Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1453602
j a n u a r y • f e b r u a r y • m a r c h 2 0 2 2 c g w 1 5 with witness cameras from multiple angles for each take, enabling the artists to obtain a tight body track; using a head-mounted camera, they captured his facial perfor- mance, as well. In instances when this wasn't possible, they would rely on a roto animation pass to get a good starting point. The creature team would then work on the muscle and skin-sliding simulations, both of which were important steps even though the character has an ever-changing par- ticulate surface, in order to ensure muscle definition and animation was respected by these particles, says Evans. Meanwhile the facial performance data was passed to the animation team to transfer, refine and sometimes augment the captured per- formances, or in the case where none was captured, to create a new performance. When bringing these animated caches into Houdini, the artists found that the particle size was key to maintaining both the physical ap- pearance of the actor and retaining as much as possible from their underlying animated performance. "We had initially kept them all a consistent size but quickly lost the subtle nuances needed on the face, so instead we adopted a range of sizes to get the required resolution, while not deviating too much from the original concept," Evans explains. Custom setups were created in Houdini to seamlessly combine procedural and fully- simulated elements together, creating the art-directed but still natural-feeling behavior that the director was looking for. Lighting Exo-Morpheus also required some development, as hundreds of small re- fl ctive moving balls had a tendency to read as visual noise once a few light sources were added to the scene. A stand-in head made of ball bearings was used on set to capture lighting reference, but as soon as the balls were all in motion against one another, the group found they couldn't rely purely on the set lighting or HDRIs anymore and had to use custom beauty lighting instead, with ad- justments per shot, to achieve the final look De-aging the Characters Resurrections features a number of nods to scenes from the previous films and ven a flash ack sequence from nearly 20 years ago when the fi st Matrix film eleased, re- quiring a de-aging of the hero characters by the Vancouver team supervised by Bourland. The shoot was quite constrained, with the VFX team having to turn what was essen- tially a shallow water bath into the gruesome and visceral sequence it became, set among machine parts and featuring a host of bots. "As this was a flash ack moment, Neo and Trinity needed to look like they were 20 years younger, and still hold up in tight close- up shots," says Evans, who was present on set for the shoot. To achieve this, the group used a par- tial-CG/partial-paint approach. Reference was pulled from the original movies of Reeves and Moss at the correct age, and the geometry of the hero digi-double assets was re-sculpted to better match their younger selves from that reference. Aer a tight body track and face track, the animation team worked on the subtle details of face movement to ensure the digital versions were matching as closely as possible to the actors. Wanting to keep as much of the real actors as possible, they used selective masks to reveal areas of CG face, which blended well with the live-action photog- raphy, and then some additional paint and prep work were done on the shot footage to help blend everything together. "Having these tightly tracked digital versions of the actors meant we could also get some really convincing interaction with the microbots and their skin, giving some truly uncomfortable but rewarding visuals," says Evans. …Part of the Matrix In 1999, the Wachowskis stunned the world with their dark, futuristic action film tha took audiences into a virtual reality inside what was later recognized the world over as the Matrix. That feature, along with the subsequent films in the eries, also became known for pushing the state of the art in visual effects and awakening the world to never-before-seen imagery. It comes as no surprise, then, that those who worked on this recent installment have a deep appreciation for the historical signifi ance of this property. And, this includes Evans. "My favorite memory from this show, without a doubt, is getting to walk around the incredible sets in Berlin, and being part of the shoot, while getting to see these amazing actors bring these iconic charac- ters back to life in front of me," he says. Evans also holds his team in high regard. "I am also very proud of the team at DNeg, who kept such a high level of artistry, but also helped keep spirits up at a time when we were all feeling rather isolated [due to COVID]. Having that community of wonder- ful people was a real blessing." Karen Moltenbrey is the chief editor of CGW. A Synthient helps release a trapped Neo from the Matrix yet again.