Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1011494
e d i t i o n 3 , 2 0 1 8 | c g w 4 7 J U R A S S I C E V O L U T I O N : 2 0 1 8 make changes in a procedural manner with Nuke. It's so easy to edit without destroying any of our work; it saves us a lot of time." Every area of a dinosaur could have as many as 40 painted maps – sometimes more because the maps do more than give the animals color and patterns. Layers of displacement and bump maps create texture, and layers of diffuse and specular maps define how the skin reacts to light. "The specular color maps define the aniso- tropic angle as light passes across a scale," Wilson says. "We researched the way lizard skins react to light, the oily reflections you can see. And, through experience, we know certain textures need to be shinier than others." The artists generally start by building complexity with a basic set of specular and roughness maps, and move to additional levels. As they work, they run test renders in Foundry's Katana to see the dinosaurs in context in the lighting environment. "It was fun working out the approach we needed to take to make the scales on the dinosaurs work well," Wilson says. "We had concept art for the initial stages, but it isn't specific. We also had the animatronics on set and needed to be sympathetic with those designs. It was a bit of back and forth. Sometimes we'd match theirs. Sometimes they liked what we had done." When the dinosaurs suffered damage, the texture maps had to change. Animators would block out the action and give the artists a guide that told them where wounds would appear. "We always have the undamaged versions," Wilson says, "and then se- quence-specific damaged versions with tex- ture maps for bruising, gashes, scars, blood, and so forth, depending on how wounded they become on top of the originals. When the lava hits a dinosaur, we had to produce complex textures because we can see through the scales to the bloody flesh." The artists also worked on texture maps for the creatures' eyes, even surfacing pooled water in the eyes with a wet material. These dinosaur assets traveled to artists in London and San Francisco who used the creatures in their shots. The texture data in the package could easily total 14GB. Texture artists also worked on vehicles, buildings, and a gyroscope, matching, in many cases, elements shot on location or on stage. "Obviously, the materials are different," Wilson says. "For creatures, we do a lot of work getting subsurface scattering right. For hardscapes, we match physical prop- erties. Creatures are slightly fantastical, so we can get away with not having them completely accurate, but we can't make things up with the hardscape materials. In- formation is available online for how much certain materials reflect and absorb light, all values that we need to give our physi- cally-based renderer, [Pixar's] RenderMan. Once you understand the physics, it isn't hard to get accurate materials. The chal- lenge is to match props on set that aren't metal but are made to look like metal. You have to use your eye." The artists use Mari and Nuke to work on hardscape models, as well, which is a change from the past in which texture art- ists painted maps in Adobe's Photoshop. "We used to paint something pretty in 2D," Wilson says. "Now that most render- ing is physically based, there is a higher expectation. We have to understand what we're painting and how that's affected by lighting. So, we have to know more about the subject and the environment, and why something looks the way it does. It's much more interesting. I'd be bored if I were just coloring all day." Animation Jance Rubinchik and Glen McIntosh su- pervised approximately 52 animators who brought the dinosaurs to life for the film. McIntosh oversaw animators in Vancou- ver who worked on a sequence in which Owen meets Blue in the jungle, a stampede sequence following the volcano explosion, and two resulting dinosaur fights. Rubinchik oversaw the rest of the shots for the film, including the fight between the Indoraptor and Blue in Lockwood's granddaughter Maisie's bedroom. "There are a lot of dinosaurs fighting in this film," Rubinchik says. "J.A. likes darker, scarier horror themes. We used a lot of animatronics – J.A. wanted to use practical dinosaurs where we could – but when we replaced them, they needed to feel like they were real. Because they had these real things on the set with the actors, as we worked through shots, we would always consider whether we were moving the things too fast or not fast enough." McIntosh, who had been animation supervisor for the previous film, worked on set with Scanlan and with the actors. For the sequence in which Owen (Pratt) meets Blue again, he took the role of Blue with Pratt. "I had a gray Styrofoam raptor head," McIntosh says. "Blue has been away from Owen for two years. She's become feral, and Owen didn't know how she'd react. I didn't tell Chris what I'd do. I might lunge, and he wouldn't know in advance. He'd reach and then pull back. Raptors aren't big compared to a T. rex, but it's still a huge animal – about 14 feet, the size of a tiger. When you have that head next to actors, it makes them feel this is something really dangerous." Back at ILM, McIntosh asked motion- capture performer Rod Fransham to don THE T. REX IS A CG-ENHANCED ANIMATRONIC UNTIL IT STARTS MOVING IN THIS SEQUENCE. THEN, IT'S CG.