Digital Domain Gets Symbiotic for Venom: The Last Dance
If you ever wondered what the home world of the symbiotes in the Venom cinematic franchise looks like, then watch Venom: The Last Dance. Marvel and Sony Pictures final instalment in their Symbiote trilogy, starring Tom Hardy and directed by Kelly Marcel, showcases Klyntar and the imprisoned symbiote creator Knull. Hired to create the artificial planet in the Andromeda Galaxy that appears in the opening and post-credit scenes - a total of 36 shots - was Digital Domain. The leading VFX studio produced the constantly moving, eerie organic setting from scratch as well as monstrous creatures known as Xenophages that crawl through the dark realm. The environment is literally made of symbiotes and its dark, states Scott Edelstein, VFX Supervisor, Digital Domain. We had many conversations early on with John Moffatt and Aharon Bourland, the client-side visual effects supervisors. How do you make the lighting interesting but not make it like Knull is in the spotlight at the center of this world? You still have to see all of these creepy creatures crawling around inside of this goo, and everything is black. What helped at the end of the day was the amount and layering of atmosphere we were about to put in out into infinity because this world is huge. But being able to light it mostly with the atmosphere allows you to backlight things and create this creepy world that is dark. You get senses of movement that are going on around you. But, you dont exactly know what it is until the camera moves and a little bit of atmosphere blows through and now you can see its a Xenophage crawling and Knull is in the background.Given that Klyntar is not a static environment, it had to be treated as a character. We worked well with the effects department so that means we did some animation and sent it over to the effects department and they did all of the moving stuff, remarks Ellen Hoffmann, Animation Supervisor, Digital Domain. Then it came back to us, and we changed it little bit so that the composition worked. The world building was based on the look of the previous films, artwork, and comic books. It was about understanding what form the symbiote takes when stretching out and doing cool things, notes Edelstein. Then we took that on a much bigger scale so you could get a sense that youre using the same visual language to understand that these are symbiotes. Then in terms of the atmosphere, we looked at a lot of dark environments like swamps and warzones at night. The environment was supposed to be very wet. You have this spec on everything. But how do you see? For a lot of those things, you have this low-lying fog. In war you have the smoke and ash blowing through. We added blowing ash in a scene that allowed us to build layers. Where did the atmosphere come from? Its this hot moist environment that has been there for hundreds of thousands of years. In the film, Knull is presented as a primordial deity in human form. Knull was interesting because he mainly has his face down, Hoffmann says. We had to figure out how are we going to do dialogue with a mouth that is not closing. In the dark lighting, how much will we see of his face to make him seem alive? Because people are so trained at looking at faces. Its important to always get a tiny movement somewhere, like a hairline or forehead motion. Hes trapped and tired but also angry. That has to show in his face at a certain point. It was interesting to animate. We got a good base with Masquerade3 [Digital Domains proprietary facial capture technology] and Tom Hardy. There were good reference videos where we checked out what Tom was doing with his face. We could use that. Additionally, we could amp up stuff or do one more motion on the forehead. Also, with the dark lighting, how much do we see and how do we keep him alive? Even little hand twitches emphasize that he is trying to get out.Complicating the animation process was the inability to do big expressions or actions. Without Knull doing a whole lot, he has to tell this huge story with his face and little body movements, observes Edelstein. In order to add all of these tiny pieces, you have to understand his personality.Central to getting Knulls desired facial performance was Masquerade3 and Tom Hardy. We got mocap data from him and then it went through Masquerade3, Hoffmann remarks. We added the open mouth shape and trained the data with the idea to have an extra shape in it. Then we got mocap back and could go for all of the shots right away. The data was amazing. Hardy plays Eddie Brock, Venom and Knull. It was interesting to work with Tom because he has a great understanding of the characters, observes Edelstein. Watching him go back and forth between them in real-time was cool. Tom would have conversations with the director, Kelly Marcel, about what the motivation behind things would be. They both have such a deep understanding of the characters. Knull is a very understated character. But whether its Tom portraying him or the animators working to express deep emotion through subtle performance, it speaks volumes about Toms skill as an actor and the animators talent in bringing that nuance to life. For the Xenophages, a rig had already been developed by other vendors. We looked at a lot of animal references for the Xenophages to figure out how they would move, states Hoffmann. The first thing that came into my head was hyenas because when fighting, they have an erratic path motion and there is a hierarchy between them. Theyre always nagging and hissing