Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/7010
24 Post • February 2010 www.postmagazine.com S O L D I E R I N G O N The Los Angeles office of Prime Focus (www.primefocusworld.com), as par t of the approximately 70 visual effects shots they completed for the movie's finale, took on a number of models for GI Joe, including the fully-CG Night Raven jet, a close-up digital double of Ripcord (played by Marlon Wayans) and a miles-long stretch of the Potomac leading up to the White House and its environs. The star ting point for Ripcord's digital double was a high-resolution strip of scan data down the front of Wayans' face sup- plied by Aguru."It included every pore, wrin- kle and crease," says senior modeler Rob Ward. "In [Autodesk] 3DS Max I built an an- imate-able medium-resolution head using photo reference and fitted it to the strip of scan data. In ZBrush I projected the data onto the new fully-modeled head and sculpted out the rest of the head and face, including all the missing detail to be used as a displacement map back in Max." Ward also built some of the more ma- chined par ts of Ripcord's uniform in 3DS Max as separate geometr y and positioned them in the appropriate places against the medium-resolution sculpt he created of the cloth pieces. Then, using ZBrush, he pro- jected this geometry onto the medium-reso- lution sculpt to be used as displacement data. "Once Ripcord was modeled to a high level of detail and fidelity to the actor, he could be logged into the Prime Focus pipeline for rigging and animation while I continued to refine the details of the model," Ward explains. He found Max's new Graphite Tools to be par ticu- larly useful. "They give the ability to draw new topology over given geometr y for a quick way to modify, add, delete and move edge loops and polygons," he repor ts. "That makes it possible to do a lot more work quickly." The environments of the Potomac River sequence were created using a combi- nation of modeled and lit geometry, matte painting pro- jections and CG water cre- ated with Prime Focus's Floor Surf. "Team members Matt Lee, Phi Tran and I considered each shot and each environ- mental element in the shots to determine, based on angle, speed and a host of other fac- tors, what would be modeled out in Max and what we could trick via paintings and photo re-projections," adds Ward. The White House, which Ripcord almost slams into with his jet, showed up in many var ying angles. "I needed to dig into Max's modeling tools and do a fairly complete and accurate model, including the grounds, foun- tains, landscape and trees surrounding it," says Ward."Other structures, landscapes and trees in the sequence might be flying nearly straight at us at great speeds, and we could create a painting and a simple model to project onto." The Night Raven jet Ripcord steals from the bad guys was modeled in Maya by Jeff Tetzlaff in Prime Focus's Vancouver office, logged into the pipeline tools, refined in some areas by other ar tists using Max, and UV mapped in both Max and Maya by artists in Vancouver and LA. Then ever ything was tied together and logged into the pipeline. "All of this moving between different pack- ages went very smoothly," says Ward. M O N S T E R S & H I G H S C H O O L Vancouver-based boutique VFX house Ar- tifex Studios (www.ar tifexstudios.com) has been involved with The Troop, a new sci-fi, ac- tion-adventure series for Nickelodeon from the Tom Lynch Company, since working on the pilot. Ar tifex initially created over 40 creature concepts for the show, about three high school students who belong to a secret monster-fighting society, then the CG team got busy crafting photoreal creatures to be integrated into live-action background plates. "Sometimes the monsters are based on mythological beasts like the Griffin, Mongo- lian Death Worm and Basilisk. Sometimes they're entirely imaginar y — things you've never seen before," says senior 3D ar tist Jamie Macdougall. "For a 3D ar tist, it's ex- actly the kind of project you want to work on. We get a creative brief then contribute our own input. It's very cool." Macdougall and 3D ar tist Elaine Fung build wireframe cages for the monsters in Maya and then take them into Autodesk's The Troop: Artifex modeled the monsters in Maya and sculpted them in Mudbox. 3D Modeling Prague-based artist Michal Suchánek (www.michalsuchanek.cz) created Mountain Patrol in his spare time. The piece features two border control guards who must decide between fighting or fleeing to save their lives. The image was created on a custom-built Intel Core i7 950 with 6GB RAM. Suchánek used 3DS Max 2009 and Pixologic ZBrush 3.1, and it was rendered in Mental Ray. Photoshop was employed for tex- tures and color. Suchánek used the "box model- ing" technique in Max, saying it gives him "the best control over the topology of the mesh and provides solid base for later export into ZBrush."