Modus FX, a Canadian visual effects vendor that counts “Now You See Me” and “This is the End” among its credits, is shutting down after six years. Roughly 100 people have been let go, co-founder and visual effects supervisor Yanick Wilisky told TheWrap. The company was undone after a number of projects it was slated to work on were delayed. “We were swinging from rope to rope and we went to grab the other rope, but it was too far away,” Wilisky said. Also read: ‘Noah’ VFX Firm Loses a Bundle on Biblical Epic (Exclusive) The company, which is based just outside of Montreal,...
- 3/6/2014
- by Brent Lang
- The Wrap
Modus FX, a special effects studio, was in charge of some of the more subtle effects that will appear in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1. Here the studio talks about some of the more realistic effects that you might not even have realized were CGI (think Bella’s pregnancy belly). Read more below:
A team of 12 artists at Modus had six weeks to complete 42 shots for the film, which included creating a pregnant belly for lead actress Kristen Stewart, digitally removing a wrist brace she was wearing in another sequence and a variety of subtle cosmetic refinements.
Yanick Wilisky, visual effects supervisor and co-founder of Modus FX, described the challenges of creating organic CG. “We are all so used to seeing organic objects and surfaces. If something is just slightly off, you know it’s fake – even if you can’t put your finger on exactly what the problem is.”
Making Stewart look pregnant was one of the tasks assigned to Modus. “They wanted the baby to kick and move inside her belly,” said Wilisky. “We had to match the camera moves, the lighting, even the film grain, along with the subtleties of her skin.”
In fact, according to CG supervisor Martin Pelletier, “The two hardest things to work with in CG are water and skin.”
“For this project, we had to be really quick in terms of turn around,” he explained. “We made use of very complex lighting from the set, adding 3D layers, and a matchmove of her stomach, to make her look pregnant. We took our time at the start to get the recipe right and that paid off in efficiency once we got going. We were soon able to turn around several shots each day.”
“Hand-Crafted” Visual Effects
In one central sequence – the wedding of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) – the camera pans around the newlyweds as they embrace. However, due to a minor wrist injury, Stewart was wearing a brace on the day of the shoot. Naturally, the brace had to be removed in post.
“Matchmoving a close-up is a good example of the challenges of organic CG,” said Pelletier. “We started with a CG model of the hand and then carefully crafting the rig to create natural motions. Once we had that, every minute movement of the hand had to be matched exactly.”
The shot, which is over 300 frames, called for extensive camera tracking and object tracking. Lighting artists at Modus rendered the actor’s hand with subsurface scattering to capture the partial translucence of skin and make it look believable.
“Tracking was particularly challenging, because when they were shooting it, they weren’t thinking about it as an effects shot. There was no camera metadata for the sequence,” Pelletier explained. “The solution was to do a series of careful manual adjustments until we had correctly replicated the light sources on the set. For work like this, it really takes the eye of a skilled artist to get it right.”
“Bella is moving in the shot as the camera circles around her,” Wilisky added, “She’s holding Edward’s hand, so we needed to recreate parts of his hand, along with some of the background. It was a highly technical and complex shot, but no one will see any of that when they watch the movie.”
Read the full story at Animation World Network here. (Via Team-Twilight)
Did you realize that there were instances where CGI could be used in such a realistic way?
(Thanks to @IamAlexis912 on twitter!)...
A team of 12 artists at Modus had six weeks to complete 42 shots for the film, which included creating a pregnant belly for lead actress Kristen Stewart, digitally removing a wrist brace she was wearing in another sequence and a variety of subtle cosmetic refinements.
Yanick Wilisky, visual effects supervisor and co-founder of Modus FX, described the challenges of creating organic CG. “We are all so used to seeing organic objects and surfaces. If something is just slightly off, you know it’s fake – even if you can’t put your finger on exactly what the problem is.”
Making Stewart look pregnant was one of the tasks assigned to Modus. “They wanted the baby to kick and move inside her belly,” said Wilisky. “We had to match the camera moves, the lighting, even the film grain, along with the subtleties of her skin.”
In fact, according to CG supervisor Martin Pelletier, “The two hardest things to work with in CG are water and skin.”
“For this project, we had to be really quick in terms of turn around,” he explained. “We made use of very complex lighting from the set, adding 3D layers, and a matchmove of her stomach, to make her look pregnant. We took our time at the start to get the recipe right and that paid off in efficiency once we got going. We were soon able to turn around several shots each day.”
“Hand-Crafted” Visual Effects
In one central sequence – the wedding of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) – the camera pans around the newlyweds as they embrace. However, due to a minor wrist injury, Stewart was wearing a brace on the day of the shoot. Naturally, the brace had to be removed in post.
“Matchmoving a close-up is a good example of the challenges of organic CG,” said Pelletier. “We started with a CG model of the hand and then carefully crafting the rig to create natural motions. Once we had that, every minute movement of the hand had to be matched exactly.”
The shot, which is over 300 frames, called for extensive camera tracking and object tracking. Lighting artists at Modus rendered the actor’s hand with subsurface scattering to capture the partial translucence of skin and make it look believable.
“Tracking was particularly challenging, because when they were shooting it, they weren’t thinking about it as an effects shot. There was no camera metadata for the sequence,” Pelletier explained. “The solution was to do a series of careful manual adjustments until we had correctly replicated the light sources on the set. For work like this, it really takes the eye of a skilled artist to get it right.”
“Bella is moving in the shot as the camera circles around her,” Wilisky added, “She’s holding Edward’s hand, so we needed to recreate parts of his hand, along with some of the background. It was a highly technical and complex shot, but no one will see any of that when they watch the movie.”
Read the full story at Animation World Network here. (Via Team-Twilight)
Did you realize that there were instances where CGI could be used in such a realistic way?
(Thanks to @IamAlexis912 on twitter!)...
- 10/23/2011
- by Evie
- twilightersanonymous.com
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