2012, massive VFX destruction

Roland Emmerich purpose us with 2012, his new vision of the End of the World.
The trailer HD is here.

Be prepare to see the most impressive massive destruction scene on big screen !!!

A swiss is working on the VFX, it's Goran Pavles from Uncharted Territory.
He works on the scene where the road breaks up (Picture 2).

Here are some screenshots:

Sapristi Studio, compositing and animation from Lausanne

Here are some images from recent projects of Sapristi Studio.
They are the second studio to be present for the conferences of IMAGING THE FUTURE at Neuchatel !

Don't miss them !!!

Elefant Studios, high range VFX

Here is a quick presentation of Elefant Studios from Zurich.
That's one of the two swiss VFX studio to be present at IMAGING THE FUTURE in the beginning of July at Neuchâtel !

The studio is composed of less than 10 persons.
Their services are 3D, compositing including motion design but also print.

Here are some screenshots of their demoreel:
For more informations, go see their website !

And don't forget to come see them at IMAGING THE FUTURE !!!

IMAGING THE FUTURE 2009: the complete program is online !!!

The complete program for the conferences of the IMAGING THE FUTURE 2009 is now online !!

The official website has just open.
You'll find all the needed informations and links.

Don't forget to book the July 1st and 2nd to come in Neuchatel !!

It's free !!

TERMINATOR SALVATION: interview of Raffael Dickreuter !!!

Here is a brand new exclusive interview about Terminator Salvation !!
That's Raffael Dickreuter of Pixel Liberation Front who give me some of his time for my questions.

Hi Rafael, Can you tell us what was your position on this show ??
I worked as a previs animator in pre production at Warner Bros Studios as well as postvis animator during shooting and post production on the film.

Can you explain to us in what consist the pre-viz ??
Previs is a process where you visualize shots or entire sequences that are usually very difficult to film and figure out how much they will cost. you recreate film sets in a virtual environment and create shots using animation techniques that then are used by the film crews, the director and the studio to film them and make them work.

On which sequences have you worked ??
I worked on the long sequence that started with the harvester grabbing people out of the gas station, the mototerminator chase till all the way the plane and hunter killer fight in the air. as well as the sequence where John Connor shoots down a HunterKiller for the first time to test the signal that is supposed to kill the Terminators.

What softwares did you use ??
Pretty much the standard softwares that is used for previs which is Maya and After Effects.

Is the final result is true to your animations ??
Yes and no. As a previs animator you are involved very early in the project long before even actors are cast. the sequences that we as a team of Pixel Liberation Front worked on evolved over a period of several months to what happens now to be the end result in the film. Its a creative process where many ideas are being tried out. Overall the shots ended up being very close to the previs and postvis. To maybe understand how long a film takes to make, we basically worked on previs about a year and half before the movie has come out. As you can see it takes a very long time from first storyboards, to previs, filming, post production till it finally ends up on the screen.

How was the collaboration with the director McG ??
He is a very intense guy I can say that. but a lot of fun and very passionate. He definitely was a big Terminator fan and wanted to make sure that the movie turned out great. I worked with him mostly on the lot of Warner Bros Studios, besides workign with Chris Batty, the previs supervisor, as well as Charlie Gibson, VFX Supervisor. In pre production we worked a lot with Director of Photography Shane Hurlbut who is a lot of fun, great guy. In the postvis phase we worked also with Conrad Buff, the film editor, who actually alreay edited Terminator 2 back in the day. We collaborated with him to make the Mototerminator sequence work.

What is your next project ??
I am not sure yet. Next up is a vacation going to good old Switzerland.

Thanks a lot for your time.

Pictures source: Kulturplatz documentary

Documentary about Raffael Dickreuter online !!!

If you've missed the documentary last wednesday night on SF (Kulturplatz) for his work on TERMINATOR SALVATION, dont' worry Raffael purpose it online on his website.

