Broadcast TECH
packages used to create Death In Paradise’s CGI lizard
Number of software 5
‘We had to hold back on the animation to avoid the lizard
“over-acting”’ Craig Travis
DEATH IN PARADISE (RED PLANET PICTURES)
Post House Rushes Film & TV VFX CG character creation and animation VFX producers Supervisor Hayden Jones and animator Craig Travis Software Autodesk Maya for modelling, rigging animation and lighting set-up; Pixologic ZBrush for detail sculpting; The Foundry’s Mari for texturing; Pixar’s Renderman for all rendering; The Foundry’s Nuke for all compositing
What was your brief? We were approached to create a photo-real CG lizard that forms a bond with the lead character of the series, played by Ben Miller. The production team wanted the CGI to be completely seamless and fool viewers into thinking the lizard was real.
Break down a key VFX shot Hayden Jones We sourced images of many different types of lizard and sent them to the production team. They liked the green lizard (lacerta viridis) so we set about sourcing as many pictures as possible for reference. A rough model was created in Maya, and this was passed to the rigging technical director
www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils
to evaluate if there was enough geometry to allow the animation skeleton to work. Once they were happy with the model and had started adding the animation controls, the model was taken into Zbrush and Mari for final sculpturing touches and texture. Mari has some amazing features, including the option to work in real time on high- resolution meshes with multiple layers of high-resolution texturing. It has the ability to take advantage of the new Ptex texture format, allowing artists greater flexibility and speed when detailing complex models. We also used Mari’s ability to load in animated meshes, which allowed us to interactively fix textures that looked incorrect. Craig Travis The most challenging aspect of animating the lizard was to hold back on the animation to avoid ‘over-acting’. It would have been easy to have him do more anthro- pomorphic actions, but that wasn’t the char- acter required. We had to get character from him with a wink or a cock of the head. Less was definitely more, but that can be
challenging not just from the perspective of the animation but also on the technical side. The rig had to be precise enough to allow this minimal movement to translate into a believable but still likeable creature.
How did you achieve the look you wanted? HJ As the production was based in Guade- loupe, it was expensive to have on-set super- vision, so we sent a VFX crib sheet to aid the production in creating the elements we needed to capture the lighting from the set. The usual chrome sphere reference was shot
from the main camera. This was extracted from the rushes and handed over to VFX. The chrome sphere images were then projected back into the virtual 3D space, allowing the artists to see exactly where the on-set lighting was in relation to the lizard. This made the lighting process quick and extremely accurate. We also asked for a stand-in rubber lizard
to be shot in some cases, just so we had a reference for exactly how the on-set lighting played across the surface of the lizard.
March/April 2012 | Broadcast TECH | 29
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52