Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/147928
Visual EffEcts "The ratio between a six-foot human and Gypsy Danger is a factor of about 40," Knoll says. "So, how fast should something like that move? If you are going to shoot humans and have something 250 feet tall move with the same physics, you'd have to shoot at 150 to 160 frames per second. No one wanted to have [the creatures] be slow and boring. But if you cheat the scale and have the characters move faster than what physics would dictate, then how does the water behave when the characters slosh around?" And, when the characters are on land and thrash through Hong Kong? "Same thing," Knoll says. "When they smash through buildings, we want things breaking and falling, and the dust swirling, to have good physics. We had to ensure the simulations didn't explode." .com Video: Go to "Extras" in the July/August 2013 issue box Mech Porn ■ A JAEGER FACTORY called the "Shatterdome" that surrounds the actors is all-CG. Model Supervisor Dave Fogler led a crew of 30 artists at ILM in San Francisco and Singapore who worked for a year and a half building and texturing the big 'bots using Autodesk's Maya, Pixologic's ZBrush, and The Foundry's Mari, along with proprietary tools. The modelers began creating Gypsy Danger by working from 2D art and a clay sculpture. "The art and sculptures had competing designs," Fogler says. "They had nothing to do with each other. Guillermo [del Toro] would say, 'I like this here and that there. Let's put together a Gypsy Danger we like.' I could talk for hours about how great he is to work with. His eye is good. He's immensely reasonable and intelligent. He invites everyone's contribution and talent." During the film, the story calls for Gypsy to have two upgrades. "In addition to that, she's in battle after battle," DeQuattro says. "Every time something explodes against her or she's kicked, we needed a new map." New Tools, New Workflow Pacific Rim was a big technology experiment largely centered around improving the efficiency of the pipeline," says John Knoll, creative director at ILM and visual effects supervisor on this film. "In terms of cool R&D and new technology, that was relatively limited. It was more about trying to work out a way to deliver the same quality of work we're known for at a lower price." Autodesk's Maya is still the studio's primary animation tool. The new tools included The Foundry's Katana, Solid Angle's Arnold, and Side Effects Software's Houdini. "On Mission Impossible, I did one sequence with Katana and Arnold," Knoll says, "and I wanted to see what it would be like on a bigger project, so I 40 ■ CGW Ju l y / Au g u s t 2 0 1 3 said, 'Let's do the whole thing that way.' Katana was a very positive experience. It's still early in its product life cycle, and we're happy to work with The Foundry on it." As for Arnold: "It was a mixed experience, but generally I like it," Knoll says. "I like the directness of raytracers, the truthfulness of them, and how little cheating you do. But, the higher render times are definitely a challenge. Every renderer makes trade-offs for what's important to them. [Pixar's] RenderMan historically places computational efficiency higher than the workload of the artists setting things up. Raytracers are simple for artists to set up, but you live with higher render times. This was our first big show with Arnold, and we were less experienced with which knobs to turn, so we got help from Solid Angle. We spent a lot of time learning how to optimize scenes." The simulation artists used Houdini primarily for destruction and a little bit for shots with rain. "We did a lot of simulation work in Houdini," Knoll says. "Some people liked it. Some people prefer the in-house tools." Although the idea of changing pipeline tools and becoming more efficient all at the same time might seem contradictory, Knoll is pleased with the effort. "In the end," he says, "I think we did achieve the lower numbers despite the chaos and uncertainty from the big pipeline rework." – Barbara Robertson