SAN DIEGO—A life-sized Avatar powersuit, a cast of “A-list” celebrities, including Angelina Jolie and Harry Potter, a giant transformer that folds into a car, a sea of the world’s best comic artists and related products and services … these were just a few of the enticing attractions that drew over 125,000 comic fans to the San Diego Comic-Con International, held from July 22 to 25.
The world’s largest comic festival this year celebrated pop culture and “diversity,” with a strong Hollywood presence. The guest list and speaking panels were flush with famous directors, producers and movie stars, including, among others, Angelia Jolie, Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage, Natalie Portman, Tina Fey.
While some complained that the Hollywood influence had over-commercialized the event, the Avatar design team’s appearance had been fervently anticipated by comic devotees. Hundreds of fans attended the “Concept Design for Entertainment” panel’s afternoon session on July 23. Four creature and production designers shared the processes behind their design approach, as well as the philosophical perspective behind their work.
The four artists included lead creature designer Neville Page, Oscar-winning production designer Rob Stromberg, concept designer Craig Shoji, and technical creature developer Alex Alvarez.
Stromberg described the unique challenges the team faced: “You have to remember that every single thing in Avatar was designed, from planet down to trig,” he said.
The world’s largest comic festival this year celebrated pop culture and “diversity,” with a strong Hollywood presence. The guest list and speaking panels were flush with famous directors, producers and movie stars, including, among others, Angelia Jolie, Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage, Natalie Portman, Tina Fey.
While some complained that the Hollywood influence had over-commercialized the event, the Avatar design team’s appearance had been fervently anticipated by comic devotees. Hundreds of fans attended the “Concept Design for Entertainment” panel’s afternoon session on July 23. Four creature and production designers shared the processes behind their design approach, as well as the philosophical perspective behind their work.
The four artists included lead creature designer Neville Page, Oscar-winning production designer Rob Stromberg, concept designer Craig Shoji, and technical creature developer Alex Alvarez.
Stromberg described the unique challenges the team faced: “You have to remember that every single thing in Avatar was designed, from planet down to trig,” he said.
To give the filmmaker or enthusiast some sense of the way the creatures of the fictional planet Pandora behave, fifty virtual environments were created, in which the director was able to direct a movie with humans. Their actions in these virtual environments were translated and transposed into the movie characters in real-time, with the aid of virtual cameras. Stromberg explained, “In doing this procedure, we were actually kind of making the movie two times.”
Neville Page based the design of the film’s creatures on core concepts given by its director, James Cameron. When coming up with the design for the banshee, a flying creature on Pandora, Page said the designer has to work like a biological engineer, using advanced biology and zoology.
Page explained how he spent a lot of time trying to figure out how the creature eats, breathes, crawls, and various other details. He gave the example of how he sketched each one of the 50 prototype eyeballs of the creature in order to understand how they work.
One of Page’s favorite features of the banshee is the creature’s mouth. The creature has gigantic teeth, but Page wanted to give it a clean and prim look when its mouth was closed. He observed the jaws of numerous fish and other animals, enabling the invention of a cheekbone design for a giant opening mouth. He fashioned models of the banshee’s skull bones out of cardboard, and pieced them together with nuts and bolts to make sure the structure allowed the animal to eat, breath, and open its mouth properly.
Page also had to consider that when a banshee flies in the dense air of Pandora at speeds of 100-200 mile per hour, the air would inflate its cheekbones if its mouth were opened. The designers subsequently added some slits along the banshee’s cheeks to vent the air.
Neville Page based the design of the film’s creatures on core concepts given by its director, James Cameron. When coming up with the design for the banshee, a flying creature on Pandora, Page said the designer has to work like a biological engineer, using advanced biology and zoology.
Page explained how he spent a lot of time trying to figure out how the creature eats, breathes, crawls, and various other details. He gave the example of how he sketched each one of the 50 prototype eyeballs of the creature in order to understand how they work.
One of Page’s favorite features of the banshee is the creature’s mouth. The creature has gigantic teeth, but Page wanted to give it a clean and prim look when its mouth was closed. He observed the jaws of numerous fish and other animals, enabling the invention of a cheekbone design for a giant opening mouth. He fashioned models of the banshee’s skull bones out of cardboard, and pieced them together with nuts and bolts to make sure the structure allowed the animal to eat, breath, and open its mouth properly.
Page also had to consider that when a banshee flies in the dense air of Pandora at speeds of 100-200 mile per hour, the air would inflate its cheekbones if its mouth were opened. The designers subsequently added some slits along the banshee’s cheeks to vent the air.
Technical creature developer, Alex Alvarez then demonstrated how to turn a flat image into a 3-D creature, using tools like Photoshop, Maya, ZBrush, Headus, Bodypaint and After Effects. The step-by-step demonstration from appearance development and animation test, to developing and adopting the key poses, proved a jaw-dropping experience for the audience.
The herculean work effort behind the grand visual effects of Avatar provoked a spontaneous response that no doubt was collectively felt. A ceramic teacher in the crowd enthusiastically exclaimed, “This is so awesome! You guys are brilliant!”
The herculean work effort behind the grand visual effects of Avatar provoked a spontaneous response that no doubt was collectively felt. A ceramic teacher in the crowd enthusiastically exclaimed, “This is so awesome! You guys are brilliant!”
