VizWorld.com

MAXON has issued a new press release congratulating the guys behind District 9, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and 2012 for their Academy Award Nominations, and is not so careful to point out their use of various MAXON software packages.

“We’re thrilled again this year to see our customers recognized at the highest levels for creative excellence in digital filmmaking,” said Paul Babb, president, MAXON USA. “This year’s nominees pushed the boundaries of 3D technology to new heights delighting audiences with both fantastic and realistic effects. We deeply appreciate their reliance on our professional 3D animation toolset to achieve these well-deserved milestones.”

Several studios are mentioned across the various projects, but it really looks like BodyPaint and CINEMA4D are getting a lot of use out of the major studios.  Read the full release after the break.

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CGSociety has a fantastic interview and writeup on the various people and technologies used in District9.  Expected to be a 2-part feature, part 1 is online and covers the work done by Vancouver’s ImageEngine.  They get into some great details such as Marco MEnco’s work on the “Prawns”.

Marco’s specialty was poly-modeling and texturing of the aliens and the clothes. Starting from a 3D scan of the clay model provided by WETA Workshop, the IE crew re-topologized the model and then cleaned the geometry in Maya to prepare it for rigging. Playing with lots of different aspects of character creation, they used ZBrush mostly for texturing, for gross displacement for background clothes. “I was pretty excited to work with the ‘marquette’ of Christopher Johnson (the main alien) on my desk, especially thinking that was done by the great artists at WETA,” explains Menco.

They also get into the details of managing the huge amount of assets involved in the alien textures and models, using an in-house tool called Jabuka.

“Jabuka is an asset management and shot setup system written in python using a postgreSQL database backend,” adds Nigel Denton-Howes, Modeling and Texturing Supervisor. “Many of its shot-end lighting tools are built upon the cortex libraries open sourced by Image Engine. Jabuka was designed to handle version control of assets, shot setup and interdepartmental dependencies once in shots.” Although Jabuka was used and useful on every shot in ‘District 9′, it really shines in shots with large numbers of creatures.

CGSociety – DISTRICT 9 [PART 1].

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fxGuide has added several new before & after shots of the plates used in District9.  I find the ones showcasing the work of Imageengine where you see the actors in the original plates, replaced with the Aliens in the final shots.

For District 9, writer/director Neil Blomkamp turned to a host of Vancouver-based studios, along with Weta Workshop and Weta Digital in New Zealand, to provide alien creatures and other effects for the film. fxguide profiles the work of Image Engine, The Embassy Visual Effects, Zoic Studios and Goldtooth Creative in bringing Blomkamp’s vision to life.

via fxguide – vfx knowledge – District 9.

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It’s no secret that most of the visual effects work done these days is done in California, but Vancouver got a special shot at the effects in the upcoming summer blockbuster “District 9″, as Image Engine produced over half of the shots in the film.

Image Engine created 311 VFX shots, The Embassy did 70 and Zoic Studios provided 30. The rest were done by Weta Digital, Jackson’s New Zealand company, which was prominent in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Part of the reason may be because the film’s director, Neill Blomkamp, lives in Vancouver and came from VFX studios based there.

via Vancouver visual effects studios manufacture District 9′s alien look.

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