The ability to render in a 360degree camera meant that, rather than just lighting the scene for the camera, the environment would have to be lit consistently throughout, even if the light sources themselves were from other directions and areas. One area that saw extra effort required was lighting. That’s an additional level of complexity in building computer generated environments these days.” “Of course, the client had final say on what they liked and pushed the sequence in certain directions, but we had to take it to a certain level of convincing photoreal execution before they could put that input in.
Rendering From Every Angleīarry Poon, computer generated asset supervisor, explains how this meant Image Engine had a great deal of creative input into the environment work: “We had reference assets that everyone looked at together, and there were certain images that the client picked as key art they liked,” he says. The freedom of being able to place and edit the environment, and the impressive work carried out to build the environment based on previs instructions, was achieved by a great deal of back-and-forth collaboration with ILM’s Helman and visual effects supervisor Robert Weaver. This allowed the client greater flexibility when it came to art directing the scene of the ninja turtles hurtling down the mountainside.
With all of the iterative snow simulations making animation read differently, these revisions were necessary, but we were more than up to the task.”Īll of this action was taking place in a scale-correct computer generated environment capable of being rendered with a 360degree camera. “A huge part of making the sequence come together involved re-choreographing elements to make them work together. And then, all of those components would affect the snow simulations, so we had to create chunks, spray, powder and so on.
Jeremy Stewart, animation supervisor, adds: “A lot of shots were 100% computer generated, so in those cases we had to choreograph the camera, animate multiple hero characters and several computer generated vehicles. “The environments, camera, animation, effects and lighting all had to work together seamlessly.” “Everything was inter-reliant,” says CG supervisor Rhys Claringbull. The sheer scale of the mountain environment required all of Image Engine’s departments to pull together and work as fluidly and nimbly as they could. This huge step up meant that the Image Engine wheelhouse had to fire on all cylinders to meet the demands of 100% computer generated imagery, which frequently included multiple hero computer generated creatures, several vehicles and expansive environments. “It featured a massive increase in complexity comparative to our work with ILM on Battleship.” “This was our second collaboration with ILM and Pablo,” remarks visual effects executive producer Shawn Walsh. However, an innovative and committed approach saw great success, with the finished product complementing other work on TMNT carried out by lead vendor Industrial Light & Magic and visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman. Image Engine Power!Ĭarrying out work on approximately 150 shots – from the film’s total of around 800 to 900 – in an 11-month span of time was no mean feat for the team of Image Engine creatives tasked to the project.