Autodesk Congratulates 81st Annual Academy Award Winners and Nominees

For the 14th consecutive year, every film nominated for the Best Visual Effects Academy Award was shaped with Autodesk digital filmmaking tools.

This year's Academy Award nominees continued to push digital imagery to new heights—from intricate and complex computer-generated characters to pyrotechnical marvels to invisible effects so realistic they deceive the eye. Autodesk extends its heartfelt congratulations to the artists and technologists who enthrall audiences with spectacular visuals. We are honored that these filmmakers utilize Autodesk digital technology from planning and previsualization right down to final grade.

Autodesk technology was used to shape Oscar-winning and Academy Award nominated films in the following categories:


ACHIEVEMENT IN VISUAL EFFECTS


The Curious Case of Benjamin Button



Oscar Winner—Matte World Digital, tasked with re-creating the early 20th century through Hurricane Katrina, created 3D environments, crowd simulations, and matte paintings using Autodesk® 3ds Max® as its main tool with Autodesk® Maya® 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software complementing the work of some shots.

Asylum VFX used Maya, Autodesk® Smoke® finishing effects software, Autodesk® Inferno® visual effects software, and Autodesk® Lustre® digital color grading system for 189 shots for the photoreal tugboat adventure that included extensive water simulation, digital environments and a computer-generated (CG) submarine.

Lola VFX created 100 age reduction and 200 makeup enhancement shots using a combination of tools, including Inferno and the Autodesk® Flame® system.

Evil Eye Pictures used Maya and Autodesk® Combustion® desktop compositing software to integrate matte paintings and environmental effects set in and around New Orleans.


Iron Man



Academy Award Nominee—Industrial Light & Magic brought the superhero character and his nemesis to life using Maya for animating and modeling the CG suits, as well as Inferno visual effects software as part of its SABRE system for compositing over 400 shots.

Pixel Liberation Front worked on the film for 19 months, relying on Maya to create reference models for extensive previsualization.

The Orphanage developed the thruster look and an exploding mountainside using 3ds Max and used Maya for the Gulmira, Missile Test and Stark Jet sequences.


The Dark Knight



Academy Award Nominee—Double Negative created the majority of visual effects in this film, using a combination of proprietary tools and Maya for most of the 2D and 3D work. Maya fluid dynamics helped shape a helicopter crash sequence. Maya® nCloth and Syflex Maya plug-ins were used for cloth simulation of the Batsuit.

Academy Award Nominee—Framestore produced CG environments, CG doubles and digital prosthetic makeup using in-house proprietary tools and numerous Autodesk software applications, including Maya, Autodesk® Mudbox™ software, Autodesk® Matchmover™, Autodesk® Movimento™, and Autodesk® Softimage® 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software.


BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM


Kung Fu Panda



Academy Award Nominee—DreamWorks Animation SKG developed new tools and workflows for this stereoscopic 3D film, using Maya for setting and rigging stereoscopic cameras, building virtual sets, and rendering.


BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM


This Way Up



Academy Award Nominee—Nexus used a combination of 3ds Max for modeling and animation and Combustion for compositing, among other tools, for this high-definition digital animated short.


Oktapodi



Academy Award Nominee—Gobelins, l'ecole de l'image, a team of six students from the Paris-based school, created this short using Maya for animation.


BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM


Waltz with Bashir



CinePostProduction, one of Europe's largest film labs, relied on Smoke for the conform and online, Flame for visual effects, and Lustre for digital color grading.

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P.E.R.F.E.C.T Compositing

PERFECT Compositing
Originally posted by Andrew Kramer

I have been developing a simple guideline for better compositing that is broken down to 7 key points. This is by no means a ‘complete’ guide for every scenario but it should be a good place to start. I plan on detailing many of these techniques in the future but here is a basic overview.

I call it: P.E.R.F.E.C.T.

Perspective:
When compositing a scene, you want to consider the perspective of your plate (raw footage) and carefully mix elements that align with your shot. A major perspective conflict can be a give-away that your shot was poorly composited.

Esthetics (aesthetics):
Make it look cool. Keep an eye on your composition and balance the elements in your scene evenly. Look at the composite as a whole and not just the area you are working on.

Randomize:
The world is unpredictable so you want to use variations in your compositing work. One example is when creating an army of soldiers from a small group of extras. It is important to offset the individuals by time and space so they do not look mechanically duplicated. This is also important when adding muzzle flashes and ricochets. Don’t just reuse the same muzzle fire or ricochet, use multiple clips and alter the size and rotation so that your mind doesn’t pick up on the pattern of similarity.

