Particle collisions and anti-matter vfx were created by MPC using Maya and combined using Shake. Laser textures were used again to connect the anti-protons to the final explosion. Courtesy of MPC.

Anti-Matter Issues
MPC (The Moving Picture Co.) also did significant work on Rome's environments, but the team mainly focused on the design and conception of the antimatter and its journey through CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

Bickerton says that Howard thought it was important for the audience to get a sense of how anti-matter was created and gathered. "To start the process, I assembled RED footage that we shot at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, together with pieces of CERN's own animations to make a crude sequence. From that, MPC's layout team animated a 40-second shot that started in the CERN control room (a fictitious invention designed for the film) and passed through its glass partitions into the ATLAS detector. At this point, the view became 3D X-Ray as the camera traveled through the multiple layers of the Detector to its heart to follow the complete process."

Liaising closely with Bickerton, MPC VFX supervisor Richard Stammers oversaw the London team with the help of Kevin Hahn as CG supervisor and Richard Baker as 2D Supervisor. The interior of the facility, including the outer parts of the Atlas, were built based on photographs, using image modeling and camera projection techniques. To re-create the X-Ray look of the interior of the Atlas detector, MPC was provided with a complex CAD model from CERN, and Kevin Hahn adapted this, so he could develop the look in RenderMan. "For sections of internal pipes for which we had no access to, we used reference photos sourced from the Internet to construct CG sections to join the multiple environments," Stammers explains. "Particle collisions and anti-matter FX were created using Maya, and combined using Shake."

Adds Bicketon, "In order to visually connect the anti-protons to the final explosion, the laser textures were again used as trailing energy emitting from the particles."

The majority of the rest of MPC's work revolved around large-scale CG environments and set extensions to locations in Rome and The Vatican City that were impractical or forbidden to shoot in. The Piazza Navona and Passetto (a 40-foot high walkway linking the Vatican to Castel Sant'Angelo) sequence both required digital set extension to partially built environments. An 80-foot long reproduction of half of the Piazza Navona was built on a parking lot in Los Angeles, the opposite half was a greenscreen set which was later replicated using camera projections taken from the real piazza. For the chase at the Passetto, MPC again extended a greenscreen stage using real environment projections and day for night reference photography.

For Santa Maria della Vittoria, images were digitally projected onto a CG roof and fire, embers, heat haze and smoke enhancements were also added to the practical fire. Courtesy of CIS Vancouver.

The team also produced the title sequence, including logos, a fully CG Papal ring in glorious macro close-up and handled the 2K dailies for the production.

Invisible VFX
Bickerton notes that, in terms of story, this film was less beholden to the original material. "For Da Vinci Code, Ron had strived to be faithful to a book that had been read by so many. But for Angels & Demons, with Dan Brown in complete agreement, he set out to make an adaptation that was much more of a race against the clock thriller. Yet, the visual effects mandate was the same: to be invisible in our enhancement and creation of backgrounds -- with the addition of providing a believable spectacle when the antimatter bomb explodes. I hope we have."

Alain Bielik is the founder and editor of renowned effects magazine S.F.X, published in France since 1991. He also contributes to various French publications, both print and online, and occasionally to Cinefex. In 2004, he organized a major special effects exhibition at the Musée International de la Miniature in Lyon, France.