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GODZILLA VS. KONG www.postmagazine.com 20 POST MAY/JUNE 2021 They also researched, designed and incorporat- ed various weapons, attack systems and defense systems that Mecha uses in the film, ensuring that those devices worked within the established mod- el. The group then used its in-house Manifest lay- out system to connect all the Mecha parts together into one master asset, much like a puzzle. As Hirota notes, given the mechanical nature of the creature, it did not have any need for muscle, fat, skin or hair type of secondary simulation. "However, we did have a method for some dampened vibration of the larger panels and parts of Mecha to give it a bit of complexity," he says. "Given his larger size and his non-biological construction, we could immediately give him a strength, speed and flexibility advantage, which opened exciting possibilities we didn't have with the other titans." GODZILLA Scanline used the design for Godzilla from MPC's King of the Monsters film, receiving the packaged assets containing the geometry and various tex- ture maps, which had to be adapted to work within Scanline's lighting and creature pipeline. They also incorporated additional details as needed — for instance, an enhanced interior physiology, so when he was struck by Mechagodzilla, glimpses of his skeletal structure and vascular system could be seen through his skin. "But ostensibly Godzilla remained unchanged," says Hirota. Nevertheless, Scanline needed to scale the Godzilla asset down in size since he and Kong needed to be similar in size. And for close-ups, the crew created a new asset referred to as Godzilla Hero, which was re-sculpted to achieve the level of finite detail needed. Additional shading and textur- ing was done as well, and barnacles were added to his fins. And following his fight with Mecha, the artists had to ensure he was appropriately dam- aged by adding wounds and scars. The key to building such massive creatures, says Hirota, is ensuring there is enough small-scale detail to support the sense of scale. But that's not always easy when building large-scale creatures. "A giant gorilla — let along an anthropomor- phized version like Kong — isn't simply a scaled-up version of a normal-sized one. You have to take into account how you want to handle the scale of the skin details, how large the pores are, and the size of the hair follicles," he points out. "Given the increase in skin area, having a similar amount of follicles per square inch will help inform the size of the creature. Additionally, when they are placed in a shot, you need to solidify their size based on their interactions with the world around them. Appropriately-scaled fluid, large-scale destruction, and smoke and dust simulations will help support or give away their scale." OCEAN BATTLES The ocean battle sequences were especially challenging for Scanline, as they had to account for the reflection and refraction of the light on the ocean, along with the scale of the creatures in the water and all the fur and water interaction. The water sims were done using Scanline's in-house Flowline simulation pipeline. Due to the size of the characters, the ships in the sequences had to be large as well (aircraft carriers, big transport ships), which made it more difficult to simulate the wakes, splashes and sprays as these huge boats moved appropriately in the water. The studio optimized its Flowline setups to handle the scale of the large creatures above and below the water surface. "At such large scale, the general appearance of the overall behavior can appear quite slow, but within that overall structure, the mist, spray and droplets have dynamic interaction and motions of their own," says Hirota. The underwater bubble setups were also opti- mized to allow for creatures of such size and speed to produce similar results. And then there was a furred Kong in the scene. "We had not done such large-scale interaction of water with fur, and our shots required rivulets of water running down Kong's wet, clumped fur. We created a system that took a reduced set of the millions of hairs on Kong's body and allowed the fluid solver to interact with that reduced dataset in a natural way," Hirota adds. BUILDING HONG KONG — SCANLINE In the final daytime battle of Hong Kong, there are only a few shots that are photographic plates. Nearly the entire sequence is a fully-digital version of the city, although Scanline made heavy use of the extensive drone and helicopter footage taken by production on which to base the CG version. All the buildings were constructed fully, and building materials (glass, concrete, floors, walls) were tagged by the effects group in the layout so destruction simulations could be run accurately, and animation could take that into account when driving the creature movement. "We wanted to make sure we had buildings that were made with construction histories so that all the individual materials would behave and break apart accurately when struck," says Hirota, noting Hong Kong is represented as a modern, neon-lit metropolis.