If you have already read the article in the magazine and are only looking for the code:

DigitalProductionCFX

To stand out on social media, everyone wants Hollywood, of course. That’s why the web is flooded with programmes and templates that supposedly allow you to generate “amazing” videos with just a few clicks. However, the variation options are usually limited and leave little room for creativity. That’s why you quickly realise which “awesome” videos have their origin in a template. If you want to create something really interesting, you have to show a little more “skill”. But you don’t always have to start from scratch.

In DP 01:21 (Inception in After Effects) we already presented some templates by Noel Powell. His latest collection of templates is called “Landscaper” and the name says it all. You can use his Trippy Effects for weird eye-catchers on social media and if you’re looking for interesting title animations that you can’t create with the usual title tools, you’ll be well served with the recently revised Text Effects. The Beasts feature various animated animals, Flags generates quite realistic flags and Glitch helps you shred videos
Videos. If you want to take a look right away: creationeffects.com
The basic structure of Noel’s templates is the same. Everything is packed into an After Effects composition. Here, too, work is carried out using only on-board tools, without the use of external plug-ins. This alone is a lesson in the potential of After Effects, even with the help of scripting.

Landscaper

Neal’s latest template collection is called Landscaper and the name says it all. This template can be used to create animated landscapes. With the help of the 3D layers staggered in the Z-axis, very beautiful parallax effects can be achieved. In addition to the 42 templates that can be modified down to the last detail, there is also a landscape construction kit, as is usual with Creation Effects. Noel has collected countless photos from free image portals and meticulously cut them out. These can be searched in the web browser and then dragged into the project from the local footage library. Noel has produced very clear tutorials to go with them. The included footage library alone, with around 1000 objects consisting of landscapes, mountains, plants and objects, which can of course also be used in other projects, would be worth the purchase. The compositions are very clearly laid out and come with many tips on the workflow. Of course, you shouldn’t expect photorealism. But the templates are well suited for animated illustrations for magazine programmes, backgrounds for virtual studios or video conferences or to spice up PowerPoint presentations.

Flags

What is actually not possible in After Effects, namely animating waving cloths, Noel has managed to do very realistically here with a few tricks. All the parameters of the “waving” can be modified down to the last detail and the flags are truly three-dimensional. There is an extensive collection of flag textures from all countries and of course there is also a pirate flag. The realistic representation is further refined by means of fabric textures. In addition, videos and any other graphic elements can also be used as textures. The appropriate wind and fluttering noises are also included. Due to the many 3D layers, the rendering times are quite high, but even with a lot of expertise in 3D software, such results are difficult to achieve. And the low price of the template of 25 dollars is quickly offset by the labour savings.

Creation Glitch Effects

In DP 03:18 “Creating a glitch title template for Premiere in After Effects” we had a workshop on creating a glitch template. The basis at that time was the extension of a tutorial by Andrew Kramer on Videocopilot.net. In the template, a similar technique was used to some extent, but the topic of glitches is covered here down to the smallest detail. Firstly, there are lots of pre-rendered glitch clips in the footage folder, which are also suitable for keying over in Premiere and are used here in some of the templates. Some of these are actually recorded, but Noel has also created them with the integrated “Glitch Generator”. Here, the fractal noise effect is used to generate glitches in greyscale and colour, which are superimposed in several layers using blending modes. There are also plenty of disturbing sound effects to match.

Creation Title Effects

This somewhat different title generator offers a lot that some expensive plugins cannot. There is something for every taste among the 200 templates. Even if the colour scheme is often a little “American colourful”, everything can be changed to your own taste, including the text, the font and the colours. The headings all have an initial animation. The spectrum ranges from “normal” graphic titles to those that cannot be created with a title programme. These include, for example, texts generated from sand, bubbles or other particles. 3D texts, metal texts with reflections, chalk, chrome, clay, clouds, ice, stone, fire, smoke and much more. For an overview, there is an online video and a PDF showing all 200 title templates.

Creation Trippy Effects

If you want to produce wacky music videos and social media clips, this is the right place for you
exactly the right place. There are not only colourful motion graphics backgrounds, but also very unusual effects. These are particularly suitable for music videos. Colours are played with, videos are melted and covered with jelly. They are also distorted and frozen line by line. However, these spectacular effects, which are created using time remapping and displacement maps, are very computationally intensive.

