Check out The Mill’s behind the scenes video revealing how it created the villainous Mirror Man character for Snow White and the Huntsman and read how the fully CG character was brought to life
The Mill’s title sequence for Snow White and the Huntsman is pretty cool, but Mirror Man is more remarkable because he is fully CG. The Mill did almost six month’s research and development to decide what form Mirror Man would take.
Will Cohen, Mill TV and Film’s Managing Director/Exec Producer explains on The Mill’s blog: “The initial brief provided for creating the Mirror Man in SWATH by VFX. Supervisor, Cedric Nicholas-Troyan was asked to have the magic mirror on the wall melt/dissolve off the wall and form into a solid metallic/statue-like character in an elegant way.”
One of the main challenges was that Mirror Man was to be a large and fairly static full CG character that would have nowhere to hide in a performance based scene
“There was a process of discovery to go on in terms of how this would happen and what it would look like that led to five or six months R&D. Cedric was keen to keep the audience wondering if Mirror Man was liquid or solid and to explore how he would move and what that would look like.
“The director, Rupert Sanders, and Cedric had created a mood trailer to help get the film green lit and had a very good reference for the design of Mirror Man as well as initial tests from the trailer for the Mirror emission and formation. Cedric, who was then partnered on the film with VFX Supervisor, Phil Brennan suggested we explore a live action shoot before starting RnD on the computers to explore how different kinds of liquids and materials would react in reality. We shot for a day with a phantom camera at 1000 fps upending tins of paint over upside down dummies, heating up corn-starch and playing with ink in water.”
The mill explored how different kinds of liquids and materials would react in reality
“Returning to the computers to emulate some of the tests, we began emitting a controlled volume of liquid from the mirror and progressively morphing the emission into a solid shape. The results were not terribly satisfying so we tried in parallel different approaches such as meshed soft-body and finally cloth simulation, inspired by returning to the original teaser trailer where Cedric had literally stood up covered by a large sheet of gold lame. Further tests were conducted to try and combine cloth and fluid. Getting cloth simulations to behave like liquid was tricky to do without exploding the simulation.”
“We used Mayan Cloth and wrote a lot of custom forces to control the cloth shape. Ultimately the mirror emission was achieved by simulating cloth ribbon being pushed out of a hole but a load of secondary effects have been done to deform, relax and smooth the cloth simulation in Houdini. Playing with speed and direction helped to add weight as the emission hits the steps in the mirror chamber.”
“In helping production prep for the shoot we produced a lot of technical previs/design for the mirror on the wall shape and the witness camera design. The plan was to use a reflective prop on set with a Red Epic camera inside to capture Charlize Theron’s performance.”
“Production provided us with a 3D scan of the set and we did a spheron survey. We then reconstructed the environment in 3D. The IBL and lights were separated so we could position candles or fire where needed.”
“The Queen was then reflected in Mirror Man in 2D using UV normals and point position in world space so we could control the look. The real physical reflection would have made her almost invisible so these had to be cheated. Animating the formed Mirror Man was detailed, subtle and experimental because whilst we had to respect the phonetics of what he was saying it is only when you see Mirror Man rendered and cut into the scene can you really tell what it looks like. Each shot then had a second layer of cloth simulation.”
This take on the classic fairy tale Snow White and the Huntsman, sees director Rupert Sanders taking the concept back to the original darkness of the Brothers Grimm story. Catch it at the cinema now!
For more info on how The Mill created the Mirror Man, watch the interview with The Mill’s Will Cohen below…
Posted on Friday, June 29th, 2012 at 12:23 pm under Movies, Showcase. You can subscribe to comments. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: CG in Snow White and the Huntsman, digital character, Mirror Man, Snow White and the Huntsman, The Mill
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