Insights From ADAPT 2008
While some elements were built from scratch, including a CGI baby ("They were not convinced that we could do it," Dobree offered), others were a combination of real shot elements -- for example, fat cells. "We had to be grounded in reality. We also had to be photoreal, so we added real elements whenever we could." This included "splattering stuff on glass in front of a high-speed camera" to "using detergent spray on a piece of plastic" to utilizing theatrical blood.
"We did a lot of 'matchmove'," Dobree said, which involved matching moving elements from live-action seamlessly into CGI. As for textures, Dobree noted that the painting was highly detailed and comments, "We used lots of reference from the butcher."
Bourne, Jason Bourne High Moon engaged martial arts expert Jeff Imada (Big Trouble in Little China) to help map out Bourne's moves. "We used MoCap a lot," advised Brown. High Moon also used Autodesk 3ds Max and photo-based modeling, creating a reusable head template that created a repeatable process and recyclable assets. MotionBuilder 7.5 was also used, which resulted in a mixed pipeline that made hiring easier to do.
Bourne screenwriter Tony Gilroy was available to provide valuable insight into the Bourne character. "We learned that Bourne always has a target and a goal. He also uses objects at hand as weapons. He's not James Bond; he improvises," Brown said.
Reference of a different kind was used for High Moon Studios' treatment of the Robert Ludlum's Bourne Conspiracy video game for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. "Our Jason Bourne is not based on Matt Damon," said principal artist Mike Brown. "We used both the books and the movies to re-imagine this Jason Bourne."
"There was pressure to create the game to release with the Bourne movie, but we decided to create this as an original franchise instead," added Brown. "This gave us the extra time to work with experts and to do things right. The most important thing was to make the game as cinematic as possible, with lots of camera moves," Brown said.
Henson's Digital Puppetry Henson's digital puppetry, currently being used on PBS' Sid the Science Kid, allows for CGI puppets to be created in studio in realtime. "This was something that Jim Henson has imagined back in 1989, but the technology had not caught up," Shea said.
However, it is now in play at Henson's virtual TV studio in Burbank, California. Performers are suited up with body pointers, and hand controls are used for the digitized puppet heads. "Entire performances are done in a single pass," Shea said. "You can see in real time how the performance is."
Environments are created in advance. "We build all characters and props in Maya," Shea says. There is a proprietary viewer that allows input from the mocap, audio and cameras to be stream into the computer, providing the real-time visuals. "Mission control hits the green button, and we record it," Shea said. The process allows for completion of a 22-minute episode in two-and-a-half-days.
Henson is also in development on a new take on The Dark Crystal movie that will utilize animatronics against CG. "There is a tactile loveliness to puppetry," Shea said.
Jim Henson's Creature Shop has been moving into new territory with its digital puppetry and associated technology, although 16-year Henson veteran Kerry Shea said that Kermit shouldn't worry. Soft puppets are still popular and are, in fact, enjoying resurgence in popularity. At ADAPT, she screened a Sesame Street counting segment featuring singer Feist and commented that puppetry was used in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Henson still builds soft puppets in New York and Los Angeles.
She later told VFXWorld, "Our challenge, which I posed to the Motion Capture Society and the motion capture companies [at a recent panel discussion], is how can I get better, faster, cleaner capture data? Is there a way? Is there an advancement within the capture industry where it will not require additional post cleanup of the data? Because then it will be truly realtime and then what I'm capturing on the stage will be immediately transferrable. I didn't hear any significant answers at that panel, so I'm continuously looking for the answer to that question."
Grains from The Mill "We did rough storyboards and then previs to show what would be good for the camera," Petrie said of the "It's Mine" Coke commercial. "They shot on the day of the Macy's parade and what they shot was nothing like the previs." Further scenes were shot in the Paramount backlot, but more material was needed to make the commercial work. "We went to New York and took lots of pictures," Petrie added. The Mill effectively rebuilt the backdrop to simulate the desired parade environment. The balloons had to depict 2D characters in 3D, and have balloon-like elements. "It was 11 weeks from start to finish," Petrie said.
For the Guinness "Music Machine" ad, Bussell said that he received "quite nice photo reference from the director," which helped define the direction of the spot. The commercial featured men in white suits jumping against big drums before bursting into bubbles. Bussell said they realized the live-action footage of the men that had been shot needed to be more convincing, so it was desirable to do CG character modeling and movement. However, The Mill was in a time crunch. Bussell said that The Mill decided to use a video game technique -- endorphin, which prompts the CG characters react at random -- in order to get it done in time. "We had only four to six people and five weeks to do it," Bussell said. "I didn't go home."
Tom Bussell and Rob Petrie from The Mill presented two interesting commercials using vfx -- a Cocoa-Cola commercial featuring Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons Stewie and Underdog in an aerial race to capture a Coke balloon; and a Guinness commercial showing the "music of the brew" as human cannonballers who burst into bubbles.
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