{"id":554249,"date":"2023-02-20T18:53:42","date_gmt":"2023-02-20T15:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/how-james-cameron-executed-complex-vfx-in-avatar-the-way-of-water\/"},"modified":"2023-02-20T18:53:42","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T15:53:42","slug":"how-james-cameron-executed-complex-vfx-in-avatar-the-way-of-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-james-cameron-executed-complex-vfx-in-avatar-the-way-of-water\/","title":{"rendered":"#How James Cameron Executed Complex VFX in \u2018Avatar: The Way of Water\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2d1fa02a278\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2d1fa02a278\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-james-cameron-executed-complex-vfx-in-avatar-the-way-of-water\/#How_James_Cameron_Executed_Complex_VFX_in_%E2%80%98Avatar_The_Way_of_Water\" >How James Cameron Executed Complex VFX in \u2018Avatar: The Way of Water\u2019<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_James_Cameron_Executed_Complex_VFX_in_%E2%80%98Avatar_The_Way_of_Water\"><\/span>How James Cameron Executed Complex VFX in \u2018Avatar: The Way of Water\u2019<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Following the success of 2009\u2019s groundbreaking <em>Avatar<\/em>, James Cameron began writing a new story that would take Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Salda\u00f1a) and their children on an emotional journey in a new region of Pandora \u2014 moving from its bioluminescent forest to its seas in the hopes of protecting their family from the Sky People. \u201cOur family is our fortress,\u201d Jake Sully says in <em>Avatar: The Way of Water<\/em>, which this past week won a BAFTA for its visual effects and swept the feature competition at the Visual Effects Society Awards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    The director had been working with Weta FX and its senior VFX supervisor Joe Letteri, winner of four competitive Oscars, since they first teamed on <em>Avatar<\/em>. Letteri emphasizes that everything they do from a VFX standpoint is about supporting the story, but when he saw the new <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">script<\/a>, he knew they had their work cut out for them. \u201cWe started to put a lot of effort into thinking about all aspects of what that would mean to create characters in water,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    For the uninitiated, water simulation and emotive digital characters are each sizable VFX challenges \u2014 among many that the filmmakers would address in making this movie \u2014 and they\u2019re part of an overall workflow that involved collaboration among all departments. Notes Letteri, \u201cOne of the first things that came up was, \u2018If you\u2019re going to get [the actors\u2019] motion right, you have to capture the performers in water.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:100%; max-width:1000px;\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((650\/1000)*100%);\">\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/DF-34526_R2-EMBED-2023.jpg?w=1000\" alt=\"Cameron (left) with Sam Worthington, who reprises his role as Jake Sully\" srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"650\" width=\"1000\" decoding=\"\"\/><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-padding-tb-025\"><span class=\"a-font-secondary-s lrv-u-margin-r-025\">James Cameron (left) with Sam Worthington, who reprises his role as Jake Sully.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>                                    <cite class=\"a-font-accent-uppercase-xs lrv-u-color-grey-dark\">Courtesy of Mark Fellman\/20th Century Studios<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Explains Cameron: \u201cNo one had ever done performance-capture underwater. There were people that told us it wasn\u2019t even possible \u2014 and certainly not possible at the kind of scale that we needed.\u201d But in the end, he reports, the filmmakers would develop a tank possessing the capabilities needed for filming, including \u201cgenerating waves and underwater currents and bottom surge and shore-break surf; we had a movable platform system that could create beaches and shorelines, modular set construction and all that.\u201d And the team had to develop the methodology for the underwater performance-capture. Cameron adds: \u201cI knew it was possible, I just didn\u2019t know exactly how it would wind up being done. It took us about a year and a half to figure that out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Key to the film\u2019s success was training the actors, who would have to perform underwater wearing suits with tracking markers. \u201cNone of them were really divers [when they started the project],\u201d the director says, noting that it was vital to make the system user-friendly for the actors as well as the camera crew. They also needed to address story points such as riding the skimwings \u2014 creatures that can both swim underwater and hover above the surface in the air. \u201cWe went out to the ocean first, and we had mock-ups of our creatures that could actually move around very rapidly underwater,\u201d Cameron says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Senior animation supervisor Dan Barrett says the skimwings were inspired by flying fish that \u201ccan sustain flight for quite a while. They can do as the skimwings do; they can fully leave the water or they can have this kind of wing and ground effect where they\u2019re receiving lift off the water surface to their wings and propelling themselves, thrust from the tail in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    To get the vital facial performances, Weta FX developed a new stereo camera head rig, and accompanying software for facial capture, to bring the actors\u2019 undiluted performances to their characters. Explains Letteri: \u201c[The software] is a neural network that we built as an animation tool that lets us try to figure out how the muscles react to each other. It gives the animators a lot more control in interpreting a performance than we\u2019ve ever had before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Emphasizes Cameron: \u201cIt\u2019s 100 percent actor-driven. Some\u00adtimes our biggest challenge can be in a simple two-character dialogue scene. You have to have every nuance of what the actor does. As a director and working with the actors, it\u2019s a very pure art form. It\u2019s like a stage rehearsal.