“Spider-Man 3: VFX Highlights” by Sony Pictures Imageworks


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  • ©  Sony Pictures Imageworks


Conference:


  • SIGGRAPH 2007
  • More animation videos from SIGGRAPH 2007:
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Title:


    Spider-Man 3: VFX Highlights

Company / Institution / Agency:


  • Sony Pictures Imageworks

Description:


    The effects in “Spider-Man 3” continue in the Spider-Man tradition of creating improved CG environments and CG digital doubles. The new challenges were to execute VFX which had both intricate character and effects animation components (Symbiotic Goo and Sandman) and to mix more live-action-stunt and face-replacement footage into virtual shots.

    Symbiotic Goo’s development was supervised by digital effects supervisor Peter Nofz, CG supervisor David Seager, animation director Spencer Cook, and effects lead Ryan Laney. Toolsets were created within Maya and Houdini to give rigging and dynamics con-trols to character animators and effects artists.

    Sandman’s development was led by digital effects supervisors Ken Hahn and Peter Nofz, CG super-visor Bob Winter, sand-effects supervisor Doug Bloom, and software engineer Jonathan Cohen. More than 10 man-years were spent developing tools and software to control particle systems for Sandman’s emotional, character, and effects per-formance, which involved individual manipulation of millions of grains of sand.

    Maya animations by the previs and animation teams were re-engineered by Nic Nicholson and John Schmidt for shooting motion-controlled stunt and face-replacement work. VFX Supervisor Sheena Duggal supervised the shooting of face replace-ments, including determining complex eyelines based on Sam Raimi’s direction.

    Other work highlighted in this piece includes actor face capture and CG reproduction using an updated pipeline based on Paul Debevec’s work at the Insti-tute for Creative Technologies. In addition, miniatures for the crane disaster were created and shot at New Deal Studios, and enhanced and composited at CafeFX.


Additional Contributors:


    Contributors: Sony Pictures Imageworks

    Visual Effects Supervisor: Scott Stokdyk

    Visual Effects Producer: Josh R. Jaggars

    Digital Effects Supervisors: Kee-Suk, Ken Hahn, Peter Nofz

    Animation Supervisor: Spencer Cook

    Digital Effects Producers: Christian Hejnal, Carey A. Smith

    CG Supervisors: Grant Madden Anderson, Francisco X. DeJesus, Albert Hastings, David Seager, Robert Winter

    Sand Effects Supervisor: Douglas Bloom

    FX R&D Lead: Jonathan Cohen

    FX Software Lead: Chris Allen

    FX Animation Lead: Ryan Laney

    VFX Plate Supervisor: Sheena Duggal

    VFX Plate Leads: Gregory Nic Nicholson, John Schmidt

    Look Development/ Lighting Leads: John Haley, Jonathan Litt, Dan Lobl, Andrew Nawrot, Victor Schutz, Terrance Tornberg

    Sand Shader Look Development Lead: Laurence Treweek

    CG Character Animation Leads: Bernd Angerer, Peter Giliberti, Chris Williams

    FX Animation Leads: Aaron James McComas, Jeff Wolverton, Bjorn Zipprich

    Compositing Leads: Matt Dessero, Blaine Kennison

    Character Pipeline Lead: Chuck McIlvain

    Character Set-Up Lead: Arthur Gregory

    Modeling Leads: Kui Han Lee, Alexander H Whang

    IBR Texture Lead: Bill La Barge

    Texture Paint Lead: Elbert Yan

    Cloth/Hair Lead: Michael L Stein

    Roto/Paint Lead: Nathalie Gonthier

    3D Matchmove Lead: Rachel T Nicoll

    Motion Capture Lead: Remington Scott

Animation / Video Overview:


Type: