Hasta La Motion!

Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s Captain Marvel finally gave us a glimpse into the making of the most powerful Avenger yet.

Fans have been on pins and needles to know more about the character since watching Nick Fury’s outmoded pager send her a distress signal in the aftermath of Thanos’ snap. And suffice to say, it was worth the wait.

Captain Marvel beautifully crafted Carol Danvers’ journey from a Kree soldier to a superhero, elevated by flashy and glaring visual effects. Industrial Light and Magic’s Craig Hammock, who served as the VFX supervisor of the film, has further insights to give into the same.

Having delivered about 300 shots for the film, he starts off by explaining the creation of Captain Marvel’s glow: “It is called the binary effect. As you can imagine adding intense lighting on and around a hero character is very difficult to make feel well integrated to both her and the environment around her. On the photography side of things the Marvel visual effects supervisor Chris Townsend did a great job of working with the production crew to make sure there were lighting instruments on set to give passes with a base of lighting for reference as well as in some cases having bands of LED lights that could be worn for the blast moments.”

Whenever Captain Marvel charges up her powers, she’s veiled in a thick sheath of golden rays, which Hammock says is similar to an electric field. And pulling it off has apparently been a great ordeal, especially in that scene where she’s floating across Ronan The Accuser’s spaceship.

“We end up running as many as 12 separate simulations from her and over her geometry to generate the layers of complexity that you see in the final binary effect.  They have various forces that control them, but the dominant one behaves similar to an electrical field. This produces thin strands of energy that peel off of her and arc away,” he said.

“In extreme shots where she needed to show extra power or control, like the Ronan ship faceoff, we tweak it slightly to enhance the idea of electromagnetic forces.  We selected areas on her to treat as magnetic poles, then we transition from the randomly generated areas of repulsion to the very controlled magnetic flow lines. This gives the impression that she can control and channel the energy at will.”

Marvel fans are well versed with Ronan the Accuser, who previously appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume One. But only eagle-eyed followers would have recognised certain subtle differences in that spaceship to the one that he pilots in the James Gunn-movie.

Hammock explains, “In looking at the GOTG Ronan ship it felt like it was constructed of an almost iron ore material that was very slab like. We took that idea and explored other minerals to derive a basic design concept. After looking through lots of natural large stone reference we thought that slate would work well with accents of gold pyrite. This gave it a sculptural quality and a way to feel like alien technology, but still somehow raw and oppressive.

“We also chose to dress Ronan’s specific ship with a pattern based on meteoric iron in the Kree teal color. Once we started blocking in shots the need for Ronan to have a more recognizable silhouette came up so we did an overall twist of the wing tips that also nudged it a little toward the shape of the GOTG ship. Making unique alien ships is harder than you think, but the approach to this one was very rewarding and ended up one of my favorite ships I’ve seen.”

Like every other movie in the MCU, Captain Marvel too was lit with rib-tickling humor and wisecracks. But a large chunk of that entertainment was imbued by none other than Goose the cat, which became one of the biggest talking points of the film.

A “Flerkin” as Danvers clarifies Fury, the alien creature had a strong resemblance to Garfield, but proved to be more notorious and powerful than anyone could imagine.

So how was the cat brought alive on screen? “Goose is actually played by four cats on set. They all had different specialties that made them useful for different scenes. The hero cat, Reggie, was used as often as possible and was the one the digital asset was based on. He was scanned and then another VFX Vendor named Trixter was tasked with building the CG version and doing the majority of the CG Goose shots in the film. They took the scans and the copious amounts of photographic reference and built the asset and then sent it to us at ILM as reference to build our own version. ILM was tasked with the shots where the tentacled Flerkin is seen.  

“We basically had to recreate what Trixter had done to match the cat and then design and build a way for a set of giant tentacles to come out and wreak havoc. The Flerkin has a visual representation from the comics that we needed to work with. The idea was to keep the general intent of the style. After several rounds of concept art it landed with a design that has a hard spikey rigid outer skin and more fleshy inner skin covered by tiny suction cups.  Then the whole thing gets covered in digital saliva that makes it extra sloppy and adds to the comedic moments,” he elucidated.

“The cat movements are based on real world reference that our animators looked at. When the Flerkin comes out we unlock the cats jaw and allow the skin to stretch tight as it opens its mouth like a snake.”

The post How ‘Captain Marvel’ got her glow, and how Goose the cat came alive on screen: A VFX interview with ILM appeared first on AnimationXpress.

India is perched to become one of the world’s leading markets in the gaming sector with one of the world’s largest youth population. The Indian market is currently valued $ 890 million, with mobile Gaming taking the lead at 71 per cent share whereas the annual growth rate of the gaming sector is estimated at 14.3 per cent.