It's in swiss german. But the pictures speak for themsleves.
It's the occasion to see many work in progress pictures !!

Don't miss this really interesting doc (almost 7 min) !!!

TERMINATOR SALVATION: interview of Natasha Devaud !!!

This new Terminator movie has a huge level of effects, 1300 shots !! ILM did almost 400 of them among the most complex.
The others shots are divided between Asylum (face remplacement), Rising Sun Pictures (submarine sequences and some Hunter Killer explosions).
Imaginary Forces did the titles design and the terminator's POV. Matte World Digital was in charge for the matte-paintings. Kerner Optical (who was before the ILM model shop) and New Deal Studios did the models.
The pre-viz was done by two studios, Proof and Pixel Liberation Front.
The special effects makeups were done by Legacy Effects (that was Stan Winston Studio but renamed that way for a tribute to the master).


The visual effects supervisor for the movie was Charles Gibson (Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy) and for ILM it was Ben Snow who is very familiar with CG robots. He supervised IRON MAN and he's now supervising IRON MAN 2 !!

Natasha Devaud, senior TD, answer some of my questions about his work on the movie:

Hi Natasha. Can you tell us on which sequences you have worked ??
I worked on the sequences with the hydrobots (these snake-like robots underwater) and inside the factory. I also did the look developpment of the hydrobots and several digital doubles from live actors.

In what consist your job ??
As a TD (technical director), I gather the work of the layout people, the animator and creature dev people (sim of cables, skin, ...), and add all the textures and lighting to the characters, which I then render to hand out to the compositor. 

The work of the TD is bit like the center point of a shot, with most of my time being spent creating realistic lighting to make the CG effects blend seamlessly into the background.

After TRANSFORMERS and IRON MAN, ILM is the reference for CG robots.  What was the challenge this time ??
One of the big challenge was the CG Arnold. Very tricky. And also the nature of some of the shots where the lighting on the background plate would be different at every frame. Given the metallic and reflective nature of the robots, these constant changes had to be applied on them as well.

To which step did you use the puppets of Legacy Effects ??
We used them as references to develop the textures, materials and look in general, and the way they react to the light.

For the animation of the robots, have you used IMocap (motion capture device developped by ILM on Pirates of the Caribbean 2) ??
No, it's all hand animated.

The render of the robots are impressive. How did you get this result ??
We used a new technic of lighting, image-based.

Did you have encounter some problems ??
Arnold was quite difficult, and as mentionned earlier, the fact that the environment was constantly changing on some of the sequences.
On the animation side, the biggest challenge was to make these robots look as realistic as possible in their movements while giving them a sense of heavyness due to their size. Some of the interractions between the cg effects and the live-action background was also quite challenging. Think about shots where we had to add heavy damage to real structures.

What was the most complicated sequence to achieve ??
Probably Arnold. But pretty much every shot has its challenge.

How was the collaboration with Charles Gibson and McG ??
I didn't interract directly with them, but I think, it went very well. The crew on the ILM side was excellent, led by Ben Snow who's a great visual effect supervisor.

What's your next project ??
Can't say yet as I'm not sure myself. I just finished Transformers 2 and will take a few weeks off.

Thanks a lot for your time and help. Congratulations for your great  work !

An another interview about this movie will be soon online !!
Raffael Dickreuter of Pixel Liberation Front give me some of his time for my questions !!

Raffael Dickreuter: TV documentary on Terminator Salvation

Raffael Dickreuter of Pixel Liberation Front was interviewed by the swiss german television for his work on TERMINATOR SALVATION. The documentary will be broadcast the 3rd June at 22h50.


Here the presentation of the show:

The animator of TERMINATOR SALVATION, Raffael Dickreuter create actions sequences for Hollywood blockbusters. These amazing battle sequences between human and machines have the mark ot he swiss.
With the pre-viz, the directors can planify the actions sequences and can save production cost.

Don't miss it !

Go see the Raffael's website for more informations.