|
 |
| Why were you chosen to work on Superman Returns? |
|
|
|
"We have had experience with crystal development from our work on The Core; we also had a great working relationship with Doc Bailey who was responsible for creating the spore used in Superman. Another factor was our RnD department and the role they played in developing the crystal growth and the look and design of kryptonite. We were also competitive in the market based on our bidding and our structure. Frantic Films has an office in Australia, which made it easy for onset visits in the early stages of production."
|
|
| What was the outline of the specific project? Who was the client? What were the requirements? |
|
|
|
"Our client was Warner Bros. Part of the requirements was to deliver four sequences consisting of 140 shots. Our RnD department developed a Crystal Management Software that was placed into other offices and we were on call for any services they required for the software. Of the 140 shots, there were a considerable number of shots that required a complete CG environment and hero objects. Superman pushed the limits of our particle and water technology. Some sequences required realistic looking water. For this we used our software program Flood: Surf, For Particles. We relied on our custom particle rendering system Krakatoa that was driven by particles from different sources such as Spore particles form Doc Baily, Particle Flow from Max (both were used in the creation of the Red Sun Supernova) and silt particles that were simulated in Flood. Of course everything on these HIGHLY complex shots was composited in Fusion."
|
|
| What were some of the biggest challenges you faced on this project and how did you overcome them? How did Fusion help in this regard? |
|
|
|
"Some of the biggest challenges with this production were the massive amounts of changes and iterations that shots went through in order to get to the final product. Fusion being node based allowed us to build our comps into different sections that could be swapped out and tweaked, and plugged back in without affecting the main comp."
|
|
| Who were the artists working on the shot? What particular features were essential in getting their work done? |
|
|
|
"I'd say the entire Fusion toolset was used in the production of Superman. When something wasn't available in Fusion, we created our own tools, and macros. We relied on 2D motion blur for many shots, and Re:Vision’s Reel Smart motion blur came to our rescue. We created a script within 3ds Max to output velocity info, and a macro in Fusion to conform that data to what Reelsmart Motion blur was expecting. The results were great."
|
|
| Why did you choose Fusion to accomplish the shot?
|
|
|
|
"We chose Fusion because it has a track record of being reliable, and our artists depend on that."
|
|
| What specific tools were used and why? How did Fusion fit into the overall production pipeline? |
|
|
"We had deadlines at least twice a week. We used Deadline with RenderSlave to accomplish all the rendering that was needed to meet our deadlines. The only time we ever had problems with Network rendering is when the hardware the machine was running on failed. Deadline and RenderSlave were solid performers."
|
|
| What can we expect from you in the future? |
|
|
|
"With our work in Superman, we expect to have a lot more opportunity to have bigger and more challenging projects."
|
|