Computer Graphics World

G-Force, Walt Disney Picture's live-action summer kid fl ick, packs talking animals, superheroes, robots, and spies into a rollicking action-comedy in which every one of the 1861 shots is a visual eff ects shot. It's producer Jerry Bruckheimer's fi rst stereo 3D fi lm, and the directorial debut for Hoyt Yeat- man, who had received an Oscar ( e Abyss) for best visual eff ects, an Academy Technical Achievement Award, and two Oscar nominations. And, it's arguably the fi rst VFX-heavy, live-action fi lm shot with standard cameras to be converted into stereo 3D. Sony Pictures Imageworks created all the CG creatures and masterminded 1287 VFX shots. Asylum VFX added on-screen graphics and graphic playbacks to 133 shots. In- ree converted the rest of the fi lm, the shots without CG eff ects, into stereo 3D. e story centers on a group of animals trained by the gov- ernment as covert agents. eir mission? Stop a gazillionaire tyrant who attempts to take over the world by using house- hold appliances. e core members of the squad are guinea pigs: indomi- table team leader Darwin (Sam Rockwell), extreme weapons ex- pert and toy racecar driver Blast- er (Tracy Morgan), and sexy martial-arts practitioner Juarez (Penelope Cruz). Mooch, a fl y that wears surveillance equip- ment, is the reconnaissance expert, and a mole named Speckles (Nicolas Cage) is the team computer geek. In addition, the G-Force team encounters Hurley, a slacker pet-shop guinea pig voiced by director Jon Favreau, and Bucky, a territorial hamster voiced by Steve Buscemi, as well as some CG animals and creatures that don't talk. e hero critters perform their secret-agent duties in a live-action world populated by actors Zach Galifi anakis, Bill Nighy, and others, and fi ght to save the world from transforming household appliances and an 80-foot robot. Flat World Imageworks' Scott Stockdyk, who won an Oscar for Spider- Man's visual eff ects, supervised a crew of 326 artists who worked on the 2D version of the fi lm, which the studio calls the "fl at" fi lm. Rob Engle supervised a second crew of 150 visual eff ects artists at Imageworks who converted each shot created by the "fl at-fi lm" team into stereo 3D (see Viewpoint, pg. 6). is is Engle's sixth stereo 3D fi lm at Imageworks. "We needed to take traditionally shot fl at pho- tography, add dimension, and then integrate our CG visual eff ects characters in a way that would seamlessly blend them together, as if they had been photographed at the same time with a real stereo 3D camera," Engle says. First, the fl at fi lm. Within Imageworks' 60 minutes of animation, 40 min- utes entailed swinging the CG creatures into live-action plates; the other 20 minutes were all-CG shots. In addition to the guinea pigs and Speckles the mole, the crew created an army of cockroaches, mice, a snake, robot appliances that come to life and terrorize people, and an 80-foot-tall robot that stars in many of the all-CG shots. Made from pieces of machinery assembled apparently randomly, the asymmetri- cal machine has a somewhat organic feel. "It's unique," says animation director Tony Saliba of the robot. "It's not only a character, it's an environment. ere were challenges all over the place. e environment is con- stantly moving, and the guinea pigs have to make their way into the heart of it." e stars of the show, however, are the guinea pigs and the mole. "I think that what sells the movie is that you believe the real guinea pigs could do the stunts," Stockdyk says. "It's like Stuart Little combined with Spider-Man. e guinea pigs swing on cables, but they don't do superhero kinds of August 2009 19 CG Characters•Stereo ■ ■ ■ ■ The all-CG G-Force team—Blaster, Darwin, and Juarez—considers its next move. Imageworks animators could quickly switch the guinea pigs from a bipedal stance to a four-on-the fl oor scamper.

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