Cinesite, the London based visual effects and feature animation studio has released a VFX breakdown, showcasing the work created by its artist on Ant-Man – Yellow Jacket fight by the swimming pool.
The official website reads, “One of the most challenging shots involved the creation of a fully CG Yellow Jacket emerging from the water.”
The film is also shortlisted for the ‘Best Visual Effects’ honour at the 88th Oscars which will be held on 28 February 2016, where it goes up against stiff competition from Industrial Light & Magic’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Iloura Studio’s Mad Max: Fury Road and Moving Picture Company’s The Martian among other 6 movies which have been shortlisted this year.
“Cinesite began with assets supplied by the production, developing them to completion of final shots. The surface of the suit has a honey comb texture, which needed to be matched with shots by other vendors in the film. The bespoke shader was built in three stages. Masks were used to control the specular roughness along with an inverted facing ratio to get less reflection on the glancing angle on a random set of honey comb faces. When the three layers were combined a multi-faceted breakup effect was achieved,” adds Cinesite.
Based on the Marvel Comics superhero, Ant-Man, directed by Peyton Reed, displayed the transition of size of the superhero profusely due to visual effects. The VFX majorly done by Industrial Light & Magic, Double Negative and Cinesite, there were a couple of studios that helped to produce the high end project. With explosions and fight scenes spread across the film, the major sequence of VFX involves the transition of the Ant-Man as he changes his size to a tiny ant.
Cinesite explains that rivulets of water flow from Yellow Jacket’s suit was a difficult task and a custom microsolver was developed in Houdini SideFX, to ensure that water clung realistically to the suit surface. The water elements were rendered in Mantra before being passed to the compositors.
Apart from Ant-Man, Cinesite also has worked on movies like Spectre, The Man from U.N.C.L.E and next year’s Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them.