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www.postmagazine.com 23 POST APRIL 2016 Before sive VFX load — 2,300 VFX shots across 10 episodes — among multiple vendors to ease the burden of scheduling the complex work and to take advantage of the studios' creative strengths. Vendors were Keyframe, Spin VFX (www.spinvfx. com), Rocket Science VFX (www.rsvfx. com), Switch VFX (www.switchvfx.com) and Atmosphere (www.atmosphere-vfx. com). "It wasn't a challenge to manage the studios," says Munroe. "They are all ridiculously talented and wanted to do their best work — and they all delivered beyond our expectations." Vendor collaboration was an intri- cate dance at times, Cranford notes. "Everyone shared assets, but everything had to match — the action, the way light hits things in space. It took a bit of cho- reography when assets were rendered separately and combined later." Keyframe Digital did extensive rig removal in the many high-speed shots showing actors on wires moving through zero-G (gravity) environments. Keyframe artists also crafted the Martian flagship Donnager, plus the hangar bay on Ceres, the largest-known asteroid and a dwarf planet, and the ships populating it. Set extensions by Keyframe includ- ed the huge dock set on the surface of Ceres where the Belters, the oppressed workers born in the asteroid belt, toil. "We had to track everything and replace the ceiling of the set with rock that matched the rock face on the walls while adding ships docking and people on the catwalks," explains Cranford. "We also manually tracked many of the screens in the show — in the back- ground on Ceres, in ships, in interior living environments and the hand-held devices." The latter were glass props held by the actors; Keyframe crafted some of the 3D assets popping off the small screens; others were provided. Keyframe created the solar system hologram whose moving planets and trajectories are true to the show's future timeline. "NASA has an online app where you can plug in the timeline and it will show where the planets are going to be," says Cranford. Keyframe also manufac- tured zero-G blood and other liquids, using RealFlow for liquid sims. Spin VFX was responsible for nearly 90 percent of the Ceres locations. The studio created full 3D set extensions for the middle-class Midtown area and for the square in the Belter-inhabited Medina. They extended the Medina tunnel set, part of a network of Belter thoroughfares, with 2D matte paintings and shot elements. "The curvature of Midtown's one long street was a challenge," says Spin's VFX supervisor Kyle Menzies. Artists created a seven-story base module, sky dome and groundplane, then raised and rotated multiple instances of it as the main street runs off into the distance. Spin also gave the feel of day and night to the giant arched 'sky' roof, which helps give the illusion of an Earth-like environment to the inhabitants. "The sky roof is basi- cally a giant light source making the space brighter closer to the top floor of Midtown and fading towards ground level," Menzies explains. Spin brought to life the alien proto- molecule, a bio-mechanical entity that After VFX for The Expanse (opposite page and above) include zero-G environments and a sky roof.