Conclusion

The tested templates were again a lot of fun. And thanks to Noel’s detailed tutorials, you always learn something new, because he makes no secret of how the templates are built and how they work. What’s more, Noel gives us a 25 per cent discount for our readers on the templates presented.

The code is: DigitalProductionCFX

The post Creation Effects – Kreative Templates! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Nils Calles.

David Morin is chairman of the Joint Technology Subcommittee on Virtual Production, past co-chair of the ASC-ADG-VES Joint Technology Subcommittee on Previsualization and he organized the first Academy Summit on Open Source Software on behalf of the Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

David earned a B.Sc.A. in computer science from Laval University (Quebec City, Canada) and has participated in the deve­lopment of motion capture and 3D software at companies such as Softimage, Microsoft, Avid Technology and Autodesk. Today he is president of David Morin, LLC, a consultancy specialising in immersive production, wor­king with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He works from Los Ange­les, California.

DP: When you did the survey for Academy of Motion Picture Arts, what was its goal?
David Morin: This survey was initiated by the Science and Technology Council, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences under the leadership of Rob Bredow, an Academy member who is also CTO of LucasFim. It was – basically – as a survey on Open Source Software (OSS) libraries. The reason we felt that this has become necessary was that
Libraries such as OpenEXR and Alembic and OpenSubDiv are used a lot in the production of movies, either inside products like Maya and Nuke or directly by production facilities in their various pipelines and in-house tools. The number of libraries has been growing, as well as the number of versions that are in use for each of the libraries. There have been some problems in production with OSS libraries, and the Academy wants to see if it could and should help – therefore the survey. As we did that, we discovered more about the vibrant OSS Community, the large number of libraries used in today’s pipelines, and it has been very helpful to gather information and to inform the decision how the Academy should react to it. This decision hasn’t been made, we are just gathering data so far.

DP: What could the Academy do?
David Morin: The range of possible actions after the survey is basically running the gamut between „Do nothing, open source is fine“ at one extreme and the other extreme is „There are problems the Academy can solve, and it should put together an organization that will solve those problems“.
Other suggestions were that the Academy could host a forum for all VFX- and Movie-People to exchange information, links, and resources. Or we should work together with an outside Foundation that has experience and a community that can help with the day-to-day challenges of Open Source Software.

DP: If you would work together with foundations for open source software, would the „special requirements“ of the VFX- and Studio-Industry be compatible with general IT-Solutions?
David Morin: I think so. For one, the VFX-Studios already use a lot of „general” IT Open Source Systems – databases, file hand­ling, Programming Languages and so forth. What we are talking about are the libraries that are developed specifically for the Motion Picture Business. And there is a number of examples of big foundations – such as the Linux foundation, the Apache Foundation and the Eclipse Foundation – that are providing customised environments for certain markets. For example, the Linux foundation has a big initiative around the car industry – they provide an open source environment for developments in that industry, called the Automotive Grade Linux (AGL).

DP: One big problem with the Motion Picture industry is constant change – but Open Source Libraries often „die“ – in the sense that they are no longer maintained, the owner or developer abandons the project and the last update is a decade ago. How could the Academy handle something like that?
David Morin: That is one thing to be solved – some of the most important libraries could be transferred to an organization that would own them and have the responsibility to manage them. This problem of ownership – either of losing an owner, or having an owner who is busy with other projects is one of the many problems we are facing. Thankfully so far, with the most important libra­ries the departing owner has been replaced by someone else – but we could do better. One solution for that could be a “Badge of Honour“ System, to incentivize companies to support OSS libraries. But I think, the better incentive is money. It is important to get an understanding of the unique challenges of “free” Open Source Software: The cost of development – the work hours of your programmers, user testing, Q&A and so forth – makes time the currency – in regards to fixing problems or enhancing libra­ries or upgrading – all this requires time. Any solution for those problems will require an investment from somewhere. When a company assigns someone to use or develop an OSS library, they take this person’s time away from something closer to the revenue stream of the company. So, often we found that shining a light on the value of Open Source Software, and positive reinforcement gets the company to say „Ok, we are very busy, but we will do something about the update of this library“. And with this process of the Academy doing a survey, it has in fact revived some OSS libraries that might have been lagging behind a bit – the simple fact of asking questions about it raised the priority of the work. We don‘t know where this will lead, but having a discussion was a great first step to rally everyone and share the understanding – and the value – of Open Source Software.

