Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/541232
www.postmagazine.com 15 POST JULY 2015 with a combination of Maya, Nuke, Pho- toshop and RenderMan, Privett points out that one of the biggest challenges was more character-based. One of the show's lead characters, Colum MacKen- zie (played by actor Gary Lewis), suf- fers from Toulouse-Lautrec Syndrome, making his legs horribly deformed and curved. Dneg needed to replace the ac- tor's actual legs with digital limbs. Lewis wore special socks that Dneg could ma- nipulate so that they would appear bent. Wedged shoes worn by the actor also helped create Colum's unique gait caused by his deformity. "In a way, Colum's legs, which we entire- ly made in CG, are the highest end visual effects in the show," says Privett. "There's also one scene, technically speaking, that was the hardest, where he gets massaged by Claire. I think it was Episode 3, and we had to make his legs naked for that…" Through a combination of tools, including Maya, ZBrush, RenderMan, and Dneg's own proprietary shader/creation tool (that is render agnostic), Privett describes the work on Colum's legs as "technically, the most interesting — it's not something that's done very often on that level for television. "We were initially going to replace the bottom half of his legs from the knee down, and we thought of a way to do that. With the special stockings we made for him to wear, we were able to track the position of the bottom of his legs, because the other thing was, he was always walk- ing around and moving. So we needed to make sure that the bottom and top of his leg completely matched. And that's ac- tually not that easy to do, with a moving camera and a moving person. "Once we actually got into it, we found that it wasn't exaggerated enough with just the bottom of his legs because from hip to knee, it was actually a straight line and we needed him to be much more bent. So, in the end, we replaced all of his legs, right from the top. He was wearing short trousers, so they had to be simu- lated in cloth. It was a real challenge but it ended up being an amazing character because of the legs — quite a lot of work." Privett again stresses that it's "great to work on a show with such a high produc- tion value" and reveals that the production team now has an on-location VFX supervisor, indicating that perhaps they are upping the ante on the visual effects. "This next season should really be quite interesting." PRIMETIME Above: Double Negative enhances the castle setting to be period correct. Left: A lead character's deformed legs are also a digital effect.