How Digital Domain used Foundrys Mari on realistic digital doubles and a complex transformation sequence for Marvel Televisions live-action show.One things for sure: Digital Domain is no stranger to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Digital Domains artists worked on the climactic Statue of Liberty finale in X-Men, recreated parts of New York for Spider-Man: No Way Home, brought the supervillain Thanos to the screen for Avengers: Infinity War and much more.But even with that resum, texturing the CG elements of Marvel Televisions series, Echo, was a unique challenge because of the storys strong cultural and mythological roots. The show revolves around Maya Lopezthe first deaf, indigenous superhero to be portrayed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, begins Digital Domain Texture Show Supervisor, Nick Cosmi. At Digital Domain, we knew we had to get the visuals right to properly portray a community thats rarely seen on screen.To learn more, we caught up with Cosmi on how Digital Domain used Mari to texture episode ones opening sequence, which brought an iconic story from Choctaw lore to life.The birth of ChafaDeveloped in close collaboration with Choctaw representatives, Echos opening sequence depicts the story of the first Choctaw ancestor, Chafa. The sequence sees Chafa and other Choctaw ancestors emerge from a pool of water in an underground cave. She then helps the ancestors escape from an earthquake that destroys the cave, before they all arrive in America and shed their clay skin to reveal human forms.Digital Domains involvement began very early in the process, helping with pre-production to define the look for the sequence, which was shot practically on a set built around a pool using actors with practical makeup. In order to visualize the full scale of the destruction and character effects involved, however, the team needed to replace the practical set and actors with a 3D environment and digital doubles.The first step towards doing this was working with Clear Angle Studios to create lidar scans, which were used as base references for rebuilding in 3D. Mari was then selected to match the texture reference from the lidar-scanned actors to the 3D digital doubles. Our studio has trusted Mari for years with our digital humans. Its our primary texture painting software, said Cosmi. Character work requires precision to match textures to real-life subjects. Mari provides us with tools that make this process easy.Creating textures with photo projectionTo create the textures, Digital Domains team used photo projection to ensure that the images from the scan were matched perfectly. This was crucial for shots like Chafa emerging from the pool, where both the plate and CG character needed to blend together seamlessly.The team began by wrapping their generic human mesh to Clear Angles scan geometry. They then made use of other assets provided by Clear Angleincluding camera layouts and accompanying high-res photos of the actors. In the modeling process, we checked key landmarks on the face and body, to ensure that the image plane in the cameras aligned with not only the scanned mesh but our wrapped mesh, explains Cosmi. We also used Nuke to collect all usable high-resolution photos, applied an STmap to undistort them, then did any further color correction needed.Once the undistorted and color-corrected images were ready, they were then imported into Mari, together with the camera layouts. Using Mari, artists could lock image ratios, then re-project high-quality textures onto the character models. For Echo, this high quality was important: Mari could transfer maps from the scanned geometry directly to the studio mesh, but Digital Domains artists found that the provided albedo map from the scans wasnt the ideal resolution for production. Using photo projection provided an easy resolution to this problem.Most of the industry tries to move toward procedural textures and materials, but photo projection is still the most essential workflow for us at Digital Domain when re-creating 1:1 textured assets, especially for characters, explains Cosmi. I jump back and forth between Nuke and Mari, identifying which images are absolutely necessary to cover the whole asset. And, as long as I check my colors and values along the way, and stay organized by keeping the naming of the photos and cameras similar, its possible to create a diffuse pass covering the whole body within a day.The benefits of using MariAs well as enabling artists to create 1:1 textures quickly, Mari also provided several other benefits to the Digital Domain team, like making it easier to fix problem areas when cleaning up scans. Character scans always have flaws in the nooks and crannies of a human body in areas such as the eyelids, nostrils, and under the chin, says Cosmi. We spend more time fixing the inside of a humans lips than we do on most other parts of the body!Maris Paint Through tool helped to correct these problem areas. For Echo, the team used it to fill voids on the digital double with similar-looking details from the photos. They also used the Towbrush to further blend work to create a flawless texture, helping to refine the transitions from prosthetic to actor skin.Another Mari feature that was essential to Cosmis work was Source Grade. This helped the artists to texture characters in situations where photos didnt always provide the exact color needed from top to bottom, and in different lighting scenarios. With Source Grade, Im able to slightly dial, color nudge and grade images to what I need right in the paint buffer while Im projecting, Cosmi explains. Ive saved countless work hours by not having to color correct images to perfection in an external software, just by having this on-the-fly option to make those subtle adjustments while I paint. It even allows me to take any image and instantly turn it into a black and white version for Luminance painting into Masks.Maris Node Graph, which the Digital Domain team has now completely transitioned to, also helped artists by unlocking painting options that werent possible with a layer stack, like sharing a common setup or template across all assets. Its like creating a perfect recipe, you can keep using it over and over again, Cosmi adds. Weve also built a number of materials that rely on photographic elements and are more in line with physically based rendering values. This has helped us as a department paint with expected results that we know we can turn over to lookdev with more confidence than ever before.Giving power to the artistsBy the time Echos opening sequence was complete, Digital Domains texture artists had created four character assets: a male and a female digital double, each with a super-accurate human and clay version of its mesh. While plenty of Mari tools helped, Cosmi says the success of the project wasnt due to any specific one. Instead, it was about Maris overall ability to provide artists with a user-friendly way to apply traditional art techniques to their work.This was especially useful when the team faced one of their biggest challenges on Echos opening sequence, which involved creating custom versions of a tattoo around Chafas wrist and hand. There were several shots where Chafa had her wrist in a rotated pose with her palms facing the ceiling. Because of this, the texture the team originally created became quite distorted. Thanks to Mari, the team was able to recreate the tattoo in a cleaner texture to ensure the details were preserved during matchmoved shots.Our first pass of textures matched to the original actors makeup as closely as possible, says Cosmi. In later versions, we then added several Isolation Masks to match the layout of the concept art. This was a very artistic process rather than a technical process. It came down to hand painting and accuracy, and theres a number of ways to approach this from simple paint brushes, to using alphas and Paint Through, to dialing in the placement of masks with the Slerp tool and Grid Warp.Whatever approach you choose, he concludes, the important thing is that creativity isnt hampered. Our artists are encouraged to observe photos, match details, and include the uniqueness and composition that life provides us. And as a traditional painter and illustrator, I love to hand paint as much as possible when working on assets. Procedural approaches often seem too random and reliant on luck. Thankfully, Mari still offers the tried and true painting approach and toolset that allows artists like myself to bring textures to life, while keeping the workflow efficient.Brought to you by Foundry:This article is part of the befores & afters VFX Insight series. 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