Rising Sun Pictures [RSP] visual effects supervisor John Dietz hates spiders.
The Wisconsin native still can't get used to his newly adopted home of Australia containing eight of the world's ten deadliest creatures. "And they can turn up in your backyard!" says Dietz.
Never one to allow fear to get the better of him, Dietz left the US with experience gained at LA visual effects shop Rhythm & Hues for what he saw as the chance of a lifetime - to supervise the creation of one of America's most beloved literary characters, “Charlotte,” at RSP's Studio in Adelaide, South Australia.
RSP's Studio in Adelaide, South Australia
Dietz was joined by a team of over sixty visual effects artists, and together they dove into the character design of Charlotte head first. "It was not an easy ride", says Dietz, "trying to create a photo-realistic spider that can also send audience empathy levels through the roof are two briefs that are at complete odds with one and other.”
Dietz spent long months with his team developing solutions for simulating spider webs, writing code for integrating a new render engine in RSP's pipeline, and finding the character of Charlotte.
Utilizing the services of professional spider wranglers to study as many different live creatures as possible, directing internal acting sessions with the character animators, and working with a host of conceptual artists to zero in on the “look”, Dietz and his team met the studio brief and a very realistic Charlotte was agreed upon and put into production.
Charlotte's instinctive spider movement had everyone sold, but still questions were raised on her connection with the audience. "It was when we got into the close ups", says Dietz, "there was still something not feminine enough about her, and the eyes, which are so important for connecting with a character, needed revisions to size and shape.”
Another round of redesigns to Charlotte's face and the spider that you see today was born. "It was incredible what a difference it made - all of a sudden there she was, and we could get down to the business of putting out shots.”
And what a business that was.
Animation director Eric Leighton and overall visual effects supervisor John Berton Jr. joined the team in Adelaide. Over the next five months RSP finalised the animation, rendered and composited over two hundred spider shots, all of which were delivered on film at least twice. "It ran like clockwork," says Dietz, "Once we had that design locked, nothing was going to stop us.”
Dietz explains "There's a sequence where Charlotte builds the 'Some Pig' web, and everything in it is CG; the barn, the outside world, Charlotte and her web. It was about halfway through the schedule and we had this enormous four and half thousand frame long sequence on our plate and we had to get it out the door just like any other delivery.
Once we passed that point, the momentum carried us forward and sequence after sequence rolled through the studio and out to film, each looking as good, if not better, than the last".
Paramount’s VFX supervisor Berton was blown away by the energy and commitment that he experienced first hand, "Charlotte has the emotional impact this beloved story deserves thanks to the talented people at Rising Sun. It was a true pleasure to work so closely with them on this project."
Now that the film is winning hearts around the world, Dietz can sit back and reflect on Charlotte, “The people who gave their all for this project came out of it as film makers. It's not often that you get to do visual effects that are so essential in telling a story on film. No matter what happened, we were a group of people with one common goal, to make a Charlotte that lived up to the expectations of millions of readers around the world, and one that pushed the boundaries of not just what CG can do technically, but what it can achieve emotionally. Everyone at RSP stayed focused, passionate and resolved, to get this done right. I'm as proud of this work as I ever have been of any project, but I'm really proud of the people who made it happen. It was a special project, in a special city… Just gotta watch out for those spiders!”
SHOTS/SEQUENCES
SERVICES PROVIDED
VFX INFORMATION
Team: 60 artists with 25 support staff
Location: Adelaide Studio
Team breakdown: 20 animators, 15 lighters, 15 compositors, 10 Technical Directors, 3 supervisors, 1 art director, 3 editorial, 2 production managers, 1 executive producer, 1 producer, 1 production supervisor, 4 coordinators, 2 assistants, 4 wranglers, 3 system administrators.
Highest iteration: v036
Lowest iteration: v001
Software [in alphabetical order]: 3Delight, Affogato, Boujou, Cinepaint, Flesh, Furnace, Hype, Liquid, Maya, Photoshop, Softimage XSI, Wings
RSP rendered everything using 3Delight, a RenderMan-compliant renderer
Lighting for Charlotte was carried out using a custom RSP light rig in XSI
RSP developed a custom XSI to RenderMan translator, Affogato
Affogato was used to translate all 3D data from XSI to 3Delight
Affogato, will be provided as open source to the VFX community
Ambient- & reflection occlusion was used on the body to mask out the HDR reflections and the lighting 3Delight added extensions for hair rendering that allow quality control beyond industry-standard
HDR environment maps, captured on set, were utilized for eye- & body reflections and anisotropic reflections on hair to add to the realism
Due to the need for interactive tweaking of the look of Charlotte & the web, there were over 30 separate element passes for Charlotte, and 40 for the web - all 2048x1556 float OpenEXR.
RSP developed an extensive set of tools to simulate and automate web behaviour and interaction with the spider and the digital environments
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