Computer Graphics World

Edition 4 2018

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e d i t i o n 4 , 2 0 1 8 | c g w 2 3 footage. We felt the projections would be better than a CG crowd because it's circular." It's a trap. Grindelwald creates blue fire and uses it to attack Newt. Then, Grindel- wald attempts to convince the wizards and witches attending the rally that they should follow him. He creates a vision of what the humans are about to do. What they are about to do is start World War II. "We created the vision with fluid effects using live-action footage and filled the whole underground," Burke says. "It culmi- nates with the atomic bomb going off." Newt and his friends escape into the cemetery exterior, and we see the whole of Paris beyond. But, Grindelwald turns blue fire into huge, winged, demonic creatures with skeletal bodies. "They're about to be unleashed to attack Paris," Burke says. "Our remaining wizards have to stop them. So, we discussed how we did sequences with the Inferians in the sixth Harry Potter [The Half-Blood Prince] and decided to fight fire with fire." (In that film, Dumbledore surrounds himself with a ring of fire to fight the Inferi.) In this film, the wizards slam down their wands and create a circle of fire 100 meters in diameter that entraps the blue fire. "They use their magic to drive the creatures, almost like herding, back under- ground where they originated," Burke says. "It's an epic sequence. We have orange fire around blue fire creatures. DNeg built all the set extensions, all the fire effects, and the creatures. The creatures are predom- inately fire simulations created in [Side Effects'] Houdini, with subtle skeletal forms underneath. The fluid runs off wing shapes. The head has minimal amounts of fire attached to it. There's a charred, blackened skull underneath. It took a lot of R&D work to get the right volume of fire, to get the right movement of the creature, and to get the right amount of fluid emit- ting at the correct speed." Although the team referenced the fire effects from the sixth Potter film, which aired in 2009, effects such as those cre- ated for this feature would not have been possible then – or at least not possible within the same time frame. "When I was working as a supervisor at The Mill on Chamber of Secrets, I'd try to show Jim Mitchell [VFX supervisor] and Chris Columbus [director] animation," Burke says. "I was so limited by how many playblasts I could put in front of them. We were trying to get the spiders rendered, lit, and into the film, and we could show only one or two hits. That compared to the speed we can do things now – the complex stuff, fire and water effects.... Some of the water work that Method did in this film is among the most sophisticat- ed interactive work I've been involved with. DNeg's fire – for such huge renders, to get those on that scale – we wouldn't have been able to complete them before. But now, we can give the director iterations. So, when we're designing a creature made of fire and the director doesn't like the way it moves, we have been able to go back, modify, and render simulations that adjust based on new animation. That kind of turnaround was restricted in the past." This speed is also important to meet today's compressed schedules. "Tim and I started on the film in January 2017, working with David and other key production team members, then helped design creatures and the action sequences through preproduction and through the shoot," Manz says. "Postproduction was five or six months, although we had built assets before that. But, we had a plan, and the postvis helped the studios know what to do. Plus, the industry as a whole has more experience. Work that five or 10 years ago would have been tough isn't. Having great artists and a plan makes it possible." And, perhaps, a touch of magic. Barbara Robertson (BarbaraRR@comcast.net) is an award-winning writer and a contributing editor for CGW. THE CG ZOUWU CAN APPARATE THROUGH TIME AND SPACE. VFX ARTISTS HELPED DESIGN MANY OF THE 40-PLUS NEW CHARACTERS.

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