Since the action is set in the late 21st century, designing futuristic cityscapes quickly became a major task. Above is an all CGI cityscape featuring the “Laboratories for Later Day Defense.” Note the biohazard symbol design.

Since the action is set in the late 21st century, designing futuristic cityscapes quickly became a major task. These environments were created as a combination of live action buildings from a library of thousands of digital photos taken during production in Hong Kong and Shanghai, original matte paintings for distant city backgrounds and high resolution 3D models for closer shots. Maya, RenderMan and Photoshop were the tools of choice for this type of work, with global illumination being employed to create photoreal lighting. “One of the great challenges thrown to us by Kurt at the beginning of the process was to design a city where future technology is organic rather than existing for the sake of being futuristic,” Wong notes. “The result is a city with extremely clean lines that nevertheless feels fresh for a sci-fi story.”

Even more demanding were the many set extensions and digital interior environments. More than half of the sets in Ultraviolet were real buildings or custom-made production sets, while the other half were full 3D virtual environments combined with greenscreen footage. For set extensions, Menfond artists photographed as many textures of the sets as possible using a 6.3 megapixel Canon 10D. “The trick was to match the structures 100% since we needed to build 3D models that would seamlessly match textures and lighting of the real sets,” Wong remarks. “We made a lot of incredible changes to locations such as the digital re-construction of Shanghai University into a Soviet-style gulag. Another example was the extension of the atrium of Shanghai Commercial Bank to make it look five times bigger than the real location.” Adds Calcote: “We should point out that the 4:4:4 HD helped us a great deal here with our digital stills. The HD ‘stills’ were devoid of grain, and therefore lacked the matching problems experienced when trying to combine extremely clean digital shots with film. Staying digital throughout the process kept it apples-to-apples.”

The motorcycle chase was shot practically in front of a greenscreen, and later combined with a computer-generated environment. The sequence was shot in reverse, moving opposite of the direction the bike moved.

Extreme Action Without CGI
Amazingly enough, none of the extreme fight moves and stunts performed by Violet during the course of the movie ever required the use of a CG double. Almost all of the action shots were filmed practically, with camera movement and mechanical setups generating the “virtual movements” of Violet. Thanks to six months of training in martial arts, Jovovich was able to perform most of Violet’s fight routines and acrobatics herself. “There is some wire work in the film, mainly when we had to accomplish the more intense acrobatics,” Wong observes. “Even in these cases, however, we used Milla for all the close-ups. This was particular challenging when we had to remove a wiring harness from her mid-riff in the first vault fight. Considering that her costume left that bare, we had to work very hard to recreate her supermodel abs in a couple of shots! This said, the focus of our work on Milla didn’t really concern her action sequences, but her hair and clothing. One of the key technologies in the movie is electrochemical color shifts based on mood and situation, i.e. Violet’s hair shifts color from black to purple as her adrenaline starts pumping in one scene, while in another, her white outfit picks up the color of blood from a massive fight. We accomplished the color shift effect entirely in 2D with complex masking and rotoscoping techniques.”

Even the signature motorcycle chase was realized without a CG double. The character and the bike are actually real all along the sequence. “We first discussed creating a horizontal city window set that would allow us to run the bike practically across windows and walls,” Wong adds. “But to really get more than half a second of footage, we realized that we’d have to build something hundreds of yards long! Also, when you consider how much CGI would have to be added anyway (i.e., building extensions, backgrounds, etc.), we realized we’d be working at cross-purposes.”

Ultimately, Jovovich and the bike were shot practically, in front of a greenscreen, and later combined with a computer-generated environment.