 |
||
|
|
||
|
CoA Interviews Loni Peristere, Special FX Supervisor |
||
Continued from previous page... And what was Joss’ reaction? "And Joss, when he saw that one, loved it. And we refined it from there obviously, this year on Angel we created a whole new process. Which is basically a complete organic transition and that didn’t happen until late in the season in Angel." Loni explains where this idea came from, "I actually showed David Greenwalt, I’d say, probably in March. ‘I have something to show you, I’ve been working on this all year,’ and I said, ‘you may not even notice too much of a difference but you will when I do this,’ and I did the frame by frame thing, I had to show him, I said, ‘this is what happens now’ as compared to before where in dusting there were a series of basically layered dissolves, introducing different bate & switch mattes. So I’d layer things and cheated the eye. This actually, what I had to show him was something that was completely integrated no matter where you looked at it on the film you would see an organic process that was happening and that’s the new dusting." This new technique was first used in the episode 20 "War Zone" and the best place to notice it is when Gunn is fighting a group of vampires in the alley. There is a mid-flight dusting that is incredible! Check it out frame by frame if you can. "Yeah, that was the new technique," Loni continues, "and that fly-through dusting that was all with the new process. From now on it will have that process as part of the package. And the way it’s designed is kind of cool. It’s all set up on what’s called an IK. It’s Inverse Kinematics skeleton, which is essentially a set of lines that are attached with joints, and it looks like a stick figure. This IK actually holds information within it that coordinates the bones with what we call the ‘dirt man’. What we call the ‘loose texture’, which is basically a projection of the live action footage and all of the particles. So when we work on the footage, what we do is, we hand roto that skeleton, that chain, to match the footage. And once that’s done you render and all those passes are attached to that IK. Which is also a big challenge that we overcame in that new process which is exciting. Because before you had to render all these things out differently and different passes and now they are all attached."
Loni's favorite effect of the season: the new organic process of the vampire 'dusting'! You just got an insight at the magic of the magic of Joss’ round table and the creativity that is spawned there. "It does force you to be a little more creative because what we hate to see is like ‘oh, eye glow’. I don’t ever want to be, I mean, this is horrible but I don’t want to be like ‘Hercules’ or ‘Xena’ ever! I don’t want to be ‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch’. I want to be cooler than ‘X-files’ and I don’t want to be ‘Star Trek’. I was really excited by ‘The Matrix’ like everybody else because it kind of had a new take on things. So when David Greenwalt says, ‘oh shoot this, a woman falls out of a portal and she’s hotter than any other human being and she melts people.’ When I think about a portal I don’t think about ‘oh, a swirling tunnel’, I think about ‘wouldn’t be interesting if the image started melting and boiling and bursts open, bursts like a heat blister.’ That’s where we get creative and that’s where we have a good look for the shows. They’re open to those kinds of suggestions and I’ll go and test those kinds of things and bring that to the table and say ‘I know this is wacky but doesn’t this look cool?’ and they’ll go ‘yeah, that looks great, nice swirling vortex.’ (laugh)" The FX was used in the episode "She" Of course Loni doesn’t work alone, he has an incredibly talents group of people at this side, "At times 7 and at times 3. I always have (2) 3D animators on staff. They are, currently John Decker and Rob Hubbard, they are both my artists. They have been dedicated to the show for most of the year but at an earlier point of the year we also shared a really talented artist with ‘Buffy’ named Randy Goux who did ‘Ghost Mom’ ("Room w/ a Vu") "He created the ghost that shoots out of Dennis’ bodice there. But John and Rob, primarily, are on the show at all times. We have a 3D tracker that comes in maybe once every three weeks to set out 3D cameras. And that’s a major part of the new process of visual effects is 3D tracking." And here’s where he gets technical so hang on to your fangs! "And what that means is we take a series of 6 points on location. Those points can either be tracking marks like X’s but I don’t like to use that, I like to use set pieces. So I’ll plant geometry at hard corners in the set so I’ll have 3 points at all times so that the software, which is a 3D equalizer, calculates the physical camera. If I use a 22mm lens on a steadi-cam and it moves all the way around that box, I’ll measure out the box, I’ll measure out the room but there will be at least 6 points of geometry in the camera at all times that the software will visibly see and then recreate a 3D camera which allows the five skeletons that you saw actually sit on the ground. That actually stand there as opposed to float and that’s been a great breakthrough for visual effect in the past couple years is this 3D tracking. So we don’t have to lock-off the camera anymore which I hate. (laugh) I hate blue screens, I hate green screens and I hate lock-offs and I try and avoid them as much as I can because I think that makes for cheesy ‘cut to effect’ things. I never like to ‘cut to effect’." |
