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Realscan 3D Gives Bite to Disney's Underdog

Realscan 3D, an industry leader in high resolution, high color structured light 3D scanning, announced its involvement on the forthcoming Disney film UNDERDOG (Aug. 3, 2007). Realscan 3D provided the production with animation-ready precision digital doubles of the lead character, Shoeshine, Underdog's alter-ego, and the heads and muzzles of the cast dogs in the film. Realscan also created a digital double of the film's villain, Simon Barsinister, played by Peter Dinklage.

For the film, Realscan 3D solved a common problem facing productions: how to provide an accurate digital replica of a live animal. Traditional systems require the subject to remain at rest for approximately 30 seconds while the scanner acquires a single pass. Realscan's NexGen scanning pipeline captures the subject in a fraction of a second allowing for the acquisition of live animals.

"Our NexGen scanning pipeline allows productions to overcome the barriers of traditional scanning," said Frank DeMarco, ceo of Realscan 3D. "The digital doubles Realscan creates equal the actual volume of the objects scanned and possess accurate texture placement. In this case, the digital double of Shoeshine is indistinguishable from the live-action hero."

Realscan 3D added value to the production by creating high quality scans that were then provided to the two visual effects houses working on the production. This eliminated the need for the production to invest further resources into modeling facsimiles of the talent and provides a consistent look for the film's digital doubles regardless of the vendor handling the shot.

"The days of productions throwing darts at a board relying on artistic interpretations of talent are over," said Joel Thornton, cto of Realscan 3D. "Productions can now take accurate digital assets created by Realscan and provide them directly to multiple FX houses across the project, saving valuable time and money while achieving unprecedented results."

Realscan 3D (www.realscan3d.com) is a Los Angeles-based effects company specializing in the creation of film quality digital doubles using structured light 3D scanning. Increasingly recognized as a premier 3D scanning boutique for film, television and videogame productions, Realscan 3D has created digital doubles for a wide variety of film productions and companies, including Walt Disney Pictures' SKY HIGH; Jerry Bruckheimer Films' DEJA VU and NATIONAL TREASURE; FOX Television's AMERICAN IDOL; Nintendo; and Wal-Mart.

Bill Desowitz's picture

Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.

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