In conversation with AnimationXpress Xigma Games founder, designer and developer Himanshu Manwani expressed “Indian gaming industry is still at its nascent stage where the majority of the studios are still trying to find their business model either by providing services or by making their own original IPs. There are big studios that are focusing on the Indian audience and making free to play games, or by providing services to other western companies. On the other side, there are small indie teams who are focusing on the global audience and trying to push creative boundaries. The Indian gaming industry is expected to grow at a rapid rate and there are lot more opportunities present then they were in the past, but the industry still has a long way to go for it to be taken seriously globally.”

Xigma games currently working on the sequel of the game The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands titled as The Bonfire 2. The Bonfire 2 will be a survival simulation game where one has to build, craft, gather resources during the day and defend them from monsters and raiders attack during the night. The primary objective of the game is to survive and manage resources to advance and thrive players’ small settlement.

The development of the first part The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands started in early 2017 and the game released in March 2018. Soon after that, they initiated the ideation for the sequel.”The first two months went into pre-production and later 10 months into development” he added.

For The Bonfire 2 they have a slightly altered perspective as the game has shifted from 2D side view to 3D isometric view. The view is changed to isometric to allow the players to design their own village/city layout instead of fixed building placements like their previous game The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands. “The sequel also increases the simulation aspects, as the AI workers can be seen walking to a building, picking up resources and then using the resource to construct a building or craft an item. Also, the scope is now at least thrice as big, so more content and definitely more gameplay hours with a fair amount of replayability.”

The game has been in the development process for almost a year and they will need another six to eight months to finish it. The studio is planning to finish the game by the end of this year, although, that depends on the quality of the game. If they are not satisfied with the game quality which is expected to be high international standards by the end of the year, they might push it for early next year to add that extra layer of polishing. “Since we have increased the scope by great margins compared to our previous title we are expecting it to outdo our previous game in terms of revenue,” said he.

With the game, they are targeting global audience who are keen playing city builders, simulation, strategy games and for players who have enjoyed their first game of the same title previous game.

Xigma Games is expanding their scope and features for the sequel on every aspect of the game, be it art or design. When asked about the inspiration of the game he added “The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands is our most successful title till date and we wanted the expand on that experience. We asked ourselves how could we improve the experience even further and take it to the next level. There was one major complaint in our previous game people felt it was too short (about 5 hours of gameplay) and somewhat linear. So this time it was clear to us that keeping the base gameplay core of The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands and expanding on other layers of the game will help us to reach new heights. Also by introducing new elements to design your own village/city will make the game feel non-linear and will result in more replayability.”

The response for the previous game under the same umbrella The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands has been positive for them. It won multiple awards which includes IGDC Indie Game Of The Year 2018, FICCI Best mobile and tablet game Indian 2018, FICCI Best mobile and tablet game International 2018. The game was also featured globally under Game of the day and it reached top charts and top paid games on the App Store.

As he said earlier that the first game of the same title was short and somewhat linear therefore keeping that in mind Xigma games straps up for the upcoming game. The indie studio with two members did all the art, design, programming, testing, marketing and got sound outsourced work as per the requirement. As they wanted to showcase the improvement in all aspects which they felt were missing or could have been better in their previous game. Keeping that in mind, the upcoming game of the same title will be available not only on mobile but also on the PC platform.

The workflow of the development of this game has been an iterative process for them, where they regularly showcased and tested their ideas to get as much feedback as possible so that they could incorporate new elements accordingly.

The biggest challenge in the development of the game has been “to manage all the aspects of the development by ourselves. We are a small studio who handles all the aspects of game development. Sometimes it’s quite overwhelming to manage everything. But we love challenges and we love what we do and we hope to keep making amazing games and grow and learn from our experiences,” he expressed.

They seem to have a concrete vision for the game and they believe there are a lot of factors behind the success of a game which includes: understanding your capabilities, direction of genre, understanding the target audience, game design and much more.

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HTC VIVE, in collaboration with Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival executive committee, produced VR film series 5×1, of Mr. Buddha directed by Lee Chung was selected for 2019 Tribeca Immersive Cinema 360 category.

HTC VIVE Originals’ president Liu Szu-Ming announced at Tribeca Film Festival premiere that HTC VIVE Orignals’ VR film would be heading to Cannes Film Festival on its next stop.

HTC VIVE   is committed to creating self-produced content and developing original IPs. Last year, in collaboration with Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival executive committee, under the executive producer of Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Liao Ching-Sung, five golden awarded Asia directors including Lee Chung, Qiu Yang, Tan Seng-Kiat, Chiang Wei-Liang, and Midi Z were invited to direct five VR films called 5×1. Following the film The Making Of, directed by Midi Z and nominated in SXSW Film Festival, Mr. Buddha by Lee Chung was selected by Tribeca Immersive Cinema 360 category of 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. The two consecutive recognitions reveal the leading position of HTC VIVE Originals production in international film festivals.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival officially opens on the 24April to 5May in Manhattan, New York. The press premiere of Mr. Budhha opened on the 25th. The premiere attracted many international press’ attention, and the unique narrative style of Mr. Budhha also left a deep impression on the present press. VIVE Originals president Liu Szu-Ming said at the premiere, “We will continue to launch VIVE Original’ self-produced content into the world. Our goal is to cultivate the world’s top content production talents, and bring forward the content ecosystem for VIVE reality.  The goal is to reach out to the world with its original content, as 5×1 will be having a special screening in Cannes Film Festival, hoping to showcase the solid foundation of Taiwan’s VR original content to the global movie industry.”