Feathering:
The way elements are blended in a scene is a top priority. Feathering is a great way to blend multiple elements together in a scene as well as performing a subtle light wrap. But don’t overuse the light wrap!

Environment:
When you composite an element in your scene, ask yourself how would this affect the surrounding environment? When an explosion goes off, does it leave a hole or burn marks? Does the bright light cast on the walls around it? Be creative and think of clever ways to make your fx elements blend with the real world. You should also consider on-set action for planned visual effects. Having real interaction in your scene goes a long way to sell a shot like pillows on a couch being shot-up by a machine gun. A simple string works well to ‘toss’ the pillows around as they are blown away.

Color:
Matching color and light are essential to photo realistic compositing. Obviously you want the fx elements to match the color of the scene but you also want to match the contrast level too. Be mindful of the light direction in your scene and be sure to use elements that cooperate.

Timing:
There is a rhythm to cinema and visual effects. There is action and reaction. Let your shot flow and unfold. If you force things to happen in a short amount of time, the shot may turn out mechanical and choppy.

Feel free to expand on these ideas and continue to create impressive visual effects. In the mind of an artist nothing is ever “perfect”, but I like to think of the word as an verb for a work in progress as we attempt to ‘perfect’ the art.

Pixion VFX adds punch to Golmaal Returns

This festive season, Golmaal Returns, the sequel to the popular comedy flick Golmaal opened to audiences all over. Adding to box office success of the movie is the visual effects and CG work conceived and executed by Mumbai-based VFX major Pixion.

Directed by Rohit Shetty, the film stars Ajay Devgan, Tusshar Kapoor and Arshad Warsi, reprising their roles, and Shreyas Talpade in the role originally played by Sharman Joshi. Kareena Kapoor, Anjana Sukhani, Amrita Arora and Celina Jaitley were new additions to the cast. Produced by Dhillin Mehta under the Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision banner, the film released on October 29, 2008.

Pixion’s mandate for Golmaal Returns included close to 425 VFX shots, right from green screen shots, CG insertions, CG environment creation, Wire/Rig Removals, Multi Plate Composites and Sky Replacements, with around 55 artists chasing a tough deadline of three months.

Interesting Shots:
Songs: The Title sequence and the song ‘Tha Kar Ke‘ involved extensive work by Pixion. There were as many as about 125 shots in both these songs alone. As the actors were standing, sleeping on the bikes, all bikes in the songs were rigged to a great extent.

Sleeping act on a moving bike: The studio had to show as if the bikes were running by themselves without any support. High resolution pictures were taken of the bike from all the angles for texture references. In couple of the shots the studio recreated the whole bike in CG and composited it seamlessly photo real. These were multi layered composites with as many as 20 plus layers.

Yacht sequence:
There is a three minutes yacht sequence which was completely shot against green screen and Pixion had to recreate the sea environment. Green screen was replaced by CG sea and sky taking care of the horizon, perspective and scale. There was lot of match moving involved in this sequence.

The requirement was to show it as a fantasy sequence in the film. So, there are CG dolphins flying all over the yacht. Even the colour scheme was desaturated with little blue tone to make it look like a moon-lit fantasy sequence.

Pixion team has worked on digital sky replacements in the film which again involves extensive match move, rotoscopy and seamless compositing.

Creative challenges:

Pixion VFX Supervisor Naveen Paul said, “As we were totally involved from the preliminary stage, we were more organized in terms of planning of a particular VFX shot. Our team was actively involved in the VFX shoot supervision too.”

“Rohit Shetty, the director, is very talented and has made sure that he conveyed his visual requirements in depth. He was open to ideas and always encouraged us which helped us to give in our best. We first made a storyboard on some of the complicated sequences for his approvals and value additions. Later, we presented him with rough animatics and accordingly planned the shoot which further eased our final execution,” he added.

Experience and other confronts:
Added Naveen, “It’s been a great experience working on Golmaal Returns. We had a very short deadline on this project. It was quite challenging to complete the shots in time keeping quality as the highest and only priority.”

Added Pixion CEO Naresh Malik,“It takes a lot to convince a director, cinematographer or producer that we have it in us to be able to deliver his mind’s vision. We are fortunate to have a very healthy, trust based relation with the team of Golmaal Returns lead by the director. We have had, in the past, an opportunity to be associated with him on another film and we look forward to working together again. We thank the entire team of Golmaal Returns for the honour that they bestowed on us by allowing us to be a part of their film.”