THE PROJECT
How to simulate an ocean.
We wanted to recreate some scenes directly from the Pacific Rim movie, particularly the confrontation between Gipsy Danger and Latherback, a kaiju nearly 100m tall.
For this project, the simulation of the water, or the ocean where the crash takes place, was the real challenge for our Master’s students. Using Houdini, the main software for FX (Special Effects) and RenderMan for the rendering part, we managed to get a short film with a cinema quality.
Breakdown Compositing
Breakdown FX
THE CHARACTERS
To create the characters, the students armed themselves with many references, that is, images taken from the film, action figures and original concept art from the production. The goal was to recreate in every detail a robot and a kaiju, both about 80 meters tall, complete with realistic textures and shaders (colors and materials).
COMPOSITING
For the final rendering of images, the last step is what is known as Compositing. This is the process where you put together all the rendering layers, such as lights, shadows, background, characters and effects. As in photoshop, frame sequences are retouched, edited and enhanced.
We had Andrea Geremia (one of our Top Trainers) as the main Supervisor for compositing on this project, and he allowed us to understand and learn all the techniques that are used in the film industry, all using the same software as the professionals: Nuke.
RENDERMAN
RenderMan is the rendering engine created by Pixar and used by Hollywood’s biggest studios. It is the technology that made masterpieces such as Toy Story, Frozen and so many special effects films possible.
Thanks to the licenses provided by Pixar, our students can learn to use the same professional rendering engine that made film history. A unique opportunity to push the boundaries
