Uh-oh! lol artofvfx.com has posted an article on our work for *Now You See Me*. You can see some nice before & after pics: http://www.artofvfx.com/?p=4669
** Before: http://www.artofvfx.com/NOW/NOW_RODEOFX_VFX_03B.jpg http://www.artofvfx.com/NOW/NOW_RODEOFX_VFX_04B.jpg http://www.artofvfx.com/NOW/NOW_RODEOFX_VFX_05B.jpg ** After: http://www.artofvfx.com/NOW/NOW_RODEOFX_VFX_03A.jpg http://www.artofvfx.com/NOW/NOW_RODEOFX_VFX_04A.jpg http://www.artofvfx.com/NOW/NOW_RODEOFX_VFX_05A.jpg (falling ICE money simulations, ICE standing crowds, additional Arnold volumetric lights) ** Before: http://www.artofvfx.com/NOW/NOW_RODEOFX_VFX_11B.jpg ** After: http://www.artofvfx.com/NOW/NOW_RODEOFX_VFX_11A.jpg (lots of funky motiongraphic cubes driven by ICE particles. not sure if the crowd is cg or 2D, I didn't work on that particular shot.) On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 10:40 PM, Sylvain Lebeau <[email protected]> wrote: > you better….. > > i know where you live…… > > ;-) > > *Sylvain Lebeau // SHED** > *V-P/Visual effects supervisor > 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 > T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM <http://www.shedmtl.com/> < > http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM <http://www.shedmtl.com/>> > > On Tuesday, 16 July, 2013 at 9:51 AM, Alan Fregtman wrote: > > Believe me, I know. If it was entirely up to me I'd put up lots of cool > behind the scenes visuals. > > With commercials, it's a piece of cake to take a screenshot and attach to > an email; if it's aired it's usually fair game and rarely anyone ever > cares, but when it comes to big name distributors of film, you have to > clear everything with lawyers and there's many more bureaucratic layers. > > When it comes out on bluray I'll ask my boss if I can show some > behind-the-scenes. I can't promise they'll allow it, but I can ask. :p > > > > On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 4:30 AM, Angus Davidson <[email protected] > > wrote: > > Hi Alan > > Awesome work. Just want to let you know that breakdowns like this are > not only important for other professionals who have this massive shared > curiosity but it also incredibly important when it comes to our students. > When we made the decision to move away from Maya to Softimage for our > teaching we caught quite a bit of flak for the decision. However posts like > these are really great because we can show just how Softimage is being > used. We have also just set up our first Arnold render farm and we are very > excited to see the results we get from two really great pieces of software. > > Kind regards > > Angus > > From: Alan Fregtman <[email protected]> > Reply-To: "[email protected]" < > [email protected]> > Date: Monday 15 July 2013 9:07 PM > To: XSI Mailing List <[email protected]> > Subject: OT: Pacific Rim > > Hey guys, > > A lot of people say Softimage doesn't get used much in movies, so I > personally love to hear stories when it does happen. Therefore, I wanted to > share some details with you. :) > > I'm the lead rigger at *Rodeo FX*http://rodeofx.com and we did all of > the interiors of the control pods (the cockpits, that is), including the > visors, foot actuators & mechanical stilts, some digidoubles, etc. > (except the holograms/UI graphics that were done by the folks at Hybride.) > We also had the chance of doing our first organic creature, the brain in > the lab (which involved a lot of "gross" ICE deformations), as well as many > beautiful matte paintings and a couple of helicopters. > > Overall, we did over a hundred shots. CG was done in Softimage and as > far as I know it was all rendered in our favourite renderer, Arnold! We'd > still be rendering today if Mentalray had been used. :p We threw countless > ~8k textures with displacement and stupid amounts of topology, and good ol' > Arnie performed like a champ. > > The stilts (the leg controls in the cockpit) had anything from 1500 to > 2500 separate meshes and on average about 150 segments (solid groups of > parts that moved as one.) Once we identified the "segments" by the end we > had a rig of Arnold stand-ins with each segment saved as one ass file, and > low-res geo representing that segment constrained to some part of the rig. > It then became relatively "light" to have the standins rigged instead of > the full raw geo, and it made it quite easy to replace parts or textures > later in the pipeline during or after animation. (Also caching was a piece > of cake in this scenario, as we only needed to plot the segment nulls > instead of thousands of meshes or pointcaching anything.) > > On the brain there was procedural pulsing animation driven by ICE > deformers. Globules would "breathe", a heart-like organ would pump its > ventricles intermittently and an intestine-like organ flowed with bulges > travelling along its tract. It was gross and (in my opinion) kind of > awesome. lol Speaking of ICE, there was a kind of lettuce behind the brain > that was also moving a bit. The modeling was done with strips that were > procedurally curled and then if I remember correctly the whole thing was > driven via Syflex as the brain gently floated. This lettuce thing was > handled by another guy on this mailing list, my coworker and friend > Jonathan Laborde. Maybe if he's reading this he can give more details of > how he used ICE in a few other shots. > > It was crazy fun project to work on. Fingers crossed that Pacific Rim 2 > becomes a reality. :) Anyway, did you guys go see it? What'd you think? > > Oh and speaking of other movies, we did a ton of work in "Now You See > Me" as well, including hundreds of stadium dudes with our propietary ICE > static crowd system, falling/flying money, cg bubbles, an art-directed > liquid, lockpicking, flying cards, many vehicles, the projected > motiongraphics near the end and a few invisible fx. (I feel like I probably > missed something, but anyway, we did a lot.) We were the main vfx vendor on > that film, delivering just over 20 minutes worth of vfx "magic" (pun > intended.) Again, Soft & Arnold and lots of effects in ICE all throughout. > > Cheers, > > -- Alan > > This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is > confidential. If you have received this communication in error, please notify > us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not copy or > disseminate this communication without the permission of the University. Only > authorised signatories are competent to enter into agreements on behalf of > the University and recipients are thus advised that the content of this > message may not be legally binding on the University and may contain the > personal views and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the > views and opinions of The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All > agreements between the University and outsiders are subject to South African > Law unless the University agrees in writing to the contrary. > > > > >