DP: In your talk, you showed the preliminary data about the most used libraries – in fifth place came an open standard that the Academy developed itself: ACES, the Academy Color Enco­ding System. Do you think that the Academy Logo and name in the title could help promote libraries, and therefore guide further development?
David Morin: Great question. ACES was developed by the Science and Technology Council of the Academy because there is a need for a standard to manage colour through the life cycle of movie and tv production. The goal was to develop a standard for the industry to use – and to see ACES coming up in this survey was interesting. If you think about it: Aces Version 1.0 was released just a couple of years ago, and it is already almost in mainstream use. People and companies use ACES because it is useful, but the
attached label does not hurt – As for mentioning or endorsing other libraries through the Academy: That is a possibility, but we are far from any decision.

DP: Obviously during the survey, you talked – both in the forms and in person – to a lot of different studios, vendors, producers, CTOs and freelancers all over the industry. With that in mind, could you give us some tips for implementing OSS libraries?
David Morin: Glad too! Firstly: Make sure you consult those two important resources and keep them close at hand: opensourcevfx.org – it is an excellent place to see what already exists – and the great VFX Reference Platform from the Visual Effects Society at vfxplatform.com, which lists most of the OSS libraries used in movie production today, and which versions are recommended to use right now.
Secondly: Read the license agreement in its entirety. Don‘t skip it or just skim over it – every software, commercial or open source, has a license agreement, and make sure you understand what you are signing. If you are only starting out, do your research – that invested time will help you down the line.
Thirdly: If you are a vendor who is relea­sing an application, a studio who is buil­ding a pipeline or anything else in between: make sure that you have a well-defined and structured development process – when you commit to an open source library, approach it is a living project, and plan to stay on top of future developments, upgrades, and changes. Adhere to good software develop­ment practice, and make sure that you are not limiting your future developments by using too many workarounds and getting locked into any particular version. If you are in charge of software development, make it easy for your engineers to use OSS libraries so that they don‘t do that in secret – if you are developing software, you probably are using OSS libraries already, so getting acquainted with the process and the licensing system isn’t that big of a stretch.
And a fourth tip: If you are developing with OSS, embrace the spirit – pretty much all libraries are on Github and have dedicated forums and message boards, where you can find answers to most of your questions – the community helping itself and each other is one of the major benefits of OSS.

DP: And with the survey itself: What will happen next?
David Morin: There was an Academy summit on Open Source Software in February, where some of the people who answered the survey got together and discussed the results and the potential actions to come. And during Siggraph 2017 we will hold a
second meeting, where the state of the data – including the answers we gathered here at FMX – are going to be discussed. We are hoping to hear from existing Foundations about the type of service they could provide to help with Open Source in the Motion Pictures. The investigation continues.

The post The open libraries of Hollywood first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Harry Potter’s school years in book and film form were incredibly successful. As author J.K. Rowling put an end to the adventures of the sorcerer’s apprentice after volume 7, the reliably lucrative box office results of the franchise failed to materialise. So a new corner was reached for, and the fictional encyclopaedia of mythical creatures became the story basis for a new film series.

Rowling had already published the two small volumes “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” and “Quidditch Throughthe Ages” under a pseudonym in 2001; she wrote the animal encyclopaedia under the author’s name Newt Scamander. Both books are standard reading at Hogwarts School in the Harry Potter novels. Rowling wrote the story of the creation of the encyclopaedia about Newt Scamander and his magical creatures, which is set 70 years before Harry’s lifetime, in screenplay form. The first “Fantastic Beasts” part was released in cinemas in Germany on 16 November 2016; the film was released on DVD and Bluray in April 2017.

For the spin-off, numerous full CG creatures had to be created that deviated visually from the norm. Double Negative, Framestore, Rodeo FX, Milk VFX, Image Engine and Cinesite were the VFX studios involved in the project.

Creatures at MPC

MPC realised over 220 VFX shots for the film; the VFX supervisor for the team was Ferran Domenech (“Legend of Tarzan”, “Godzilla”). MPC is already experienced in creating magical effects, as the studio was part of the VFX crew for all 8 previous Harry Potter films. For “Fantastic Beasts”, MPC created the titles including the Warner Bros. logo, various crowd and environment extensions as well as the Manhattan environment when Newt arrives in NY by ferry. The most complex task, however, was to bring the three creatures Demiguise, Billiwig and Occamy to life – including all the destructions that his enormous ability to grow brings with it.

