Video Progetti Srl

via: genarts.com

GenArts Sapphire™ per Autodesk, pilastri nella realizzazione di Avatar

La Post-Produzione: Hydraulx VFX, Santa Monica, Calif.
Hydraulx VFX opened its doors in 2002 with five full-time employees. With a promise to “hire the best artists, and keep them armed with the latest tools and technology available,” Hydraulx is now 100-strong and thrives as a formidable player in the commercial, video and feature-film industries. A mainstay tool: GenArts Sapphire for Autodesk.

L'Artista: Erik Liles, Visual Effects Supervisor
One of Hydraulx’s original employees, 15-year industry veteran Erik Liles serves as Visual Effects Supervisor and Flame artist. He’s spearheaded visual effects work on feature films such as Syriana, 300 and Academy Award-winning The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Liles’ first Flame came equipped with GenArts Sapphire, and since 1999, he’s hard-pressed to think of a comp he’s done without it.

Sapphire is the bread-and-butter tool we rely on most. It’s so integral to our pipeline. From the simplest to the most complex comps, we consistently count on it to achieve the look we’re striving for.

Il Progetto: Avatar
James Cameron’s latest film Avatar tells the story of Jake, an ex-Marine who becomes enmeshed in a fight to take over the moon Pandora – home to the indigenous Na’vi people. Convinced to transform into an avatar – a human mind in an alien body – Jake infiltrates the Na’vi and is soon torn between two words, culminating in a desperate fight to save himself and the natives of Pandora. With more than $1 billion earned worldwide in just three weeks, the science-fiction epic is currently the highest grossing film of all time. And it’s no wonder: Aside from its gripping story line, the wildly popular film – shot entirely in 3D --boasts some of the most brilliant special effects artistry ever seen on the big screen.

La Sfida: Rendere la CG credibile
There’s no doubt that Avatar has pushed the limits of visual effects. Artists working on the movie were tasked with not only creating an entire world from scratch, but also working with a whopping 12 CG characters, all of whom are photo-realistic. As part of that endeavor, it was crucial that every detail looked authentic – from the lush forest background to the intricate face masks worn by the humans. Therein lay some of Liles’ biggest challenges.

“Anything that comes directly out of CG is super crisp and sharp,” explained Liles. “It just looks fake – nothing in the real world is that razor-sharp.”

La Soluzione: GenArts Sapphire
Due to the heavy CG nature of Avatar and a goal to ensure anything CG in the film appeared real, Liles and his team relied exclusively on GenArts Sapphire for the 50 or so shots they worked on. “Sapphire takes the edge off,” said Liles. “It just makes everything CG look more realistic.”

The scene in which Jake and a wounded Dr. Augustine fly over the forest by helicopter is a good example of Sapphire’s use. Since the spectacular forest background was fully computer-generated, everything was first rendered out in stereo using ZDepth queuing and ZDefocus. Blur and Atmosphere were then added, and finally, Glows were used to enhance the bioluminescent quality of the forest. Liles added that the background in the opening shots, where Jake’s brother is in the crematorium, was also CG – all digital set extensions.

Liles said seamlessly integrating anything CG into the scenes required the same attention to detail, and cited the shots in the cryo-vault when Jake wakes up on Pandora. “Because Avatar was shot on a Pro-Mist filter, which adds a kind of fog and softens the images on screen, we had to make sure CG characters matched the quality of the original footage the actors were shot on,” he said. He employed Sapphire’s Softfocus, ZDefocus, Glows, Blurs and Distorts Sparks to ensure anything CG looked as if it was actually shot in the scene.

The face masks, seen throughout the movie, were digitally created as well, not actually shot. This complex process began by shooting the footage with tracking markers on the face masks. Next, in 3D, the markers were used to regenerate the glass surface of each mask and track them in. Then, in 2D, the tracking markers were removed. The layers were comped in, and a reflection pass, a glass pass, a breath pass and a lighting pass were all applied. Finally, all the layers were put together using Sapphire’s Glow and Distort.

“Distort was used to create the lensing or warping effect on just the edges of the mask,” Liles explained. “For example, when the actor wearing the CG mask turns his head, one would expect to see a slight distortion on the edges of the mask. Sapphire Distort helped us achieve this.”

Curiously, Liles says Sapphire is used for more than just creating spectacular visual effects; rather, it helps find tracking problems in final scenes. “One thing we use a lot is the Grid Spark. We layer it over backgrounds and such to see if there are any tracking errors, and then we turn it off for the final render. It’s not used for the actual shot, but is instead used to help create the shot,” said Liles.

Liles points out that Sapphire is an integral tool to his pipeline– one he couldn’t part with. “We use GenArts Sapphire for absolutely everything. Honestly, I wouldn’t be able to use Flame if I didn’t have Sapphire,” he said. “It’s just indispensible.”

Get more information on Sapphire for Autodesk