Director Lee Chung said he is very thankful for the support from HTC VIVE, Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival Executive Committee, and director Hou Hsiao-Hsien. New York is where he studied movies, and being back here feels like coming back home. He is quite surprised at how he came back to New York because of his VR film, which means a lot to him. Lee Chung also said, “Although Taiwan is a small country, there is still an abundance of creativity. As a creator, I am fortunate to be able to do creative work in Taiwan.”

Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro founded Tribeca Film Festival. For more than a decade, Tribeca Film Festival has not only been an important event in New York every spring but has also become one of the most important annual events for the American film industry. The number of participants has increased over time, reaching three million participants in total. In the past, Tribeca Film Festival has featured films such as Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Flight of the Red Balloon and Midi Z’s Ice Poison.

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Apex Legend‘s lack of content has often landed in the opprobrium of gamers. Things are about to change since recently Respawn Entertainment has confirmed that they will be solving the game’s content offering issues with new modes and different ways to experience the shoot in the days ahead.

Respawn was recently asked on Reddit by a player if it has been exploring new ways to play. The user then expressed many players want solo/duos added to the game, while others want features like private lobbies and skill-based matchmaking. Responding to this, a community manager for the studio confirmed it is considering, but, Respawn is not ready to talk about anything right now.

The player also asked about in-game events and whether Respawn has any plans for them, which the community manager responded to with no comment which seems to suggest that, yes, it does.

Recently, Respawn chalked out its plans for the immediate future — which includes fixing the game’s lag issues — and for Season 2 later this summer, which includes map alterations.

Apex Legends is available, for free, via the PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

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Shattering virtually every box office record in history, Marvel Studio’s Avengers: Endgame, the visually stunning and critically acclaimed conclusion to the historic 22 film superhero franchise is the highest grossing 3D opening of all-time worldwide, with approximately 45 per cent of the film’s estimated $1.2 billion opening coming from the 3D format.

Kevin Feige produces Avengers: Endgame and Anthony and Joe Russo are the directors. Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Michael Grillo, Trinh Tran, Jon Favreau, James Gunn and Stan Lee are the executive producers, and Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely wrote the screenplay. Avengers: Endgame is in theaters from 26 April 2019. Since then an estimated $540 million in ticket sales was generated by the 3D format.

“Congratulations to Marvel Studios and Disney for their brilliant execution of this 22 film series over the last 11 years. It has been a remarkable achievement in story-telling, production, VFX, marketing and distribution,” said  Worldwide Cinema president and RealD chief operating officer Travis Reid.

The grave course of events set in motion by Thanos that wiped out half the universe and fractured the Avengers ranks compels the remaining Avengers to take one final stand in Marvel Studios’ grand conclusion to twenty-two films,Avengers: Endgame.

IMAX all-time worldwide opening weekend record grossing approximately $91.5 million, surpassing the previous record holder Star Wars: The Force Awakens by an astonishing 92 per cent.

The fact that tens of millions of people all over the world have already enjoyed Avengers: Endgame in just the first few days points to the growing phenomenon we’re seeing among audiences, particularly younger generations, seeking out authentic and extraordinary shared experiences.Like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, our decade-long relationship with Marvel has only strengthened over time with each film creating a deeper connection between these beloved characters and IMAX audiences worldwide. Endgame was filmed entirely using IMAX cameras, which provides a fully immersive experience that ‘eventicises’ the film in a way that no other presentation can ” said IMAX CEO Richard L. Gelfond. ”

In China, IMAX set a new opening 5-day record with $42.4 million, surpassing its previous record by 65 per cent and already outperforming the entire IMAX China run of Avengers: Infinity War. In addition, IMAX set 50 new opening weekend territory records including France, Germany, Italy, Japan, India, Taiwan, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. The film is scheduled to open in additional territories including Russia. 

In North America, Avengers: Endgame grossed $26.5 million in IMAX, surpassing the opening of Avengers: Infinity Warby 14 per cent and marking IMAX’s second highest-grossing domestic opening weekend ever. IMAX reported hundreds of sell-out screenings across its domestic network with IMAX representing 21 of the film’s top 25 North America engagements.

Directors Joe and Anthony Russo designed Avengers: Endgame for IMAX by capturing the entire film with IMAX cameras, marking the second Hollywood film in history to achieve this milestone, the first being Avengers: Infinity War. Exclusively in IMAX, the film expands vertically to show up to 26 per cent more picture – providing audiences with even greater scope and breathtaking quality for a truly unparalleled experience.

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