‘Avatar’ elevates former boatbuilder onto world stage
The release of ‘Avatar: The Way of the Water’ has catapulted Matt Houghton's skillset globally. The prop maker works at Wellington creative firm Human Dynamo.
20th Century Studios
The 2009 blockbuster, ‘Avatar’, benefited from Kiwi ingenuity and know-how. It was a technological breakthrough that revolutionised 3D films.
Wellington’s Wētā FX (formerly Weta Digital) produced Oscar®-winning visual effects using director James Cameron’s new camera system and shooting on a virtual stage.
Wētā FX created the film’s digital characters and environments. They were building special effects sequences with as many as 800 computer-generated characters in highly detailed digital settings.
Innovative special effects
The Wellington firm also created more than 1,800 stereoscopic, photorealistic visual effects shots to add richness to the film. Including the Na’vi, the people in the film. But, for the Na’vi to be believable, realistic facial animation that conveyed their emotions was crucial.
Wētā FX used a variety of innovative techniques including facial motion capture.
With a high-definition video camera and markers attached to the face of an actor, Wētā FX’s own specially developed software mapped out which muscles in the face were moving. The software then translated the data and applied it to a facial animation system.
The special effects company also integrated visual effects footage taken from live-action filming. At Stone Street Studios and on location in Porirua, 26 kilometres from central Wellington which helped to blur the line between imagination and reality.
One part of ‘Avatar’
Other aspects of the production involved Wētā Workshop providing conceptual design, costumes, weapons and props.
Screen Wellington helped with logistics around the production to ensure everything ran smoothly.
Watch how Wētā Digital applied visual effects
This video shows each layer of digital animation being added to certain scenes in ‘Avatar’.
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This video has no audio. The overall theme of the video shows how Wētā Digital created the visual effects for ‘Avatar’. Certain scenes from the film are stripped back, as the video shows each layer of digital animation being added, some examples of these layers include fog, plants, water, and even animals. Each scene is listed below.
- A helicopter flying over a cliff and waterfalls, with bush and trees surrounding it.
- Jake Sully in his avatar runs through flax and ferns on the forest floor to jump over a cliff with a waterfall.
- Jake Sully in his avatar, floating downstream, past bushes and branches, as he grabs a branch to hold onto.
- Jake sully in his avatar swishing water in a pool, picking out his spear. The camera also shows the Wētā team behind the scenes swishing water around to replicate how it moves.
- Jake Sully in his avatar looking around the nature and trees glowing in the dark.
- Mo’at, the Tsahìk, or spiritual leader, looks past the camera at Jake Sully, as other Na’vi stand behind, next to an animated fire.
- Neytiri and Jake Sully jump from a large tree into the bush.
- The ‘Mountain Banshee’, or ‘Ikran’ dragon-like aerial predators, standing on their cliffside home.
- The Na’vi clan are cheering for war with their fists in the air, holding weapons.
- Neytiri and two other Na’vi on their Ikran, ambushing a fleet of human aircraft from above with their weapons raised.
- Humans inside an aircraft with guns getting grabbed by Ikran and thrown into the air.
- Neytiri lifts Jake Sully’s slumped human body off the ground inside the link shack ‘Site 26’, where he uses the link to become his avatar.
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