The Shuttle Disaster sequence in Superman Returns represented challenging vfx work for Sony Pictures Imageworks. All images courtesy of Warner Bros Pictures. Credit: Sony Imageworks. 

When director Bryan Singer undertook Superman Returns (which opened June 28 from Warner Bros. Pictures), his first priority was to make sure the critical flying scenes were as believable as possible. To that end, visual effects supervisor Mark Stetson chose Sony Pictures Imageworks, a studio he was very familiar with, having worked there as supervisor of Peter Pan and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.

“Imageworks really stepped up with the animated Superman work,” Stetson suggests. “The image-based render approach is very good, especially the close-up, high-res work; the cape sim is very good too: it’s very fluid and very consistent. [Overall] the animation is head and shoulders above what Imageworks did on Spider-Man 2, which was remarkable. And the Shuttle Disaster [the main action set piece] will be a real landmark for them.”

Building a digital version of Superman’s famous red cape that could be directed as if it were a character in the film was one of Imageworks’ challenges. 

Imageworks artists, led by visual effects supervisor Richard Hoover (Armageddon, Unbreakable, Reign of Fire) and animation supervisor Andy Jones (I, Robot, Godzilla, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within), were tasked with creating a digital double of Brandon Routh that allowed viewers to see Superman’s death defying acts of courage not only from a distance, but, more crucially, in close-ups as well.

The Imageworks team had several challenges: to build a digital version of Superman’s famous red cape that could be directed as if it were a character in the film, including “reactions” to all that was going on around it, independent of natural forces.

Building a better digital human, in the form of Superman, was not an unusual task for Imageworks. Many of the artists on the project had been part of innovative digital human work on both the groundbreaking Final Fantasy and the Oscar-winning Spider-Man 2.