The film was mainly shot at Leavesden Studios in north-west London, where the other parts of the Harry Potter saga were also created. Some other original plates, such as the one in the shopping centre where Demiguise and Occamy are hiding, were filmed in Birmingham.

Monkey with silver curls

Demiguise – a small monkey-like creature that can turn invisible and read the future – was the first creature MPC worked on for the project. The team used the specially developed FurtilityGroom technology combined with simulated cloth geometry strands to create his long, silver-coloured hair. These allowed for natural hair movement and interaction with the creature’s limbs and the environment. To create the effect of Demiguise becoming invisible, the Furtility team developed a new texture projection tool that allowed the background images to be painted over the fur and moved realistically. Demiguise’s facial and body movements were animated with keyframes.

Feathered giant snake

The most complicated creature, however, was the feathered serpent Occamy, which has wings and a dragon-like face. Occamy is always as big as the space that surrounds it – in the case of the hall-like department stores’, the magical creature had to wrap itself around the roof beams and look incredibly long. To achieve this, the asset team created five different variations of the body. The enormous body was also divided into different parts so that the space could be completely filled and the carefully designed composition adjusted in each shot.

For the realisation of Occamy, the team refined the SnakeRigging technology previously developed for the Harry Potter films, with a snake body covered in feathers providing an additional challenge that was overcome using MPC’s Furtility tool. The creature’s complex transformation performance, ranging in size from a house to a mouse, was achieved by customising the Furtility tool to allow Occamy to scale interactively.

In the sequence, Newt scares Occamy, causing it to get caught in the roof structure of the department stores’ and destroy the building as it tries to free itself. For this scene, MPC built a detailed set extension of the attic including beams, screws and nails, wood panelling and an outer layer of shingles. The team realised the destruction effects of the CG set using the studio’s own destruction technology Kali.

Dinner at Cinesite

Cinesite realised around 100 VFX shots for “Fantastic Beasts” – including the scene in which Newt enters the magical world with the help of his suitcase, various New York CG environments and the entire dinner sequence in the Goldstein apartment. The project kicked off at the beginning of 2016, after which a small but permanent team worked continuously until the end of September 2016 to complete the shots. Like MPC, Cinesite was also on board as a VFX service provider for all previous Harry Potter films; the studio has already worked on a total of 2,000 shots for the series.

Cinesite supervisor on the project was Andrew (aka Andy) Morley, who has been working in the digital film industry since early 2000. He was involved in “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” as technical supervisor. His other projects include “Batman Begins”, “Transformers”, “Avatar” and “Gods of Egypt”.

DP: Post-production for the first “Harry Potter” instalments took place more than 15 years ago. How has working on the film series changed for you in the meantime?

Andy Morley: The technology and artist skill base that we were able to draw on for the fantastic beasts is much more mature and reliable compared to the earlier Potter days. Today it can deliver any effect imaginable, so the challenge is increasingly to create visually compelling VFX work that audiences around the world have never seen before. The expertise and skillset available in the UK guarantees that the films will look great across the entire franchise.

DP: How did you realise the scenes where Newt disappears into the magical world through the suitcase?

Andy Morley: One of the key sequences involving the suitcase took place inside the Goldstein flat. In it, Jacob hesitates to jump into the suitcase after Newt. Partly because it is much more difficult for him than for the slender Newt due to his girth. As was to be expected, he gets stuck and then tries to slide out by moving up and down. The original plate for this was shot using a real suitcase with Dan Fogler’s legs sticking into the floor. As the prop suitcase on set was a slightly different size to the one Newt jumps through, it had to be replaced with a full CG suitcase for this scene.

A lot of our work involved removing Dan’s legs via painting and cleaning, as well as rebuilding the floor when the suitcase bounces into the air on top of it. Additional cleaning was required to bend and manipulate Jacob’s arms to convincingly close the scaled-down edges of the CG suitcase. To enhance the realistic look, we added interactive shadows to the environment. The final result required a lot of back and forth between the colour grading, compositing and animation departments. The animations were ultimately driven by the actor’s movements on set, while the compositing artists placed the CG suitcase in the shots. By giving the suitcase more dynamic movements, we gave it the impression of having a will of its own. As there were relatively few suitcase shots, warping and deforming effects in the compositing, supported by some 2D adjustments, allowed us to achieve the final results. Some subtle dust effects with each bounce on the floor gave the weight and impact of the suitcase a convincing feel.

