Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/815991
m a r c h . a p r i l 2 0 1 7 c g w 2 9 EMERALD CITY'S TAKE ON THE FLYING MONKEYS FROM THE WIZARD OF OZ LORE ARE THESE MECHANICAL DRONES FROM FREEFOLK. DNEG FASHIONED CG CLOTH INTO THE SHAPE OF THE WITCH GLINDA'S FACE USING SIMULATION AND PHOTOSCANS. heavy object. The VFX team then went to work, using those predefined fracture points and geometry to drive particles that would simulate falling rocks, dust, and debris. "Once again, scale was very important, so we used real-world units and gravity to drive our simulations," says Dennison. In addition to the destruction of the giants, simulation effects were also used for the water around Emerald City and for the tornados. "It took weeks and months of development work to find the right shape, speed, density, and color for the various tornados," says Horton. "The supercell cloud also proved to be an enormous simulation challenge given its massive scale and the need for it to rotate at a much faster speed than a supercell cloud would normally rotate." Freefolk built a tornado construction set using a determinate VDB network, enabling the artists to art-direct each shot without having to resort to using slow simulations that were not art-directable. "We use sims sparingly, as oen deterministic methods have the same results but are more art-di- rectable and faster," says Simpson. There are a limited number of CG characters in the series, and for one, a cloth face, simulation was required. This called for DNeg to generate a great deal of detailed cloth simulation combined with fully-CG character animation. "We provided DNeg with a detailed 50-camera photos- can of the lead actress, which they used to animate the cloth face to match the ac- tress's performance on set," explains Hor- ton. "The performance was then applied to a CG cloth simulated and composited in the clean actress-free plate." As Dennison notes, the scope and ex- pectation for each episode was huge, and the challenge was to find a way to do these film-quality effects on a TV show budget and an episodic time frame. NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE Emerald City contains a diverse style, ranging from postapocalyptic (woods tribe), to steampunk (Ev), to Gaudi style (Emerald City), to ultramodern (Glinda's Castle), and more. But, in the end, it all blends together to support an equally diverse storyline with scientists, witches, townsfolk, soldiers, royalty, and so forth – thanks to the talents of a visionary director (Singh) and a talented production designer (Dave Warren). "Not to mention the wizards and witches at our amazing vendors whipping up some magic of their own," says Horton. Yes, this is Oz for a new generation. Karen Moltenbrey is the chief editor of CGW. DNEG BUILT AND ANIMATED ONE OF THE STONE GIANTS, THEN DISINTEGRATED IT IN A THRILLING SCENE IN THE SERIES. THE CREATURE COLLAPSES INTO DUST, STONE, AND DEBRIS.