Computer Graphics World

JULY 2012

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n n n n VFX•CG Films In the fi lm Men in Black 3, Agents J (Will Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones) travel back in time to undo something that happened to K in 1969. In a way, the feature itself undoes something: a less-than-successful sequel to di- rector Barry Sonnenfeld's fi rst fi lm in the fran- chise. Th at fi lm, Men in Black, exceeded criti- cal expectations by achieving an aggregate 90 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and pulled in a half-billion dollars at the box offi ce. Sonnenfeld's Men in Black II dropped to a 39 percent approval rating. But, the third fi lm, also directed by Sonnenfeld, put the franchise back on track with another half- billion-dollar box-offi ce win in less than three weeks after opening, and a jump in approval Imageworks sent the Men in Black back in time by creating a digital version of Shea Stadium and the 1969 World Series. Sony Pictures Imageworks tries new tools to help director Barry Sonnenfeld send the Men in Black back in time By Barbara Robertson from top critics to 74 percent. Some of that success can be attributed to the visual eff ects. As in the fi rst two fi lms, aliens live among us, popping out their alien forms only in ex- treme circumstances and, of course, inside the Men in Black headquarters. Sony Pictures Imageworks' Ken Ralston and Jay Redd super- vised the movie's visual eff ects, created mainly at Imageworks. Th e Th ird Floor created exten- sive previs, Method Studios assisted with some shots, and Prime Focus handled the stereo conversion. Rick Baker designed the aliens: period aliens for 1969 and more modern 2012 aliens, some of which had digital eye blinks and other subtle movements added later. And, Imageworks created a few digital aliens based on Baker's designs. "Every shot had something diff erent," Redd over again. Th is one, nothing was the same anywhere. We had fully CG environments, but every shot in the environment was diff er- ent. We shot in all four seasons, so the weather varied. We had spaceships, planets, trees. We replaced a beach. But, thank heavens the pro- duction teams rose to the occasion and were able to make it happen." While Redd and Ralston were on set dur- ing principal photography, digital eff ects super visor Ken Hahn worked on setting up the pipeline at Imageworks, and once the shots moved into postproduction, on making sure the CG supervisors had what they needed to see the shots through. says. "We marvel at how much diversity there was in this fi lm. We've all done fi lms where we're doing a lot of the same things over and 52 June/July 2012 Trying New Tools "Two things stood out when I read the script," Hahn says. "First, this movie is a time-traveling movie, so we knew we' in time. Second, we had a lot of one-off assets." d re-create three places build Shea Stadium for the 1969 World Series, Cape Canaveral for the moon launch, and sec- tions of Midtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. "We knew we could do the re-creations once we obtained the information," Hahn says. "Th at's our bread and butter. Th e challenges were the unique things. A pipeline is great at amortizing costs when we use assets over and over. It isn't as effi cient for one-off s. We needed to build assets as effi ciently as possible at high quality throughout the movie. We didn't want to burn man-days doing iterations for things that would be on screen for a couple frames." Imageworks uses an Autodesk Maya-based pipeline for modeling, animation, and rig- ging, with Autodesk's Mudbox and Pixologic's ZBrush for details. Th e "one-off " challenge resulted in the crew trying and using some off -the-shelf tools in addition, tools not part of the existing pipeline at the time. "John For the time travel, Imageworks would

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