DP: How was the NY environment created?

Andy Morley: A key sequence of our work in this regard was the view from the window of the Goldstein flat over New York City. We created set extensions for this, which consisted of a mix of rendered 3D buildings, projected 3D building details and matte paintings. We created the background using references (texture photos, lidar scans and building photographs) from New York in the 1920s and 1930s. Another CG environment of this type was created for a later situation in the film, in which Newt and Tina stand on the edge of a New York rooftop. The realistic dark night lighting for this sequence, in which the action taking place is still legible, had to be finely balanced. As the scene was filmed entirely in green screen, it took many hours of work before the night-time full CG cityscape behind the actors looked believable.

DP: You were responsible for the entire dinner sequence in the Goldstein flat. How did you realise the self-drying clothes?

Andy Morley: In this sequence, the injured Jacob is brought into the Goldstein flat at the beginning. There, he is startled by clothes on a drying rack that rotate automatically. This was originally filmed as a live-action scene with real clothes on wires. However, the production later decided that the scenes did not look fluid enough and that they should be replaced with CG objects. The design of the clothes horse was also changed to vertical rods. The garments were realised in eight shots using a mix of animation and cloth simulation with Maya and nCloth.

DP: And Queenie’s magic dress that wraps itself around her?

Andy Morley: The full CG dress had to be seamlessly integrated into the environment shots, while the actress wears the real version of the dress in some shots. A believable implementation was complicated because cloth software is usually used to replicate the behaviour of a real-world cloth material. However, this world is a magical one, so Queenie’s dress had to behave unconventionally. Actress Alison Sudol played the scene with the full CG dress in her underwear – the digital dress was animated with a complex Maya rig that allowed for adjustments to the dress to match the movement and realistic deformations in the Cloth simulation. Shape problems could be solved using extensive geometry sculpting. As the real fabric material of the dress did not react particularly well to the real lighting, it was optimised for the final look with a more interesting finish in Nuke.

DP: Then dinner is served – all the ingredients fly through the air, prepare themselves and land on the table. How did you proceed for this sequence?

Andy Morley: An exact choreography was defined for the numerous flying CG objects such as bowls, plates, apples, napkins, cutlery and glass jars. All the objects on the laid table are also full CG. In one shot you can see a jug of cloudy lemonade, the contents of which were not animated with a fluid simulation, but with a deforming effect of the surface. Even the candles are CG, we have complemented them with a manipulated flame element. We also changed the real lighting a little. In particular the one on Jacob to reduce the harshness of the initial lighting on his face – this created an interactive lighting effect. The highlight of the dinner is the apple strudel: all the ingredients swirl around in front of Jacob’s face, the fruit wraps itself in layers of dough before everything is baked to a crispy brown and the cake sinks to the centre of the table, ready to be eaten. We created this shot with customised FX and used Houdini for stronger deformations. The animation was created with Maya, shading was done with Arnold. As we wanted to give the whirlpool a photorealistic look, the team wrote new shaders for it and developed various render-related sequences for the animation of the surface baking in the air. We turned all render settings to 11 for this.

DP: How did the compositing work with the numerous CG elements?

Andy Morley: We realised it with Nuke 9.0v5. Each shot in this sequence required individual 3D models and shaders as well as complex animated textures and displacements. Additional BlendShapes ensured that the overall shape of the pastry could shrink slightly during the baking process; heat distortion effects were added in Nuke. The different objects – some with transparent surfaces with a refraction effect – and the lighting situation on set with many different light sources that had to be recreated in the 3D scene made working on the sequence extremely complex.

DP: How was the collaboration with the other studios involved?

Andy Morley: We shared some shots of the sequence where Newt and Tina are talking on the roof of a New York building with Framestore. Tim Burke was the supervisor for this scene, which was filmed entirely in front of a green screen, and for us it was the last shots for the project in the pipeline. Framestore put Newt’s full CG pet Bowtruckle, called Pickett, on his shoulder, we in turn handed over the 3D layout and lighting setup to Framestore for about half of the shots. Lighting, look and grading were crucial in the edit. We compensated for the lighting in the original plate; the basis for the CG city was a single 3D scene, which was later also used as a digital matte painting and adjusted by the compositors for different camera angles. Double Negative provided us with building assets, which we further developed for the respective shots.

