Computer Graphics World

January 2009 16 ■ ■ ■ ■ CG Character head motion. For example, Benjamin learns how to walk during a sequence that takes place in a revival tent. He's seven years old, and that's how Pitt plays him, but he looks 80. "He's got his head down, and he looks up shyly," Preeg says, "mostly with his eyes at the top of his eyelids, which is childlike be- havior. You want to get that shy behavior, but when you put that motion onto an 80- year-old face, the overhang of his eyelids means he can't see anything." So, the animators started inching up Benjamin's 3D head and slightly moving his eyelids. "We'd gently nudge the lid one- half millimeter, rotate the head a half de- gree, and lower the eye a half degree," Preeg says. "It took iteration after iteration." Another example: " ere were shots where Benjamin is smiling and David wanted a bigger smile," Preeg says. "But when he smiles, his eyes narrow, and his eyes were already narrow. So we'd try to open them, and he'd look like a crazy ax murderer." As they worked, the animators could quickly see any of the four views of Pitt shot during the performance-capture session on that frame or in a separate window, and could step through the mesh in Maya. ey could lock to the head or the neck, and see the facial motion without any body motion. And, they could query the system to see what shapes were active in the rig at one time. All told, only eight animators worked on the performance. "We weren't sculpting the face," Preeg says. "We were turning on bits of Brad, which allowed us to quickly tweak the emotion with a small number of animators. David didn't want the animator's ver- sion of Brad. He wanted Brad. We used a mini- mum number of shapes and let the data work for us. It was a lesson in restraint. e uncanny valley is very steep." Barba quickly adds, "Steve [Preeg] and I bought property there. We spent a lot of time there." Even though most of the artists who worked on the fi lm lived with Benjamin Button for more than a year, they didn't fi nd the work tedious. For this crew, god was in the details, not the devil after all. For example, lighting supervisor Jona- than Litt, an 18-month Benjamin Button veteran, explains: "On the one hand, it was nice because it's a project limited in scope. On the other hand, the scope of that one thing, a digital human head, is so expan- sive, there's almost an infi nite amount of detail. Skin. Eyes. Hair. Teeth. Tongue. Gums. Stubble. Eyeglasses. Getting it to sit on the neck. Animation. Tracking. We had to go down to the smallest detail." But it was time well spent. Two weeks before the release date, e Curious Case of Benjamin Button received fi ve Golden Globe nominations, including Best Mo- tion Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. It's likely to score more, including, perhaps, among potential Oscar nominations, one for visual eff ects. In any case, if Brad Pitt wins an award for best actor from anyone, you can bet that several hundred people at Digital Domain will be sharing those ear- to-ear grins, too. ■ Barbara Robertson is an award-winning writer and a contributing editor for Computer Graphics World. She can be reached at BarbaraRR@comcast.net. the face," Preeg says. "We were turning on the face," Preeg says. "We were turning on the face," Preeg says. "We were turning on the face," Preeg says. "We were turning on bits of Brad, which allowed us to quickly Benjamin's digital head had to fi t between the body double's moving hat and shoulders, making tracking especially diffi cult. The Quest The fi rst fi lm to seriously open people's eyes to the possibility of digital actors starring in fi lms was Final Fantasy in 2001, but the milestone 3D digital stars list- ed below have pushed computer graphics pilgrims further down the road toward their Holy Grail: A digital human starring in a feature fi lm without restrictions. 2001: The cast of Final Fantasy (Square) 2002: Gollum (Andy Serkis) in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Weta Digital) 2003: Gollum (Andy Serkis) in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Weta Digital) 2004: Doc Ock (Alfred Molino) in Spider-Man 2 (Imageworks) 2004: The baby in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (Industrial Light & Magic) 2006: Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Industrial Light & Magic) 2007: Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Industrial Light & Magic) 2008: The aged but young Benjamin (Brad Pitt) in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Digital Domain)

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