Terminator Salvation: Battle of the Machines

In Terminator Salvation, the Day of Reckoning has disappeared and the robots have taken the world. T-600 robots are hunting and capturing humans and robots, T-800, made famous by Arnold Schwarzenegger, are pending. And a new breed of man-machine was configured with a human heart and brain of the dead man held harvested Marcus Wright.

With the film with a large number of robots, VFX for asylum has been to create and animate the T-600 and Marcus cyborgs. Since the details necessary to create a robot realistic, Houdini was used for rigging and animation. asylum chose Houdini because of its digital pipeline to allow different people to work on the same platform, while making it easier for all the pieces together for final output.

The main platform built initially started using the Auto Rig tool included with Houdini. This tour was not to meet the personalized demands of the drivers and the physics of different elements cyborgs. Using the platform of tools for self, asylum has been able to work at their own pace and not have to call each risk as soon as possible. Therefore, it is easier to manage the development of the platform and avoid overdeveloping features that are not necessary.

"We knew we were never blocked by a specific solution," said Jeff Willett, Technical Director, Asylum VFX. "Houdini digital you can experiment with different techniques and emptying into the pipe with ease and know that you can cancel or modify later. Often, it takes a temporary position on the platform, after the test that our solution has been rapid enough for the final effect. "

Using Houdini, asylum May be required to upgrade the platforms and the world was immediately able to use new features without having to think. The team was able to make many changes to all platforms and the changes went smoothly on all vaccines. This allows each shot consistent, CG supervisors and never had to worry that someone is using an old version of the platform.

Working with the Match Move Rigs
While the rigs were under development, animation and lighting is expected to start soon. Auto-platform tools to divide the platform in an animation or a game platform or chain to move and rig endoskeleton. The party equipment can be used by leaders to begin putting in place the key, without waiting for the rigs endoskeleton be "finished". Once a team has been detailed endoskeleton then be plugged into the match and move the platform. In this way, the time for design changes to the final models is minimal.

"All of the matchmovers were new brand to Houdini, most of them had never used the software before," said WILLETTE. "There are fundamental issues which have emerged, but results for the whole team for the second day. After a few weeks, they were seasoned pros, and even taught some of the users of Houdini" .

First, the matchmovers were concerned that the workflow is different from how they were used to work in other packages, but once you get used to Houdini animation tools and Features towers, which were quickly underway. If ever there is a limitation of the digital platform can be easily upgraded to meet your needs.

Nested Assets
Because the robot is made of the rigs in different parts of the body, in May each mechanism responsible for an internal component. These have been created as nested digital assets that can be inserted and updated at any time. Initially, it was not possible to determine which parts of the robot are to see on the screen to asylum matchmoving wait until the scene in his place. Then, as the film progresses, and the shots fell, the team can decide which components are really necessary and focus on specific areas.

The use of active nests, it is easy to upgrade the platforms without compromising the animation is already completed. For example, a few blows before Marco matchmoved hands were rigged. Once you have the hand of the asylum model completed, the platform has been updated with the animation controls for the hands and fingers. The weapons were lively and organizers had to add animation to the end of the scene.

"Marcus is a creative and technically difficult, but exciting, we had to sleemlessly blend live action plate, equipment, 3D flesh and soft tissue, and a 3D sub-nano fully articulated and animated 3D metal endoskeleton.” said John Fragomeni, VFX Supervisor, VFX asylum. "Our main considerations for the use of Houdini in Terminator Salvation 3D character of our work on the T600 and Marcus is the depth and quality of our artists the flexibility of hose provided. As a VFX supervisor is comforting to know that we can make improvements Last minute intuitive, with no negative impact on workflow. "

For the T-600 and Marcus asylum used a combination of Houdini and Renderman. Houdini has a strong connection with RenderMan embedded in the team, therefore, could have everything in one package. It was a great interest and has contributed to limiting the amount of interoperability required. Houdini’s digital technology, the everyone lighting to matchmoving knew they have always been to work with most current versions and new animation was published when it is immediately available, without conversions. This streamlining of the work has made life easier for everyone and that artists focus on robots as cool as possible.

Angels & Demons: Digital Churches Interiors

Working on Rome environments was CIS Vancouver. Led by VFX Supervisor Mark Breakspear, the team created three CG church environments: Santa Maria della Vittoria, Santa Maria del Popolo and St Peter's Basilica. All three churches were off the shooting grid, so visual effects were the only way they could appear in the film.

The approach was to recreate them digitally, stitching together thousands of digital photographs taken at the real locations, and projecting them onto accurate computer models of the buildings. "We used three Canon EOS 1DS MK2 cameras, with gave fantastic quality in the low light levels of the churches" Breakspear says. "We were not able to get HDR in the truest sense, but we managed to get around that by also shooting with a stills film camera. We used Kodak 5218, which was the same film stock from the main unit shoot. By taking image on film, we were able to make use of the wider range from those images for windows, highlights and areas where we wanted to add detail into the shadow areas. We scanned our film images at 5040 × 3684 @ 240 dpi, while our digital images were captured at 4064 x 2074 @ 72 dpi."

For Santa Maria della Vittoria and Santa Maria del Popolo, the art department built one set that could work for both churches, with a little redress. For St. Peter's Basilica, the actors were shot on an entirely greenscreen set, with only the floor and a partial column to orient the vfx team. "We ended up replacing the column and the floor, but don't tell anyone," Breakspear chuckles.

"For Popolo, there were lots of issues with the practical set not lining up with the real location photography, due to creative license being heavily used in its construction. In the end, we were able to bring both locations together by duplicating areas where needed, and hiding other areas that no longer existed in the practical set. Santa Maria del Popolo was the only church we built using LightWave, everything else was built in Maya. When we worked on The Da Vinci Code, we did all our shots in LightWave, as at the time, our pipeline was more centered around this package for this type of work. Four years later, our pipeline has moved toward Maya, and although we still love what LightWave can do, it made sense to split the builds across both packages. All the churches created in Maya were rendered in mental ray. Each frame was generally broken out into 25-40 specific layers, giving the compositor great control on adjusting the look we wanted."

For Santa Maria della Vittoria, Bickerton shot a miniature of the ceiling and the resulting images were digitally projected onto a CG roof that could be placed in any of the shots. Fire, embers, heat haze and smoke enhancements were also added to the practical fire. All of the compositing was done in Shake.

For St Peter's Basilica, the task was far greater, for CIS had to create just about the entire environment, other than the actor. "Normally, you would try to avoid this, as that much CG real estate is typically very hard to pull off convincingly," Breakspears observes. "Our CG Supervisor, Karen Ansel felt that we could master all the nuances required to fool the eye, and together with 2D Supervisor, Martyn Culpitt, worked out all the required layers and approaches needed to pull it off. The end result is pretty amazing!"