DP: Will you be part of the VFX team again for the next “Fantastic Beast” instalment?

Andy Morley: I really hope so, especially as Cinesite has been involved in all the films based on J.K. Rowling’s books so far. We have a good relationship with the creatives involved in the realisation of the franchise. We would love to help bring more magical effects to the big screen.

Links

“Fantastic Beasts” trailer
youtu.be/Vso5o11LuGU

MPC website
www.moving-picture.com

Cinesite website
www.cinesite.com

Behind the Scenes “Fantastic Beasts”
youtu.be/v00xz7oB3MY

The post So much cattle stuff! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Mirja Fürst.

VFX supervisor Martyn Culpitt, asset supervisor Barry Poon and R&D lead Andrew Kaufman all gained experience in creating large CG creatures that no longer exist on “Jurassic World”. Here, the three reveal the challenges they faced with the fantastic beasts.

DP: What key skills did the production team use to decide that Image Engine were right for the job?
Martyn Culpitt: After “Jurassic World”, Warner Bros. approached us with the “Fantastic Beasts” enquiry. We had created almost all the raptor shots and they were very impressed with the result. Warner Bros. was looking for a studio that was able to realise complex creatures that required a lot of thought to bring them to life. Something we love to do at Image Engine.

DP: What specific challenges did the Graphorn family present you with?
Martyn Culpitt: Many, across all departments. Mainly because they were so large in scale but still had to fit into the Fantastic Beasts landscape. The original concept for the Graphorns was drastically changed during the animation process. It was difficult to make the CG animals look like a rhino and look like a lion at the same time. Finding the balance was complicated, but also a lot of fun.
Barry Poon: From an asset point of view, the complexity of the skin and the look that goes with it was a big challenge. The family had to look predominantly like a rhinoceros in terms of body strength, muscles and skin. Ultimately, however, the graphorns were to be based on many different real animals. Mixing all these animal species was very challenging. Fortunately, even though each member of the Graphorns family is unique, we were able to reuse some of the elements for the three family members.

DP: How did working on the Graphorns differ from working on the Jurassic World dinosaurs? What was more difficult and why?
Martyn Culpitt: In some ways this project was more complicated because we were working partly with dinosaur limbs on Jurassic World. We had a 3D model that was already finished and we rebuilt our own asset for our pipeline. In terms of the movements and the science behind them, we were able to use the first part of the film as a reference; with the graphorns, on the other hand, we had to start from scratch. So it took some time to get everything right. We played a lot with the concepts to give the family the right look – including complicated details such as the male’s horn. Funnily enough, this is based on that of a horned caterpillar. During the design process, we picked up many small elements from the real world. The most interesting thing was to make something that nobody has ever seen before appear real.

DP: Did you use the same pipeline for “Fantastic Beasts” as for “Jurassic World”? Was it expanded?
Andrew Kaufman: Yes, we used Houdini, Jabuka, Shotgun, Caribou, Gaffer, Nuke and Maya – all of these tools were used in Jurassic World. We also tested new software, such as the muscle simulation system Ziva and the Vital Skin system. The Maya plug-in Ziva is developed and distributed by Ziva Dynamics and is a muscle system based on the finite element method. We were among the beta testers of Ziva – in the course of which we decided to use it for the Graphorns. Vital Skin is developed by Vital Mechanics; it is also a Maya plug-in for which we were beta testers.

DP: How did the animation of the graphorns go and how did the plug-ins perform?
Martyn Culpitt: The graphorns were built in three stages: We did the animation in Maya, then we ran the muscle and connective tissue simulation over it based on our muscle cache and added simulation as a secondary movement. I think the use of the plug-ins helped to increase the believability of the muscles and simulations and their interaction. In cases where the muscles needed to be more legible, sculpting was added. The plug-ins are great products, but not yet perfect – once the simulation was running, the team spent a lot of time cleaning up certain areas of the shot. What’s great about the system is that you get an animation that does different things. However, the animals still have a very complex setup, as the fantasy creatures are made up of elements from real animal models, whose body parts had to move in relation to each other in a believable way.

