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UK Idol: Image courtesy of Digital Pictures
© Babyfoot Productions |
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Image courtesy of Digital Pictures |
Farscape - The Peacekeeper Wars. Farscape mark &
logo, characters, and elements are trademarks of the Jim Henson
Company. All Rights Reserved. |
What does a music video for UK Idol winner Will Young have in common
with the TV mini-series Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars? Both were
produced with spectacular, big-screen visual effects-the kind we see
splashing on cinema screens. And both were created using the powerful
Discreet arsenal of visual effects, compositing, editing, and animation
solutions at Digital Pictures in Crows Nest, Sydney, Australia.
At Digital Pictures, HD images stored on a Autodesk® Stone® storage
system are shared by the Discreet® Inferno®, Discreet® Flame®, and
Discreet® Flint® visual effects/compositing suites, and their Discreet®
Smoke® nonlinear editing/finishing systems via a robust Autodesk®
Wire® network. "This seamless workflow between our creative applications
and our powerful storage and networking infrastructure represents
a creative leap forward for our company, artists, and clients,"
says Senior Compositor Mike Seymour.
Greatest Asset
Fueling this uncompromising productivity is Autodesk® Burn™ background
rendering solution for Inferno, Flame, Flint, Fire, and Smoke systems,
which Seymour calls "their greatest asset." Burn off-loads
the time-consuming rendering of complex effects that would typically
tie up their Inferno, moving them onto a Burn render farm which cost-effectively
processes the tasks in the background at super computer speeds.
"With Burn, artists can create new shots or perfect others while
rendering happens simultaneously on the render farm. Burn has allowed
the quality of our work to improve because artists can experiment
with different iterations without having the rendering slow down their
creative momentum," Seymour says.
Working in tandem with Wire-which transfers material between Discreet
systems-Burn is vital for big projects involving hundreds of HD layers,"
adds Seymour.
Manages Complexity
One such technical challenge was Will Young's Your Game music video,
which involved hundreds of green screen layers all transferred from
film at 25p HD. In the spirit of the bygone era of big MGM stage musicals,
Your Game featured visually stunning set backgrounds, including detailed
cityscape matte paintings, created using Autodesk® 3ds Max® animation
software. 3ds Max and Autodesk® Combustion® complemented a Flame system
to set extend an elevated railway complete with steam locomotive and
carriages, as well as a large Ferris wheel. Live action shots of Will
Young singing, with dancers performing behind him, were composited
with these impressive CG sets.
Another challenging project involving extensive 3D compositing was
the four-part mini-series, Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars, which capitalized
on Jim Henson Productions' popular Sci-Fi Channel episodic series
Farscape. Exploding with incredible, breathtaking effects, Farscape:
The Peacekeeper Wars aired in October 2004 on The Sci-Fi Channel to
rave reviews from loyal Farscape fans.
Maximizes Time
"Complex effects sequences-like those in Farscape-are typically
done in three stages-test comps, refined comps, and comps that have
been revised according to feedback from the directors or visual effects
supervisors," says Seymour. "Burn helps us manage all that
rendering in a way that maximizes our time, equipment, and other resources.
With Burn, you don't have to tell the director that no new ground
was broken because you were saddled with just keeping up with re-rendering
the revisions."
"In only 10 weeks, our visual effects team needed to create
credible, riveting space battle shots involving over 150 ships,"
says Seymour. "Even minor revisions, like adding highlights or
another ship to the composite required the entire sequence to be re-rendered."
"Burn increased my productivity by over 50 percent. In the time
it would normally take to complete five effects shots, by using Burn
I could complete seven or eight, which really moved the project forward,"
says Seymour. "With our tight deadlines, Burn was a lifesaver.
I'll never do another major visual effects project without it. It's
brilliant."
