Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/394837
www.postmagazine.com 24 POST SEPTEMBER 2014 FEATURE and they were coming to us. We were discussing their Rocket, they were dis- cussing our Groot. It was important that both studios got the characters right, because they are both hero characters and so they're required to look exactly the same every time." Can you discuss your work on Rocket? "When we did Rocket, that was the most complex. Groot was complex technically, because the rigging was extremely com- plex. For Rocket, it was the fur. Frame- store gave us the model and pictures and then they were sending us a data file that contained the fur, and Framestore is using Arnold to render and its own pro- prietary software for fur. At MPC, we are also using our own proprietary tool for fur, called Furtility, and using RenderMan to render and those are very important software tools that are crucial to fur. "One thing we didn't want to do was get the groom from Framestore and then, if we wanted to change something, we'd have to ask Framestore to change it and then they'd send it back to us. We needed to bring the groom in, and retain control of the groom and be able to change the length, the thickness, tex- tures, whatever we needed to have con- trol over so we wouldn't be dependant on Framestore. We knew they would be very busy and we would be very busy, so R&D people managed to bring the cache into Furtility and make sure we were able to keep control over it. "So, I think three months — and that was like a daily thing for three months straight, we were working on matching every single details on Rocket, be it the costumes, the fur, the reflection in the eyes, reflection in the nose, the way he moved, everything had to be exactly the same. Even though it was two different software tools, they had to match — it was quite interesting." What tools did you use? "All the CG was done in Maya — we used proprietary that was in Maya all the time and all compositing was done in Nuke, and we used RenderMan for rendering. We used V-Ray to render as well." What would you say was your favorite part of the project? "My favorite part of the project was, hands down, working on Groot. I love Rocket, but Groot is my baby." The full Guardians of the Galaxy cast (above), and one of MPC's fight scenes (right).