DP: What challenges were there in Swooping Evil?
Martyn Culpitt: The rigging and construction of this creature were particularly complex. Swooping Evil had to be able to unfold from the size of an avocado to a wingspan of over a metre. We needed some time to be able to switch between these two states with the rig and to find out how to do this.
Barry Poon: Its head consists of a skull – blending this into the rest of the body was not easy. Finding the transparency of the wings and the right look for them was also exciting when realising Swooping Evil.
Martyn Culpitt: It also has a tail that wraps around Newt’s fingers so he can fling it like a yo-yo. Together with the client, we went through an extensive iteration process and many variations of movement were discarded until we finalised how he should act. I think the idea that he can suck people’s brains out is very funny. We are all very happy with his performance in the film.

DP: How did you approach Porpentina’s memory sequence in the water chair?
Martyn Culpitt: It was created using Houdini and the 3Delight render engine. In this sequence we spent the most time designing the magic liquid. It needed to be a bubbling, tar-like mass that was highly reflective. The client also wanted the simulation to run backwards so that the bubbles would reverse – which was a lengthy process. Two months before the end of the project, the client decided that the look should be changed again: In the final, approved sequence, the black tar potion was to become mercury-like. Achieving these characteristics presented us with major challenges. In particular, the desired timing and the rotation of the liquid around the chair proved to be complex to realise. The previous, mainly simulation-based approach was relatively difficult to control and therefore slow – which was not compatible with the time frame available to us. Instead, we solved the problem in our own way using procedural, noise-based modelling techniques, the output of which was then used to steer the simulations in the desired direction. Once the timing and scale of the potion was finalised, we added secondary simulations to make it look like drops of water running down faces.

DP: Why did you choose 3Delight for the rendering?
Andrew Kaufman: The main reason Image Engine has been using 3Delight for so long: Our relationship with the development team is very good. They provide us with exceptionally good support, including bug fixes or complete feature rebuilds, depending on the schedule. Nowadays most renderers have a physics-based shading approach – but sometimes the advantages for efficiency are not so much decided by technology, but by the right relationships.

DP: Which Image Engine CG creations will we be seeing in the cinema soon?
Martyn Culpitt: We are currently working on “Power Rangers” and have completed the Wolverine film “Logan”. You can also see creatures from us there: Humans. Readers will understand what we mean when they watch the films. The complexity of the effects for “Logan” in particular pushed our pipeline to its limits compared to our work on previous projects.

image-engine.com

The post Meet the Graphorns first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Mirja Fürst.

A robot walks towards a black-painted grand piano. Orchestral music begins and transforms the road tunnel into a stage. The robot begins to play the grand piano. Its movements are fluid, similar to those of a human being. Nevertheless, its mechanical construction is clearly visible. Transparent components in the back and neck area allow a glowing orange cable to shine through – it brings the robot to life and gives it energy. At the same time, the materials are reminiscent of components in modern vehicles, reflecting the future of car paintwork. I was able to accompany this film as Senior VFX Producer/Consultant – and this is how the project went.

by Dominic André Bitu

This advertising film for the automobile company BMW was produced by Hochkant Film GmbH & Co KG under the direction of Knut Burgdorf. The company brought Mackevision Medien Design GmbH from Stuttgart on board as VFX partner for the animation of the robot. Hochkant director Knut Burgdorf and Mackevision VFX supervisor Juri Stanossek had already successfully realised various projects together in the automotive sector. In spring 2016, this film idea was to be realised for BMW at short notice.

Phase 1: Filming

Filming for the advertising film took place in Los Angeles. A film team from Hochkant shot the film in a tunnel there. At the same time, Mackevision’s VFX team was already working on the design of the robot. During filming, a stand-in model took on the role of the future robot. A real actress made it possible to capture the movements of the later CG character precisely in the framing and scene lighting. Because the environment contains enough natural tracking makers (tunnel, road, wings), no separate markers were necessary. This meant that the director could specify the movements precisely, which shortened the downstream animation time.

