Popular Mechanics is jumping on the Watchmen bandwagon with a pair of articles discussing the technology behind Dr Manhattan & Rorschach’s Mask. Of particular interest is the realization that true Rorschach blots are copyrighted, so the inkblots used in the film are custom-made.
Animators customized plug-ins in the 3D animation program Maya that allowed them to create the blots in 2D then move the shapes around on a textured surface—in this case the shape of Healy s face as denoted by the tracking markers embedded in the mask. Each animation was handled on a sequence-by-sequence basis. “We created an animation that was longer than the sequence was ” DesJardin explains. “If the sequence was 300 frames we would make 1600 frames of animation so that we had a way to squash and stretch how long certain shots were taking.”
via The Watchmen Movie Visual FX – The Tech Behind Rorschach’s Mask in the Watchmen – Popular Mechanics.
via The Tech Behind Watchmen’s Dr Manhattan – Watchmen’s CGI Explained
