VFX

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Mind-boggling visual effects and a VFX pipeline spanning two continents; Rhythm &
Hues proves that Indian animation can be a world leader with its work in director Shawn
Levy’s Night at the Museum: Escape from the Smithsonian. Nikita Banerjee reports

Indian animation outfits are
gaining recognition for their work
world over. Foremost among
these is Rhythm & Hues (R & H),
the studio that worked on the special ef-
fects of the Oscar winning film, The Golden
Compass. And after the smash hit Night at the
Museum, R & H are set to wow audiences yet
again with their sequel offering, Night at the
Museum: Escape from the Smithsonian, due to
release in July 2009 in India.
The studio has joined hands with direc-
tor Shawn Levy to recreate the magic of the
original. The team was led by VFX supervisor
Raymond Chen and VFX producer Bill Tlusty
who worked on the 530 plus VFX shots. The
work pipeline for the film spanned across two
countries, USA and India with the work taking
place in LA, Mumbai, and Hyderabad studios.
The sequel takes Larry (Ben Stiller) to
the world’s largest museum and his new
adventures begin. “The story has shifted to
a new and bigger museum. It has got along
with it a whole range of characters, new as
well as the ones that its predecessor brought
to the big screen. The delightful characters,
right from photo-real furry animals, cowboys,
Egyptian Pharaohs, Einstein bobble heads
to the gigantic Lincoln memorial statue and
a massive Octopus, all came with their own

28 JUly 2009|DIGITAL STUDIO www.digitalstudioindia.in

 VFX

shots was taken as well. To enhance the

development of the creature, the VFX team
used displacement mapping to get every
minute detailing done. But unlike other CG
characters in the film, the octopus had no fa-
cial features. The challenge then was to make
it look expressive without any actual face
on the octopus. To create these expressions,
they used the space between the eyes as the
Museum set with greenscreens brow surface and put a nose in the centre.
To get the right expressions, the animators at
R&H used body motion and timing to get the
eyes of the creature to express. But this was
only the beginning of the challenges that
cropped up with this under the sea creature.
An octopus created in CG and living in a
museum, had to look like octopuses do. So
to make the creature’s flesh look as if it has
come out of water landed in the capable
Splashing practical water through an empty picture frame hands of artist Dante Quintana. As a look
development artist, Quintana spent a lot
of time on the layout of the materials and
ry Fox

the UV’s. The giant creature’s texture could

esy : 20th. Centu

burst at seams and stretch, so to avoid this,

measurements were taken from the tips of
the tentacles, through the entire body and
the mantle of the octopus. For this very
All Images Court

particular creature they had to manage

thousands of texture mappings from 1K to
Cleaned up plate with paintings inside frame and CG water added 4K resolutions. At the end of the task, the
octopus’s outer skin consisted of 100 layers
composited in Photoshop.
set of technical as well as aesthetic complexi-
The R & H work flow is ties,” says A.R. Seshaprasad, digital production
completely integrated. We manager at R & H, India. Mobilising Octopus’s arms
always think of us as one Creating the giant eight-tentacle-hands
unified studio where an artist creature and breathing life into President The way, in which the arms of the octopus were
from L.A. can visit any of our Lincoln’s statue were arguably the biggest designed, they had both inverse kinematics and
offices in India and still work
challenges for the team. “The scope of VFX forward kinematics layered solutions. On each
on the same shot without
work in this film was bigger than the first of the arms was fixed major control system so
facing any obstacles. Even
with supervisors and artists one,” says Seshaprasad. that the animators could control the arms. These
not physically present at a Very roughly based on the giant octopus controls allowed the animators to blend the linear
particular location, the video found in the Pacific, the creature’s eight arms and B-spline deformations. Hence the sharp
conferencing technology had to allow it unlimited freedom and moves. creases of the arm were possible. But even with
that we use allows the artists It was one of the most complicated rigs the all of this, it was almost impossible to get smooth
a lot of interaction time with team had to build. The filmmakers along with natural motion so the team built a system with
the supervisors the VFX team went through various stages of cloth solvers. This allowed the technical team to
development to decide upon the creature’s add a touch of reality to the creature’s motion.
A.R. Seshaprasad, looks and how it would perform realising that This system drove a cloth strip down to the centre
digital production manager,
the octopus required thorough examining of the octopus’s arm and simulated it using the in-
Rhythm & Hues, India
from full to medium frame. house software and created a chain like motion.
In its 44 shots, some extreme close up

www.digitalstudioindia.in DIGITAL STUDIO|july 2009 29

 VFX
CG octopus test showing scale Splashing practical water on a Styrofoam stand-in for octopus
How they achieved to show water running off the Octopus’s body
This scene required 13 shots to show water run-off of the creature’s body. The VFX team came up with a way
in which each designated shot had an animated sequence of grayscale maps. These were based on a second
UV set of the model of the creature which revealed water running over the surface. Further, Dante Quintana
added shaders function which made the renderer read these maps for each of the material on a frame by
frame basis. These maps were used as an animated displacement map which caused the surface to rise on the
slime layer only, wherever the water was running. These maps also affected the surface qualities of the water,
separated by the slime layer and produce a real water like quality. Additional toggles were set up so that the
lighters could just switch on runoff for the scenes. By using this technique, it allowed multiple revisions of the
water simulation without having to re-render the main Octopus.
The creature had two versions - one sick filmmakers used a water cannon on the floor
and one healthy. There is a scene where behind Stiller, built a painted Styrofoam buck
Larry throws water out of a painting on the as a stand-in for the octopus, and had Stiller
sick octopus (sick because it is drying): the to match his swing of the empty picture
frame to coincide with water shooting from
the cannon. When the water is thrown,
the octopus becomes gooey and slimy.
To achieve this, they were required
to create two different texture maps.
Finally, there were four layers of under
skin and an outer skin with a transparent
slime layer and a water-run off layer.
The animation of the octopus was
done using R & H’s proprietary animation
system, Voodoo as was the lighting with
Breathing life into President
Lincoln’s statue was one of
the biggest challenges for
the team. The scope of VFX
work in this film was bigger
than the first one
A.R. Seshaprasad,
digital production manager,
Rhythm & Hues, India
30 JUly 2009|DIGITAL STUDIO
Shaded animation of CG octopus with slime
their proprietary lighting package, Light-
house. Rendering was done with Wren and
integration of the creature into the scene
was done with Icy. Houdini and Maya were
also used.
An American museum of history is never
complete without a statue of President Abra-
ham Lincoln and of course, Albert Einstein.
Following the octopus, Lincoln’s statue also
comes to life. Due to security reasons, R&H
could not get the LIDAR equipment inside
the museum. Hence all the CG modelling for
the same was done through photographs.
The photography concluded in the month
of September and post took a further seven
months. Alex Garcia, another look develop-
ment artist, created all the shaders from
scratch. Getting the colour right of the statue
was the main challenge as the whole statue
is white. Five different displacement maps
were used for its movements.
With 535 VFX shots making the final cut,
the VFX team managed to work right up
to the day of delivery. Although the work
spanned over different countries, different
time zones and artists in different states
within a country, the studios managed to
seamlessly stitch all their work together. “The
R & H work flow is completely integrated. The
teams we have in India as well as LA work
closely together to maintain the high quality
of work. We always think of us as one unified
studio where an artist from LA can visit any of
our offices in India and still work on the same
shot without facing any obstacles. Even with
supervisors and artists not physically present
at a particular location, the video conferenc-
ing technology that we use allows the artists
a lot of interaction time with the supervisors,”
says Seshaprasad.
www.digitalstudioindia.in