To make it easier to read the body movements later, the stand-in model was filmed wearing a catsuit. “In this case, the downstream CG production requires less creative animation and more rotomation, which is much faster to execute. The original human movements are simply adapted to the digital robot and the result looks very real,” explains Juri Stanossek, VFX supervisor at Mackevision. The director instructed the actress precisely during filming and was thus able to control when the character sits down at the piano, when she raises her arms and starts playing, how she holds or turns her head and much more. Due to the tight production schedule, this simple production method meant that the coordination loops with the director could be kept short.
In order to be able to edit the backplates digitally later, it was important to document the environment visually on location. HDRI photos were therefore taken of all sections, corners and angles of the tunnel. They provide comprehensive information about the lighting conditions, as this is the only way to reproduce the lighting situation digitally on a one-to-one basis. This was particularly important as the robot’s shiny materials needed to have realistic reflections.

Phase 2: Creation of the robot

Even before filming began, Mackevision received a detailed briefing from the director on how the robot should look. Its look should symbolise future technologies and innovations, but at the same time convey a familiar, humanoid feeling in order to briefly transport the viewer into a harmonious vision of the future. Based on the director’s brief, concept art and a collection of mood images were created to quickly visualise the character.
“The character had to be likeable, not too crazy, but still appeal to the future,” explains Stanossek. The “detailing” of the CG character was therefore important and the robot also had to fit in with the customer and their corporate communication and visual language.

Once the design had been approved by the customer, the next step was to model the robot. For example, the look and shape of the face as well as the materiality were adapted and fine-tuned. We tested real materials such as plastic, porcelain and silicone. Good communication, precise instructions from the director and close coordination with the customer were necessary here in order to jointly develop the different variants into the perfect robot.

“We only had just over two weeks for the complete production of the CG character, from the first draft to the finalised and rigged robot. The visual demands were extremely high, which we are used to from our daily work on car productions or feature films – we didn’t have to adapt our pipeline, which is designed for commercials and feature films. And with Nuke, 3ds Max, Maya, V-Ray and 3D Equaliser, we are flexible and have robust tools in our hands,” notes VFX producer Marina Winter, who was responsible for producing the VFX production and, among other things, for coordinating and liaising with Hochkant Film as well as time management.

A whole series of questions had to be clarified. How transparent should the robot be in the end? What materials should be visible? Plastic, porcelain or metal – with a matt or glossy finish? Where should it be transparent and where should it be more opaque? Senior artist David Anastacio assigned all these material properties to the robot’s components. Attention was also paid to the mechanics. The elbows, spine and joints had to function as if the robot had actually been built in reality. Accordingly, all exterior parts of the robot, but also the only partially visible interior parts, had to be rigged and made animatable.

The underlying rig was relatively simple, as it didn’t have to be able to do much – the robot was excellently prepared by the precise set work. We then animated with Maya and exported the animation to 3ds Max with Alembic. No other additional tools were used. The HDRIs were used for the 3D reconstruction of the tunnel.

Phase 3: Animation of the robot (post-production)

While the assets for the CG character were being created, the unedited plates were being edited in parallel. Two weeks after filming, Mackevision received the final edited versions for shot production. The individual shots were entered by the Mackevision editorial team under the direction of Tobias Pfeiffer and synchronised with the parallel editing with Hochkant Film. The shots then went into the matchmove, which the so-called “Parallaxman” did with a high degree of speed and perfection – we outsource this step because we don’t have a matchmove artist internally.
The environment – i.e. the tunnel – was built as a low-poly environment and textured using the photos from the set. The character was then textured and shaded. The robot was then animated – again by Maya using Alembic in 3ds Max.
The gait, gaze and piano playing of the stand-in actress were transferred one-to-one to the robot. The piano also had to be recreated in 3D in order to correctly calculate the shadows that the robot casts on the keys, for example, as well as the movements of the keys themselves in space. Once the animation had been approved by the customer, the project went into rendering. The rendering was done in V-Ray. A very high “A-over-B” quality was aimed for and achieved in order to keep the compositing time as short as possible. “In the final step, our compositing artist worked on the photorealistic integration of the robot,” says Stanossek.
After just 15 days, the final robot shots were delivered to Hochkant Film for integration into the BMW advertising film. “This very short overall processing time from shooting to delivery of the VFX shots was only possible thanks to close hand-in-hand working and fast approval processes and coordination,” concludes Stanossek.

The making-of video for the advertising film can be seen on Vimeo bit.ly/BMW_Roboter_Mackevision

The post Music of the future at BMW first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.