Computer Graphics World

November / December 2017

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30 cgw n o v e m b e r . d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 7 department to take these motion-capture cameras off the technical stage and bring them onto the actual stages where the actors would be performing. "That meant we would have, in the pris- on scene where we first see Korg, the whole thing built into the walls and segments, so you could actually pop sections of the wall out and the motion-capture cameras were behind them," Morrison continues. "So, if we're doing a scene with Korg, you could pop them out and you'd shoot the scene with the motion-capture cameras in-camera, or if there was a scene that took place where two characters were talking, we would just leave the sections in the wall and film as much as possible in-camera." According to Morrison, the team used the exact same approach for other scenes in- volving Thor and Hulk. Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo were able to do their improv, and the team actually had an array of cameras around the top of the massive sets that Dan Hennah had built. "That way, you got a real set that you could shoot with a standard motion-picture camera, but because all the technology was in place, there was this amazing ability for the team to overlay the CG characters," says Morrison. "We had the virtual production team literally around the back of the set, and there were like 30 incredibly smart [folks] there with keyboards, and on the screens they would have a live version of whatever Mark Ruffalo was doing but overlaid as the Hulk. They would pipe that back into the viewfinder on the camera, so when the camera operator actually looked through the camera, they didn't just see Chris and Mark, they literally saw an overlay, so they could see Chris talking to Mark, who was eight-foot-six and green. That's how the camera operator knew to tilt the camera up. We had the same approach across the entire production." According to Morrison, for the final piece of the Korg puzzle – which was like a jigsaw puzzle because he was made of rocks – the group ran into a specific problem. "Imagine a situation where you sort of twisted the waist or bend over and raise your knee, stretching like we do as humans, and you map that to a creature that's made of rocks," he explains. "It looks like it's latex. The computer wants to make sure those rocks squash and stretch to maintain the overall volume, instead of just staying the same size and moving around each other. To a modern audience, that looks immediately like we've gone back to the '80s and put somebody in a latex suit. People are far more sophisticated now." Instead, two teams at Luma Pictures and Framestore built basically "the most complicated moving jigsaw puzzle I think you can get anywhere, where we built three layers, and as those movements happened, each rock moved against each other as if they were sort of tectonic plates," says Morrison. "That's easy when they're stretching out, you can make spaces; but if there are holes in there, it looks like he has weird gangrene appearing all of a sudden because he has these dark sections. So, there's another layer of subcutaneous rock, if you will, that's in there that covers it up. "The other challenge is, if you lean back again and the rocks start meeting each other, how do you have them not compress and move over each other? That's a challenge enough for the body, but for the facial stuff, it was an amazing feat. There was literally a moment where you'll see Taika deliver a line, but you see Korg the entire time, and the only thing moving is his face, mostly just his mouth," continues Morrison. "You can see all of these rocks in the face; the facial structure is moving around against each other and not actually smashing into each other or stretching. I think it's the most complicated piece of under- stated character animation that has been done."

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