Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/541232
www.postmagazine.com 26 POST JULY 2015 C M Y CM MY CY CMY K they basically turn it into voxels. So, for example, when Galaga drops a bomb on a building, some of it will be destroyed in a practical manner but great big sections of it will just kind of cubify into voxels and those cubes will then just fall apart and collapse. We have another shot where Tetris comes down and sort of locks into a building and once a line is complete, it destroys that section of the building and it collapses on itself. We had to develop a whole language for what that looked like." — BY LINDA ROMANELLO TERMINATOR GENISYS MPC Film (www.moving-picture.com) spent a year producing visual effects for the new Terminator Genisys film, but the studio's involvement dates back even further. MPC and its VFX supervisor Gary Brozenich had worked with Terminator Genisys VFX producer Shari Hanson on Lone Ranger, and she once again turned to the studio to help fulfill a vision for the big screen. "She approached Gary in early stages, during filming," recalls MPC VFX super- visor, Sheldon Stopsack, who oversaw the studio's work on the new film. "Gary introduced me to the idea. He explained from the start the potential sequences." Terminator Genisys was directed by Alan Taylor and opened in theatres on July 1st. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emilia Clarke, Jason Clarke and Jai Courtney. According to Stopsack, MPC was responsible for 250 shots featured in the film. Double Negative was the film's lead VFX provider, and both Lola and ILM also made contributions. MPC's biggest chal- lenge involved creating a much younger version of Arnold Schwarzenegger to support the film's storyline, which returns at points to 1984. "The prospect of recreating an iconic figure is both appealing and scary," says Stopsack of their work on the digital character. "First, I thought it was crazy to take on. Not only is it difficult to create a human, digitally, but that multiplies by a hundred if you start applying it to an iconic person like Arnold. We realized we can't leave any stone unturned, and right from start, we had to put in all the energy to take it to the next level." Stopsack says the MPC team refer- enced footage from the original Terminator film, as well as from the 1977 body-building documentary, Pumping Iron. "We used any material we could get our hands on: photos, footage, the orig- inal movie," says Stopsack. The material would provide guidance for modeling and texturing, and was constantly cross referenced as the CG character was be- ing developed." During production, a bodybuilder was shot in front of a blue screen, but Stopsack says very little of that material was used in the final visual effect. "The appearance of Arnold is so unique," he explains. "He has a very unique charac- teristic to him, and a stunt guy would not give you that." Ultimately, MPC approached the sequence with the intent of 100 percent replacement of the live-action actor, but the final effect involved closer to 80 or 90 percent. The screen time of the digital character represents nearly 2,800 frames, consisting of over-the-shoulder, wide, close-up, and dialogue-driven shots. MPC's Montreal studio handled the bulk of the work. Its London and Bangalore studios also pitched in, and their Los Angeles location hosted meet- ings and presentations. "Time was our only enemy," says Stopsack. "The model was in flux until the last day for corrections and changes. There were changes to the face mesh — it was always being questioned. We never really called it finished." MPC relied on a combination of tools to accomplish the shots. Autodesk Maya was used to create the 3D, and the rigging was also Maya-based. "We have software sitting on top," says Stopsack, "in particular for rigging." For texturing, The Foundry's Mari 3D texture painting tool was used quite a lot, says Stopsack, adding that the texture maps alone represent 18GBs. Next up for MPC is work on the up- coming Pirates of the Caribbean film. MPC created a digital 1984 version of Arnold Schwarzenegger for Terminator Genisys. Double Negative handled the film's early-generation and new-model Terminators. VFX FOR SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS