Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/42006
Visual Effects ■ ■ ■ ■ create aDA digitalZ 3D Releases Studio fl oating car," Townsend says. "We had shot a car on a gimbal, but we needed to have it fl oat more organically, so they jumped DAZ 3D has olled out DAZ Studio 4, the latest version of its in, f cohuand quick solutions, and did good work. racter creation, art, and animation tool for generating versa- "tIt's amazing how many people work on cre- ating the visuals, and there are so few credits at the end," Townsend continues. "Th ese people have put the pictures on the screen for a lot of the fi lm. It's a shame. But, that being said, it takes a whole city of people to make a fi lm." Skinny Steve Soper and Townsend began work on the fi lm in November 2009. Shooting commenced in June 2010 and continued through December. Postproduction began in December and con- tinued into June 2010. Th ere was no previs. "Joe [Johnston] made ile 3D human models using the new Genesis series of figures. The Genesis series allows for virtually limitless figure variations that can be built from a common base. These variations can range in size and proportion while sharing a single joint system. DAZ Studio 4 utilizes a new open file format that is light- weight and easily transferred. Key features include a new per- joint weight-map system, an auto-rigging capability, an auto-fit plug-in for clothes and hair, a smart content identifier to deter- mine asset compatibility, and a content management service for locating assets. DAZ Studio 4 is free; the Auto-Fit plug-in is priced at $99.95. a statement at the beginning that there would be none on Captain America," Townsend says. "He's a real shoot-from-the-hip director. He visualizes the fi lm in his head, storyboards it, and then creates his shot list for the day. We'd walk onto the set and he'd say, 'Forget the script. Forget the storyboard. I think we'll do it diff erently.' So, I learned to fall into reac- tionary mode for six months, and I loved it. It might have been easier with previs, but we Autodesk Offers Simulation CFD for Fluid Dynamics Autodesk recently made available its new Autodesk Simu- lation CFD, which builds on computational fluid dynamics capabilities that the company gained as a result of the Blue Ridge Numerics acquisition, which occurred this past March. The offering helps automate fluid flow and thermal simu- lation decision-making for designs, while eliminating costly physical prototyping cycles. New integration with Autodesk Inventor Fusion software Thirteen VFX studios worked on this fi lm, creating invisible effects for the most part, including set extensions, armies of soldiers, and backgrounds, such as in this shot. wouldn't have gotten the same natural feel." On set, Townsend would watch Chris Ev- PRODUCT: MODELING ans to be sure that his performance wouldn't create Skinny Steve problems later. "One time, [Evans] was massaging his lip while watching a movie," Townsend says. "I went to Joe [John- ston] and said, 'Chris can't do the hand thing.' Joe said to Chris, laughing, 'Hey can you not do the hand thing. It's too hard for visual ef- fects.' When you see the fi lm, you'll see that Windows-32 /Windows-64 / OSX-32 /OS X-64 allows engineers to modify or simplify geometry quickly and easily from virtually any CAD system when running simula- tions. Automated fluid flow and thermal simulations provide a cost-effective and faster alternative to physical testing meth- ods that often lack a complete picture of design performance. Among the new features now available in the software are: one-click simulation for exploring flow and thermal design options, tools for avoiding repetition when creating a design study, and the ability to harness compute power on the user's network. PRODUCT: FLUID DYNAMICS it's there, though. But, we had backup shots in case that didn't work." Before giving the Skinny Steve work to Lola, Soper and Townsend considered using digital doubles, a CG head replacement on a small body double, and forced perspective and other in-camera tricks. "We spent many months in R&D before we decided on a technique," Townsend says. "Th e general approach we used was to take the performance in the 2D world 32-bitonly $399 High Performance CameraTracking Use SynthEyes for animated critter insertion, fixing shaky shots, virtual set extensions, making 3Dmovies, architectural previews, accident reconstruction,virtual product placement, face and body capture, andmore. Includes Stereoscopic features used in AVATAR August/September 2011 June/July 2011 19 9