great news Alan, thanks for sharing. go go gadget Softimage & Arnold! (and of course, well done to the talented crew)
On 16 July 2013 11:12, adrian wyer <adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com> wrote: > ** ** ** > > thanks for the info Alan!!!**** > > ** ** > > seeing it tomorrow, cannot wait!!**** > > ** ** > > interestingly the first trailers left me cold, not a big fan of the 'speed > racer' palette, and much as i love Idris Elba, the "cancelling the > apocalypse" line is up there with the cheesiest bits of Hollywood writing > ever...**** > > ** ** > > but a lot of people i trust in both vfx and writing/directing have seen it > and said don't be put off by the cheese....**** > > ** ** > > a**** > > ** ** > ------------------------------ > > *From:* **softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com** [mailto:** > softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com**] *On Behalf Of *Alan Fregtman > *Sent:* 15 July 2013 20:07 > > *To:* XSI Mailing List > *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**** > > ** ** > ------------------------------ > > No virus found in this message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 2013.0.3349 / Virus Database: 3204/6494 - Release Date: 07/15/13* > *** >
