Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1006097
www.postmagazine.com 26 POST JULY 2018 SUMMER MOVIES The initial test for the Wasp was developed by lead animator Mattias Brunosson under animation supervisor Eric Petey. "We determined how she'd move, her wings, her fighting style," says VFX supervisor Jelmer Boskma. "In the initial test we used the wings from her mom's Wasp character, very organic wings like a dragon- fly's. But once we saw the Wasp's costume with the folded wings stubs that gave us clues to the design language of her digital wings. Now they look more like high-tech fabric unfolding from a backpack." Scanline also created the blasters on the Wasp's wrists, which she shoots to stun the enemy. "They're a combination of a laser bolt, smoke and sparks," Boskma says. "We had to figure out how aggressive to make them since she's one of the good guys, but the blasters definitely had to sting." In addition, Scanline developed the saddles on the giant car- penter ants that Ant-Man rides. "They went through phases of upgrading to revamp the shape, make them sleeker and fit with Ant-Man's updated suit." The restaurant fight sequence was shot on a set in Atlanta with the stunt team. "A lot of the fighting was shot in camera but we replaced some perfor- mances completely when the characters shrink and grow back to regular size," says Boskma. "Part of the Wasp's fighting style is to dodge a punch by shrinking rapidly then growing to normal size again." At one point in the action, the Wasp flies between the crystals of a giant chandelier that Scanline built — and destroyed — entirely in CG under CG supervi- sor Ryo Sakaguchi. "It tested the limits of our render farm," Boskma reports. "The chandelier was both highly reflective and refractive. Refractive crystal distorts images and there are prismatic aberrations to the light. That asks a lot of a physics-based render engine to do. But the tech wizards in our pipeline department helped us find ways to render it." Scanline also did the look development of the macro kitchen environment and all the VFX involved in that scene, which featured a giant saltshaker, an exploding bag of flour and a smashed CG tomato. The San Francisco Bay sequence posed many of the challenges that water-based visual effects often present. Ant-Man emerges from the bay as Giant- Man, 90 feet tall. "He's initially mistaken for a whale by the passengers in a whale-watching boat," says Boskma. "He makes a huge splash, and we mimic a whale's tail with his feet. We used our proprietary water sim software, Flowline, to help us convey the scale of the scene: the mist, foam, aerated water, emitting water versus displacing it. Ant-Man wears a reflective metal suit and with water on top of that it got pretty heavy renderwise." Scanline's tools in- cluded Maya for modeling and animation and Chaos Group's V-Ray and 3ds Max for rendering. Giant Man falls unconscious at one point, makes an enormous splash and sinks into the bay as bub- bles rise to the surface of the water. When he hits bottom he stirs up sediment. "If it were really the bay it would be so murky underwater you'd never be able to see him," notes Boskma. "So we took some creative license to clean up the murky green bay water enough to tell the story." Scanline created a 360-degree digital under- water environment, including the underside of a pier and lots of vegetation. "There are degrees of murkiness that effect the way light scatters around, and in the shallow water you see patterns reflected from the sky and sun — but we had to be careful it didn't look like the caustics from a swimming pool," he explains. "Very little is inanimate underwater," he adds. "The fish move and everything — seaweed, piec- es of rope — has a bit of a sway to it from the motion of the current." Topside, Scanline crafted a high-resolution digital seagull with a complex working feather system. Additional Scanline shots in the film include creating a man-size ant who loves cereal, takes baths and plays the drums in Scott's home. "We had to make this ant look more realistic but not mon- strous," Boskma says. He also promises a glimpse of "a very colorful little world inside the Quantum Realm" for those in the audience who stay in their seats past the closing credits. "Those were fun shots that were highly original in their design," he says. There was a lot of attention to detail with how the Wasp flew, looked and fought. Lots of simulations were required for the SanFran Bay sequence.