Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/57248
n n n n Stereo 3D hybrid, or pre-conversion shots—those con- taining visual effects. For the 3D conversion on these shots, the plates and assets moved back and forth between the effects house and the stereo vendor, as opposed to the usual pro- cess of effects finishing a shot before passing it to the conversion vendor (sometimes supply- ing pieces or elements of a shot, albeit at an added cost). On Ghost Rider 2, the shots were converted ahead of visual effects, and then the effects group would render the CG elements, like the fire, in a true stereo environment, re- sulting in a much higher-quality product with a more efficient scheduling process, as shots constantly moved through the pipeline. The workflow went like this: Iloura would first receive the plates and perform the 3D tracking, roto, and cleanup, and prep the plate for the CG elements. Then they would send Fire Effects For Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, VFX house Iloura had the challenge of creating all the 3D fire effects throughout the movie. Due to budget, these effects had to be generated digitally rather than practical- ly. To accomplish this, the artists did all the modeling and animation in Auto desk's Maya, and then moved the files into Autodesk's 3ds Max, where they employed Sitni Sati's FumeFX, a Max plug-in, to craft the fire. Compositing, meanwhile, was done using The Foundry's Nuke, and Cebas's ThinkingParticles within Max was used for some of the simulations. Although Iloura has a matchmove department in-house, the decision was made to send the work outside to Yannix. "The [filmmakers] covered the action in a wild manner, throwing the camera around with few, if any, tracking markers," says Glenn Melenhorst, VFX supervisor at Iloura. "So we had rolling-shutter and tracking issues. Yannix managed to track stuff that we thought was pretty much untrackable." While a handful of vendors worked on the movie, Iloura did the lion's share of the effects, including the fire and smoke. Perhaps most challenging was art- directing the fire on Ghost Rider's skull to accomplish a range of emotions. "We were puppeteering the fire to get what we wanted out of it, blending the smoke and flames in such a way that it still felt natural but also performed as required," says Melenhorst. "Yet, we didn't want it to seem like you were looking at all-digital stuff all the time. It had to appear natural and photoreal." Directing the fire, Melenhorst notes, also required a great deal of trial and error, and scripting. The group also used Thinkbox Software's Krakatoa, which enabled them to more easily control the billions of little particles—to make the fire wrap around a finger, for example. Compared to the fire in the first Ghost Rider movie, these flames were blacker and sootier, with embers and heat haze. Because fire simulations can take a long time to do, Iloura code writer Jordan Walsh devised scripts that enabled the team to simulate multiple variations of the same simulation, allowing, for example, the group to dial up or down the heat level and speed, and output a QuickTime of those iterations—variations of cold/slow to hot/fast—to review. "We found that tool to be useful because the overhead of the simulations is so great," Melenhorst says. Each time Ghost Rider touches an object, it becomes a hellish version of what that object had been—including his signature motorcycle and an earthmover used in the climax. In addition, there is lots of death and destruction, all of which re- quired Iloura's magical touch. –Karen Moltenbrey 40 February/March 2012 Iloura created the visual effects for the movie, including the fire, which was done digitally. They puppeteered the fire to achieve the desired effects for the smoke and flames. the plate, along with the roto and other ele- ments, including the CG camera, to Gener8, which would extract the 3D data from Iloura's assets and produce a left- and right-eye cam- era. Next, Gener8 would send those plates, along with the CG and stereo cameras, back to the VFX studio to complete the visual ef- fects work, render the elements, and compos- ite them into the 3D scenes. "Everything fit perfectly into place. Our VFX house didn't have to guess on the 3D work, ever," says Mumma. The facilities also had to contend with two other types of shots that followed more tra- ditional workflows: straight conversion, for live-action, non-VFX shots, which were giv- en directly to Gener8, bypassing Iloura; and post-conversion shots, whereby Iloura would do its work before passing the plates and the assets (roto and track) to Gener8 for stereo completion. And while each studio used specific software to get its job done, there were shared tools in the pipeline, including Autodesk's Maya and The Foundry's Nuke. A key component of the pipeline, notes Mumma, was Gener8's propri- etary conversion tool set, which he calls "the kingpin of the operation." As Gener8 producer Paul Becker explains, what sets his company aside from other con- version facilities is that Gener8 re-creates scenes in true 3D space. "We create a camera track, which is exactly what effects does to create their workspace in which to place objects like fire and smoke," he says. "So we are more like visual effects' little brother in the sense that we live in a true 3D space. The prevailing (and cheaper) method of conversion neither under- stands actual 3D photography nor plays by its rules." Gener8 typically uses what Becker calls a "model and project" method, which provides exceptional results but is thought to be costly and slow. However, the company has inte- grated programming into the manual steps, making it more efficient and eliminating hu-