Creating a lush forest wilderness is a challenge in its own right, but creating one to match the vision of James Cameron in Avatar would drive even the most dedicated modeller mad. In trying to find a simpler solution, ILM stumbled across an unannounced product ‘SpeedTree Cinema’, which fit the bill perfectly.
“I knew within 15 minutes that this was what we were looking for,” Bluff said. “In the past, we had never been able to control down to a leaf or a twig, where with SpeedTree we could. We were able to grow and manipulate a tree to the exact specifications of a film where literally every scene had been meticulously pre-visualized by Mr. Cameron’s team.”
Once Bluff’s team knew SpeedTree was the tool they would use, they set to work, quickly churning out the trees they needed by the dozens. “Starting in the morning with five models from your library, one of our artists had 40 trees done by lunchtime,” Bluff said. “Those 40 trees comprised about 80 percent of the trees we needed for the entire film.”
They created a 23-second flyover demonstration which floored James Cameron, and eventually became the first 23 seconds of the film.
