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JUly 2009|DIGITAl STUDIO
www.digitalstudioindia.in
28
VFX
Indian animation outts aregaining recognition or their work world over. Foremost amongthese is Rhythm & Hues (R & H),the studio that worked on the special e-ects o the Oscar winning lm,
The GoldenCompass
. And ater the smash hit
Night at theMuseum
, R & H are set to wow audiences yetagain with their sequel oering,
Night at theMuseum: Escape from the Smithsonian
, due torelease in July 2009 in India. The studio has joined hands with direc-tor Shawn Levy to recreate the magic o theoriginal. The team was led by VFX supervisorRaymond Chen and VFX producer Bill Tlustywho worked on the 530 plus VFX shots. Thework pipeline or the lm spanned across twocountries, USA and India with the work takingplace in LA, Mumbai, and Hyderabad studios. The sequel takes Larry (Ben Stiller) to
Mind-boggling visual effecs and a VFX pipeline spanning wo coninens; Rhyhm &Hues proves ha Indian animaion can be a world leader wih is work in direcor ShawnLevy’s
Night at the Museum: Escape from the Smithsonian
.
Nikita Banerjee
repors
the world’s largest museum and his newadventures begin. “The story has shited toa new and bigger museum. It has got alongwith it a whole range o characters, new aswell as the ones that its predecessor broughtto the big screen. The delightul characters,right rom photo-real urry animals, cowboys,Egyptian Pharaohs, Einstein bobble headsto the gigantic Lincoln memorial statue anda massive Octopus, all came with their own
 
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VFX
 
www.digitalstudioindia.in
DIGITAl STUDIO|JUly 2009
29
VFX
shots was taken as well. To enhance thedevelopment o the creature, the VFX teamused displacement mapping to get everyminute detailing done. But unlike other CGcharacters in the lm, the octopus had no a-cial eatures. The challenge then was to makeit look expressive without any actual aceon the octopus. To create these expressions,they used the space between the eyes as thebrow surace and put a nose in the centre. To get the right expressions, the animators atR&H used body motion and timing to get theeyes o the creature to express. But this wasonly the beginning o the challenges thatcropped up with this under the sea creature.An octopus created in CG and living in amuseum, had to look like octopuses do. Soto make the creature’s esh look as i it hascome out o water landed in the capablehands o artist Dante Quintana. As a look development artist, Quintana spent a loto time on the layout o the materials andthe UV’s. The giant creature’s texture couldburst at seams and stretch, so to avoid this,measurements were taken rom the tips o the tentacles, through the entire body andthe mantle o the octopus. For this veryparticular creature they had to managethousands o texture mappings rom 1K to4K resolutions. At the end o the task, theoctopus’s outer skin consisted o 100 layerscomposited in Photoshop.
the R & H work flow iscompleely inegraed. Wealways hink of us as oneunified sudio where an arisfrom L.A. can visi any of ouroffices in India and sill workon he same sho wihoufacing any obsacles. Evenwih supervisors and arissno physically presen a aparicular locaion, he videoconferencing echnologyha we use allows he arissa lo of ineracion ime wihhe supervisors
A.R. Seshaprasad,digital production manager,Rhythm & Hues, India
The way, in which the arms o the octopus weredesigned, they had both inverse kinematics andorward kinematics layered solutions. On eacho the arms was xed major control system sothat the animators could control the arms. Thesecontrols allowed the animators to blend the linearand B-spline deormations. Hence the sharpcreases o the arm were possible. But even withall o this, it was almost impossible to get smoothnatural motion so the team built a system withcloth solvers. This allowed the technical team toadd a touch o reality to the creature’s motion.This system drove a cloth strip down to the centreo the octopus’s arm and simulated it using the in-house sotware and created a chain like motion.
Mobilising octopus’s arMs
Museum set with greenscreensSplashing practical water through an empty picture frameCleaned up plate with paintings inside frame and CG water added
set o technical as well as aesthetic complexi-ties,” says A.R. Seshaprasad, digital productionmanager at R & H, India.Creating the giant eight-tentacle-handscreature and breathing lie into PresidentLincoln’s statue were arguably the biggestchallenges or the team. “The scope o VFXwork in this lm was bigger than the rstone,” says Seshaprasad.Very roughly based on the giant octopusound in the Pacic, the creature’s eight armshad to allow it unlimited reedom and moves.It was one o the most complicated rigs theteam had to build. The lmmakers along withthe VFX team went through various stages o development to decide upon the creature’slooks and how it would perorm realising thatthe octopus required thorough examiningrom ull to medium rame.In its 44 shots, some extreme close up
 
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