Computer Graphics World

September/October 2014

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s e p t e m b e r . o c t o b e r 2 0 1 4 c g w 2 1 V I S U A L E F F E C T S t's called Maze Runner, Sue," said Director Wes Ball to Visual Effects Supervisor Sue Rowe. "We've got to make them run." And, run they do. The teen- agers who try to escape a maze built with 100-foot-tall walls that rearrange themselves every night, and the Grievers, huge, multi-legged creatures that want to kill them. The Twentieth Century Fox film, based on a series of young adult novels by James Dashner, stars Dylan O'Brien as Thomas, a teenager caught in a post- apocalyptic world. Filmed in a large field in Louisiana and on stages, the story takes place almost entirely inside a glade in the center of the giant maze that has trapped several boys. When the doors to the maze open, brave boys run through trying to find a way home. But, the doors close without warn- ing, trapping them inside the walls. And they never appear again. Once a month, an eleva- tor appears through the ground and brings food, supplies, and another boy. One day, it brings a girl, who causes everything to change. Visual Effects Supervisor Sue Rowe moved to Vancouver from London and joined Method Studios to work on the film. Once there, she began recruit- ing a core team to help with the Grievers; Method was known more for environments and effects than creature work. "Wes [Ball] was telling me about the opening scene, and he was so excited that, within sec- onds, I wanted in," Rowe says. "I wanted this job. But how would we make this creature? As soon as I got the word, I contacted Erik De Boer, who had just gotten an Oscar for Life of Pi. And then I managed to persuade James Jacobs, who had just gotten a Sci-Tech Award [Science and Engineering Award], to leave Weta and come back to Canada, where he's from." De Boer became animation supervisor, and Jacobs began working on a muscle simula- tion system that would help animators make the grotesque creature believable (see "Crea- ture Simulation," page 20). On location, actors worked near a 40-foot-long, 16-foot-tall wall with heavy, concrete doors, and in the studio, a smaller set on a bluescreen stage. Stunt actors played the role of the fearsome Grievers. Artists at Method grew the existing walls to 100 feet, created more, cov- ered the walls with ivy, eventu- ally destroyed sections of the maze, and replaced the stunt actors with the CG beasts. Because the glade was green and the maze was covered with ivy, Rowe decided to use blue- screen on set rather than green- screen. But, the camera used for the live-action photography was an Alexa. "It was my first time working with an Alexa," Rowe says. "Aer I had told everyone, yes, we'll go with a bluescreen, I realized that the Alexa responds better with green. I called Eric Brevig, who I had worked with on John Carter, and told him I needed his help." And with that addition, Rowe had her core team. Brevig was on set for most of the prin- cipal photography and stayed on aerwards. "Having Eric on set was great," Rowe says. "He's so ex- perienced. We got great keys." All told, a crew of approxi- mately 150 artists at Method created 530 shots for the film, of which 150 were creature shots. "The creature was the fun thing and the main thing to talk about," Rowe says. "Next are the maze and the maze de- struction, which happens at an integral moment in the movie." The studio artists use a tool set that includes Autodesk's Maya, Side Effects Soware's Houdini, The Foundry's Nuke, Adobe's Photoshop, Pixolog- ic's ZBrush, Pilgway's 3D-Coat sculpting soware, Chaos Group's V-Ray, and the propri- etary soware developed by Jacobs and his team. G R I E V E R The beast is a biomechanical creature with a slug-like body and six metal legs. At one point in the movie, the audience sees 12, but is led to believe there are lots of the nasty creatures. "They're all the LIGHTING ARTISTS AT METHOD INCORPORATED SHADOWS AND RAKING LIGHTS TO GIVE THE COMPUTER-GENERATED WALLS SCALE. ''I ARTISTS AT METHOD STUDIOS BUILT 100-FOOT- TALL CG WALLS TO EXTEND THOSE ON LOCATION IN LOUISIANA. Images ©2014 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp

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