Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/511209
www.postmagazine.com 20 POST MAY 2015 to give the animators the sort of control they'd have on a normal face. We gave them the tools they would have on a normal face and we gave them a version of James Spader they could animate as a digital double. It was driving this elaborate, robotic face that rode on top of that." ILM employed its proprietary Muse motion capture system on-set to allow the actors to see how the Hulk's and Ultron's expressions would appear, and to serve as a reference for the artists creating the final animation. ILM also contributed to a big, timed sequence in the trailer, where all of the Avengers are shown coming together and in action. The Hulk and Hulk Buster sequences were among the first scenes shot, in order for them to appear in mul- tiple trailers and in time for last summer's Comic Con convention in San Diego. "It was the first sequence that was shot," says Snow of the Hulk Buster sequence. "We shot it in South Africa and planned it very well. There was previs and it was a second-unit shoot, though Joss was there with us for part of the shoot. It was of course featuring the Hulk and the Hulk Buster exo suit that Tony [Stark] creates around his Iron Man suit, so it was a lot of fun to do. So we shot that and it was a pretty elaborate sequence." DESTRUCTION: Beyond their con- tributions to the film's superheroes, ILM also handled a major VFX sequence in the third act. "Ultron engineers this crazy scheme to basically lift a small European city from the ground it's sitting on and raise it up into the sky with the idea of drop- ping and crashing it into the earth and causing a huge cataclysmic event," Snow explains. "We did a lot of the work on the creation of this European city, and the lift off and the ground effects/earthquake effects, ripping itself out of the earth, and the flying city." The sequence, says Snow, represents ILM's most elaborate digital environment asset. "We had to create this city, which you have to see from all sorts of different distances. It had to break apart." The studio took digital matte assets — generated in 3DS Max and rendered in V-Ray — and ran them through ILM's pro- prietary rigid body destruction tools, finally going back into V-Ray for rendering. "In the wider shots of the city lifting up, you have whole avenues of build- ings breaking apart, the ground ripping apart," Snow explains. "In the past, when we've wrecked buildings, it was a single skyscraper or a few skyscrapers falling into one another. We had to really step outside of this — it's a whole city this time — and change our approach a little bit. We wanted the detail and realism, and hand-drawn artwork that you get from the digital matte artists, and com- bine that with our rigid body destruction so that we could put interiors into these buildings so it didn't seem like they were eggshell buildings cracking." The studio employed its Plume propri- etary effects simulation software to add smoke and dust in the debris. VFX work on Avengers: Age of Ultron spanned ILM facilities throughout the world. The studio's Singapore facility has been contributing to films since the first Iron Man release, but this film marked the debut of ILM's UK office and also took advantage of the studio's resources in Vancouver, which were able to receive dailies at the same time as the San Fran- cisco location. "It was a terrific experience because we were able to hire very talented artists in those locations," says Snow. "The team in Singapore has become a really ad- vanced team, and does work the levels of anywhere else in the world. And because we share a pipeline, we are able to split sequences amongst companies." TRIXTER Trixter (www.trixter.de), which has German offices in Munich and Berlin, as well as Los Angeles, was responsible for more than 300 VFX shots that appear in Avengers: Age of Ultron. The studio's work included effects for Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, and the first time audiences see Ultron (Mark I). Accord- ing to VFX supervisor Alessandro Cioffi, the studio got involved in early 2014, collaborating during preproduction with the film's visual effects supervisor, Chris- topher Townsend. "We were requested to investigate a look for Quicksilver and his colleague," says Cioffi of the studio's initial work. "This started during the time of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. There's a sequence at the end of the show where VFX supervisor Alessandro Cioffi (inset) says Trixter's Munich facility created Quicksilver's high- speed motion (here) and Ultron's Mark I suit (below). AVENGERS