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:100%; max-width:1000px;\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((650\/1000)*100%);\">\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/DF-48934-EMBED-2023.jpg?w=1000\" alt=\"Kate Winslet and Cliff Curtis (top row), who joined The Way of Water as members of the Metkayina clan, are pictured with original Avatar stars Zoe Salda\u00f1a and Worthington\" srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"650\" width=\"1000\" decoding=\"\"\/><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-padding-tb-025\"><span class=\"a-font-secondary-s lrv-u-margin-r-025\">Kate Winslet and Cliff Curtis (top row), who joined The Way of Water as members of the Metkayina clan, are pictured with original Avatar stars Zoe Salda\u00f1a and Worthington<\/span><\/p>\n<p>                                    <cite class=\"a-font-accent-uppercase-xs lrv-u-color-grey-dark\">Courtesy of Mark Fellman\/20th Century Studios<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Jake and Neytiri\u2019s adopted teenage daughter, Kiri, played by Sigourney Weaver, involved some delicate consideration. In the story, Kiri is the biological daughter of Grace, the scientist played by Weaver in 2009\u2019s <em>Avatar<\/em>. \u201cWhat you\u2019re seeing onscreen is Sigourney\u2019s performance, 100 percent,\u201d says Barrett. \u201cAll of the underwater stuff, she did it. She could sit at the bottom of that pool for minutes, doing these performances. It was really quite impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    To get the character just right, the crew at Weta assembled photos of Weaver as a teenager, as well as footage from some of her early <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">movies<\/a>, to give the team nuanced references in how her face moved at that age because, as all faces do, \u201cthe face changes a fair bit the older we get, muscles change,\u201d Barrett says. To ensure that all motion was exact, there were \u201ccertain occasions\u201d when a body or stunt double was involved for specific types of movement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    In a movie that is set so heavily in the sea, you can\u2019t uncouple the characters from the hurdles of water simulation. \u201cWe\u2019ve all seen water rendered before, [but in this film] we were going to have a lot of character interaction with water,\u201d says Letteri. \u201cJim was going to be in this virtual ocean with a virtual camera and a virtual splash housing as characters are having dialogue and action.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    The digital water in the film was created by artists using Weta\u2019s latest Loki simulation software after \u2014 pardon the pun \u2014 the Weta FX team did a deep dive into understanding water. \u201cWhat\u2019s the color of the water? How should the light actually <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/trip-and-travel\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"10\" title=\"Trip &amp; Travel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">travel<\/a> through it?\u201d were some of the questions they addressed, says Metkayina Village and reefs VFX supervisor Pavani Boddapati. Adds Jonathan Nixon, effects supervisor for water and fire, \u201cA good portion of this film is computer-generated water because we just got to a point where it looked so good, it was easier just to replace [the actual water] and integrate it [into the shots].\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    As with the 2009 movie, when filming on set, Cameron shot native 3D; Letteri notes that they also innovated on these sets. \u201cBasically [we developed] live depth compositing,\u201d he explains. \u201cWhat that meant is that when Jim was walking through the set and a character was interacting with a virtual character, that virtual character could appear in the live feed, but in the proper place in [3D] depth.\u201d This was enabled by newly developed AI-driven software that effectively took the images from the camera system and calculated 3D depth on the fly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Another new tool gave actors reference for eyelines and performance, with a cable-suspended camera system, but the team replaced the camera with a monitor. Says Letteri: \u201cAll the live-action characters, when they had to interact with CG characters, had something flying around the set with the performance in the right place in space. [It provided] the ability for the live-action characters to play live off their CG counterparts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    \u201cThese are just all tools to build this story,\u201d he concludes. \u201cWe knew it was going to be a big story and a lot of emotional beats with the characters, and that\u2019s really where we were putting all the effort.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    <em>This story first appeared in a Jan. stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/subscribe.hollywoodreporter.com\/sub\/?p=THR&amp;f=saleb&amp;s=IH1402HR20\">click here to subscribe<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/plain\" class=\"optanon-category-C0004\">\n!function(f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {\nif (f.fbq) return;\nn = f.fbq = function() {n.callMethod ? n.callMethod.apply(n, arguments) : n.queue.push(arguments);};\nif (!f._fbq) f._fbq = n;\nn.push = n;\nn.loaded = !0;\nn.version = '2.0';\nn.queue = [];\nt = b.createElement(e);\nt.async = !0;\nt.src = v;\ns = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\ns.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s);\n}(window, document, 'script', 'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\nfbq('init', '352999048212581');\nfbq('track', 'PageView');\n<\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/social-media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-features\/avatar-the-way-of-water-james-cameron-underwater-scenes-1235291361\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How James Cameron Executed Complex VFX in \u2018Avatar: The Way of Water\u2019 Following the success of 2009\u2019s groundbreaking Avatar, James Cameron began writing a new story that would take Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Salda\u00f1a) and their children on an emotional journey in a new region of Pandora \u2014 moving from its bioluminescent forest&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":554250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/DF-39217-H-2023.jpg?w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1635,19122,137182,12584,76544],"class_list":["post-554249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-avatar","tag-james-cameron","tag-sam-worthington","tag-sigourney-weaver","tag-zoe-saldana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}