Rhythm & Hues used Massive Software's Massive, the autonomous agent 3D animation software, for NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM. Using Massive, Rhythm & Hues filled the screen with 3D crowds that come alive from within exhibit dioramas.
Among Rhythm & Hues' many contributions on the film were 30 Massive shots in three major sequences, involving some 3,000 total characters- Roman centurions and archers, Mayan Indians, cowboys, Chinese railway workers, pioneer men and women and a western band-all at 1/24th scale. Massive was also used for creation and positioning of catapults and arrows in battle sequences.
"Massive worked flawlessly on this film," said Dan Smiczek, effects supervisor, Rhythm & Hues. "We had a pretty short turnaround time on this project, and after about four days of MoCap, we built the Massive agents...some with thousands of characters-- in less than a month. We had a total of three artists working on these shots and the productivity boost of working with Massive allows us to pull off complex shots very efficiently."
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM required detailed characters appearing at 1/24th scale. Three main agents were built, each referencing approximately 100 different custom motion-captured actions. Because of the small scale, motion capture did not have to be as detailed as for previous projects, allowing for real-world behavior to be achieved with fewer clips, each at longer running times.
"When we built the Massive models, we built them all in the same size. This ended up being very practical when the director wanted to make scene changes such as swapping out a Cowboy for a Roman soldier--all we had to do was swap in a different skin," Smiczek noted. "In addition to having new characters thrown in, we ended up incorporating some of the hero motion captured characters into our Massive sequences -- and they integrated seamlessly with the performance data that we captured specifically for Massive."
The film's diorama room scenes, which include one major battle sequence, involve clashes between the Roman, Mayan and Old West characters as they fight for dominance of the museum hall. Ranks of Roman soldiers and Cowboys, brought to life via Massive, face off in a skirmish that would have been extremely time-consuming to achieve in CG with any other solution.
"Massive is a mature and robust application and we really take advantage of all of its bells and whistles." Smiczek adds, "We have a comprehensive library of agent templates to draw from when we approach new Massive sequences, and have our Massive pipeline totally streamlined -- so creating these multi-character scenes is actually very efficient. We've also gotten Massive to integrate seamlessly with the other tools in our pipeline such as our proprietary renderer, Autodesk's Maya, Side Effects' Houdini and our in-house keyframe animation package, Voodoo."
Rhythm & Hues (www.rhythm.com) is one of the world's leading producers of quality character animation and visual effects for entertainment and advertising. The studio has produced effects and animation for more than one hundred movies, including BABE, which earned the Oscar in 1995 for Achievement in Visual Effects. Rhythm & Hues was nominated in the same category in 2005 for its work on THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND WARDROBE. Recently released projects include CHARLOTTE'S WEB and HAPPY FEET. Upcoming Rhythm & Hues film projects include HIS DARK MATERIALS: THE GOLDEN COMPASS, EVAN ALMIGHTY and THE KINGDOM.
Massive Software (www.massivesoftware.com) is the leading creator of artificial intelligence-based 3D animation systems. Massive was founded when Stephen Regelous programmed a unique piece of software for director Peter Jackson to make creation of complicated visual effects scenes involving hundreds of thousands of digital characters a practical reality. Regelous garnered a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2004.
Today, Massive Software develops a family of standalone, commercially available products, with customers including The Mill, Centro Digital, Digital Domain, CFC Framestore CFC, Rhythm & Hues and other leading digital production and effects studios.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
