs, the sums quickly add up. Not to mention the fact that the entire process usually takes a little time.
A different approach
However, the third season of “Fear the Walking Dead” changed this conventional method. A key factor in this was the filming location in Baja California, Mexico. From a logistical point of view alone, it would have been problematic to send the props from there to a studio in LA, especially as most of them were weapons. For this reason, Boyd bought his very own stripe light scanner on behalf of the TV channel AMC to produce the required 3D scans under his own roof. The choice fell on the Artec Space Spider 3D scanner. It may look like a bulky old iron at first, but the scanner made working on the set of “Fear the Walking Dead” much more pleasant. The VFX studio FXTC saved a lot of time and money and quickly realised that this was by no means a bad investment.
Other reasons for purchasing this particular model included resolution, user-friendliness, availability and, ultimately, the price. After all, the well-known series had to dig deep into the effects bag of tricks on more than one occasion. If a character had to be torn to pieces and shredded, it was scanned and placed in the scene. The same applied to all kinds of props, where it was not always possible to handle them and have them interact with the actors in the way the director might have wanted. So here, too, a copy had to be used.
The Artec Space Spider became Boyd’s new best friend. Over the course of 16 episodes, it scanned the faces of various actors, a forearm with a hand and a colourful, long series of props – mainly needed when something with a lot of blood was broken down into its individual parts in an appetising scene.
The process
As several hand props per week normally had to be scanned and prepared, an efficient and fast process was required. Affected objects were placed on a turntable with different markings. These visual cues made it much easier for the device to capture uniform surfaces. By registering the markings, the scanner knew at all times which part of the object it was currently scanning and where it was spatially located.
The markings were placed very precisely (green adhesive tape 1 cm apart, magenta-coloured tape had alphanumeric digits for differentiation) in order to achieve the best possible result. In addition, care was always taken to scan everything in the same soft, indirect room lighting (approx. 5,400 Kelvin) in order to minimise disruptive factors.
Preparation
Once the scanning process was complete, the post-processing began. Using the 3D modelling software Artec Studio, several scans of the object were registered and merged. Everything was then polished, errors were corrected and the turntable was finally deleted from the 3D image. The asset was then coloured and sent to Maya or 3ds Max as an .obj file before being added to the scene using VFX magic. “Most of the time, the different weapons are tracked and extended to make it look like they’re piercing the zombies’ skulls,” Boyd explained. Thank you, Boyd! But that’s nothing new anymore. If a scene has to be filmed with a knife, it is usually much shorter than what is ultimately visible on the screen. Then you have to track the movement of the knife pixel by pixel in order to change it afterwards.
The nice thing about scanned props is that it is already a digitally added object, which is why a CGI blade can be added much more easily and smoothly afterwards. The whole process was relatively straight-forward. It was important to have constant measurement units and to note exactly which lens was used at which time in order to always align it correctly with the grid. This grid mapping made it much easier to get an idea of the inherent lens distortion when visual effects were added. Since each lens was essentially unique, the grid could be used to determine exactly how much the VFX function needed to rectify (flatten) the image to facilitate tracking of the (flat) CGI model. Knowing the focal length and approximate focus distance was also helpful to know where and how the lens was focussed.
Was it worth it?
Overall, Boyd saved himself at least between $30,000 and $40,000 by using Artec Space Spider. The biggest point, however, remains time: not only the speed with which required scans could be produced, but also the flexibility to do so. Deadlines could easily be set and met internally without being affected by external factors (flights, customs duties, travelling time, etc.).