at each other. There is one Xenophage who is like the boss, and there is communication between them. The main thing is when Knull is talking, theyre totally quiet and are looking and listening. We got in some slow movements in combination with ones that are fast and erratic. There were sudden direction changes to make them dangerous, so you dont know what happens in the next second. Edelstein also notes that nothing is more believable than reality. Having something to reference as an underlying structure, like a rig and muscle system that create the micro expressions and movements of the face; simulating skin sliding over muscles; or loose skin and fat jiggling around; those all add extra layers of reality to these things, she remarks. You get into the issue of it looking CG when things are too perfect, and it doesnt have all of those little mistakes. The Xenophages are blind, so we had to put cataracts over their eyes, so you dont get to see them moving around or focusing on things. How do you see into their soul? Such much of it is how they move, interact with each other, and giving them a personality. Some shots contained more than 30 Xenophages. We tried really hard to crash the render farm! laughs Edelstein. Imagine this world, which requires a superheavy water simulation and on top of it, you add atmosphere and 30 CG animals going out to the background. The Xenophages had a typical creature rig. We did try to figure out what parts of the face are mobile and stiff, explains Hoffmann. It was a mix of a dog and spider rig. We animated some stuff going around Knull to pull him back onto his chair; that was a rig which we could move around and hold him. Knull is being held down on his throne by gooey tendrils made of symbiotes that have tar flowing across them. Animation had to animate Knull and his restraints, while effects had to simulate flowing tar on top of that, notes Edelstein. It was a back and forth between animation and effects until they got it working and then off to lighting.Knull tasks the Xenophages to find the orb shaped Codex, which he must possess to finally free himself from his prison. We had ideas of what the Codex could be, but the design was based on some artwork, states Edelstein. One of the most complex shots we had on the whole show was when the camera flies close to the Codex and shows the way its created. If a host dies, the symbiote can bring them back, and when that happens, their life forces comingle and that creates a Codex. Whenever the symbiote is in its true form, the Xenophage can see the Codex inside them. The camera is almost skimming the surface of the Codex like a planet and theres this cool effects simulation inside of all this energy coming together. Then that whole energy is moving through space and this microenvironment. The tentacles come out and reach for the sword that Knull has and that is what releases him. Its a long shot that is all CG, done from scratch, with very little previous direction other than talking to the client.Most visual effects people prefer to use practical plates whenever possible as a starting point. You can extend things and add stuff, but if you have something shot on camera, then youre always going to be starting with something real, remarks Edelstein. In this case where were starting from nothing, its hard to create a fully CG world with fully CG characters and have it all look photoreal, so people get the sense its real and not get taken out of the film. Helping make the fully CG world look believable was the use of darkness to assist with the depth. What was nice was that even though it was a superheavy environment, at some point, everything falls off into darkness, or theres a buildup of atmosphere so dense you cant see beyond, states Edelstein. At that point, it can essentially become a 2D matte painting. Or in this case, we rendered the foreground on a single frame, blew that up bigger, and pushed it way in the back on cards. That did help. As the atmosphere is moving through you get pockets where you see through and that builds the depth.Knull eventually escapes and causes Klyntar to go up in flames. Whats good about the environment is that its entirely made of an effects simulation, Edelstein shares. At some point when the Codex and sword come together and Knulls prison is broken, the entire environment freezes. All of that liquid tar that is alive becomes a hard surface, almost like obsidian. That is basically taking the effects simulation, freezing it on a frame, and since its all still happening within the same effects environment, shattering it and making those giant pieces fall. But what was nice about was that when youre talking about things being effects friendly, it was effects making it for themselves to start with. Going from darkness to a bright fireball was a completely different thing that required considerable planning. According to Edelstein, For all these shaders that are seen in black 95% of the time, what do they look like when you light them up with fire? That was a whole other development process we had to go through with different lighting environments and effects simulations. As these things are breaking, dust gets kicked up and tiny bits fall into the tar. So, they create splashes. All sorts of things like that happen to add different layers of reality. Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer best known for composing in-depth filmmaker and movie profiles for VFX Voice, Animation Magazine, and British Cinematographer.
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