Luma Pictures tackles The Mighty Destroyer for Thor
Following the recent release of Marvel Entertainment’s big-budget effects-o-rama Thor, Luma Pictures showcases its work on key sequences featuring The Mighty Destroyer
Working with Marvel’s creative VFX team, Luma recreated The Destroyer for the movie using a pipeline of Maya, and ZBrush for character modelling. The studio also used its own in-house rigging toolset.
“We developed a complex character rig, which arranged the hundreds of rigid metal slats on The Destroyer’s body, in a way that allowed for the character to achieve fluid and dynamic poses without sacrificing the rigid nature of the conceptual design,” says Raphael A. Pimentel, animation supervisor at Luma.
To achieve the photo-reel sheen, Luma also took advantage of its large range of custom shaders.
“There is a profound amount of detail and energy that has been injected into the DNA of all the Marvel characters and their worlds, and it is with this measure of scrutiny that we poured over every element when creating The Destroyer,” adds Luma Pictures’ VFX supervisor, Vincent Cirelli.
Fluid simulations
Luma also contributed to the design of some of the dramatic battle sequences between The Destroyer and Thor.
Using reference films of rocket engines for inspiration, the studio were able to create The Destroyer’s energy beam. The blasts and internal energy that is seen in the stills below were created using a mix of high velocity fluid simulations and dense particle renders driven by geometry.
Bifrost
In one of the film’s earliest scenes, Thor is delivered from the skies via the ‘Rainbow Bridge’, the transportation vortex that manifests as rays of light extending from a supernatural storm, called the ‘Bifrost’ in the film.
This effect was achieved by layering several environmental effects on top of each other, while they interacted. Luma created the effect by using voxel rendering techniques and complex lighting rigs.
Thor was released in UK cinemas on 27 April.
See more stills from the effects sequences below…
Posted on Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 at 9:30 am under Movies, Showcase. You can subscribe to comments. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: fluid simulation, Luma pictures, Marvel, Mighty Destroyer, Thor, voxel rendering
