Breaking it Hard in "2012"

 

 

cebas: Firstly, can you give me a brief introduction about yourself? 

I began using Animation Master in 1993 for character modeling and animation, then shifted to 3ds Max for web3D and then began working on film visual effects in 2006. So far, I have focused on particle effects, fire and destruction. I also have a strong love of modeling, animation, and rendering -- everything that contributes to the final image and storytelling. I took the plunge many years ago and purchased thinkingParticles 1.0. After a long couple years of banging my head against it, the light finally turned on. It's still a little dim, but it's getting brighter. ;)

 

 

cebas : I think it's safe to say that "2012" was a very important project for you  and your firm. Can you tell us how you were involved in the production of "2012"?

I was one of the VFX Artists at Uncharted Territory that Sony Pictures Entertainment hired to develop and execute methods to accomplish a variety of destruction types. Primarily, this work encompassed landscapes that were tearing and crumbling and structures and buildings undergoing the stress of a giant earthquake (cracking concrete, structural deformation and collapse, and procedurally-shattering glass). I was fortunate in possessing several years experience with thinkingParticles and had the pleasure of assisting teammates in learning and problem-solving with tP. It was especially impressive to see how quickly they picked it up and the amazing results they delivered.

 

cebas : Which shots in particular were you involved in?

The "LA Limo" escape sequence begins when John Cusack pulls his family out of the house during the earthquake and continues until they drive through and burst out of the glass building on their way to Santa Monica Airport. My primary shots were LAL 110, LAL 380, and LAL 465 -- the ground tearing apart in the neighborhood, the parking garage collapse, and the tall glass building crashing into its neighbor and shattering. Of course, we had a fantastic team of artists to accomplish all this and it would have been impossible without their skills and dedication.

 

cebas : What cebas software did you use in the production of "2012" and why?

The cebas software I used was thinkingParticles, volumeBreaker, and finalRender. First, tP is an incredible particle system - it offers both flexibility and speed, and it's rule-based system with fast access to inputs and outputs allows you to create and update complex systems very easily. Further, tP has an enormous feature set that allows among other things, dynamic volumetric fragmenting and procedural jointing so our structures were able to have defined joint strengths and shattering thresholds at specific locations, all under controllable conditions. Then, of course, there is the SC collision engine which offers optimized voxel and memory handling, layered caching, post-cache time-stretching and a long list of additional tools. Perhaps the greatest feature of tP is that it combines simulation accuracy with artistic control. Our job is not to create reality itself but reality as the director sees it.

finalRender has specific advantages when dealing with tP, namely, in the realm of motion blur, instanced geometry handling, and fR-ParticleLights. The motion blur allows accurate rotational spinning of tP particles which is important when your concrete structure is falling to pieces. Instanced geometry handling has huge effects with crowd simulations and any time you use instanced geometry. fR-ParticleLights gave us an additional method to procedurally activate shattering glass: we simply measured the alignments of the structural components at birth and then detected when the alignment difference reached a threshold, then we created the fR-PartLights which in turn caused the glass to volumetrically shatter.

The volumeBreaker modifier was used in various shots, often to pre-fragment geometry when the method required it.

 

 

cebas : How did you use our software to achieve the effects?

First, please understand that we were using tP 4 and volumeBreaker in their early stages and while cebas does a great job updating the software we had to resort to any means possible to get the job done. This entailed using various other methods and some custom scripts to cut the ground chunks; later we were able to use volumeBreaker to further divide the pieces. We used tP with lights, maps and other conditions to control when the ground pieces would crumble apart, and used the SC Collision engine to handle all collisions.

The parking garage that tips over was a combination of pre-cutting and the Fragment and VolumeBreak operators. I setup a system to measure the alignment difference in structural pieces and when the threshold was reached fR-PartLights were created at those positions which then caused the fragmenting to occur. This system was also used in destroying the tall glass building with the addition of an animated map and the Camera Map operator in order to break specific windows at the director's request.

 

cebas : What features in particular helped you achieve your goal and how?

The following features were particularly useful: volumeBreak, SC Joint, SC collision engine optimizations, InMesh condition with the Particle Shape input option. See above for more info on how it was done.

 

cebas : What was the most difficult aspect of this project and how did you solve it?

Most difficult was getting the collision dynamics to happen in an art-directed fashion. The solution was to hand animate controllers that would influence the structures. Also, the ground crumbling involved massive amounts of geometry that made rendering rather challenging. Fortunately, cebas was contracted to provide software development. After enough iterations, we arrived at a working solution.

 

 

cebas : Can you give us a step-by-step breakdown of a typical shot?

Normally someone has done some pre-shot development to create systems or a basic foundation on which to build. This gets applied to the shot until it doesn't quite achieve what we need, so someone goes in and rewires the system until it's closer. Then we iterate over and over until it looks good enough. Then someone wants to make changes so we go back in and make more changes. With a good enough pipeline these iterations are fairly painless, but without one it can be especially challenging.

 

cebas : How did cebas's software integrate into your production pipeline? Was this straightforward?

I felt the integration was fairly straightforward. My portion of the job was primarily to take the assets created by modeling, texturing & animation and apply simulation dynamics and then hand that result to the lighting department who had the monumental task of assembling all the assets into one file (when possible), then rendering those and handing them to compositing, whose job was equally as monumental. I'm thankful every time we have a good team because it makes all the difference in the world.

 

cebas : What was the most fun or rewarding part of this project for you?

What was especially enjoyable was seeing something incredible happen before my eyes - watching the development phase output, when everyone was exploring options and coming up with some wild solutions. Working with the team - helping out, learning and seeing the results that we create together was very rewarding. I've been fortunate to work with some extremely talented artists who were very generous with their knowledge and time; they're good fun to have a beer with, too.

 

cebas : What projects can we expect from you in the future? (Assuming you're able to tell us that is).

I'm currently under NDA and cannot discuss details, however, the project does involve some of the most up-close and sophisticated destruction that I've ever created with tP. Also, I will be releasing a thinkingParticles 4 tutorial DVD around the end of August that focuses on intermediate and advanced content. Beyond that, I'm looking forward to hooking up with another great team to work hard and create something amazing.

 

More amazing work of Joe Scarr can be found in his portfolio: Joe's Portfolio

 

We would like personally thank you, Joe, for sharing your experience with us and the community. Everyone is welcome to post samples of his or her best work on our webpage at www.cebas.com. Please join our Galleries and Portfolios and help build a strong community.