Massive Software continued pioneering use of the company's AI-driven 3D animation system by Weta Digital for more than 600 visual effects shots on KING KONG. The Massive work on the film, which follows Weta's industry-leading innovation with Massive on such movies as THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy and I, ROBOT, creates a living, breathing backdrop of activity on Manhattan and Skull Island.
Weta Digital opted to use Massive to let artists reproduce the randomness of real life with animation that can be accomplished by a small team in a short amount of time. Weta's Massive team ranged from three to five artists who animated the Massive elements in the 600 shots, which had anywhere from 20 to thousands of digital characters in each.
"There's a brilliant elegance to Massive that makes using it like being an assistant director on set," said Jon Allitt, Massive supervisor. "Whether we needed to create the day-to-day hustle or total pandemonium, it was just a matter of placing a few Massive agents into the scene. Using Massive allowed us to keep our man hours low and turn complex scenes around quickly for hundreds of shots."
These sequences saw Massive agents come in closer proximity to camera than in previous projects. Massive was used seamlessly in a number of sequences in tight choreography with live-action footage, actors and props.
"Using Massive is almost second nature to us now," Allitt continued. "Once you have Massive, you're not so worried about what's going to be achievable. As we got breakdowns of shots, we'd say 'OK, these are Massive natives, Massive bugs, Massive people.' Massive saves us time and cycles, and integrates well with the rest of our animation pipeline."
For the scenes set in New York, Weta Digital produced a bustling metropolis using Massive to generate cars, buses, trains, pedestrians and circa-1930s traffic patterns. For the fantastical Skull Island, Massive was applied when the vfx studio needed to animate birds, insects and human in large numbers.
Weta Digital used Version 2.0 of Massive on the film, taking advantage of such features as the software's new dynamics engine and active motion trees to gain efficiencies. Simulations could be run, published and immediately picked up by technical directors ready for the render pipeline.
In the New York scenes, lensed using a Times Square-styled backlot in Wellington, New Zealand, and extended digitally, Massive characters ranged from boats, cars, buses and trains and the humans sitting in them to people on the streets reacting, falling down and running.
Skull Island was a completely fabricated environment, achieved principally using miniatures and lush digital work. A variety of creatures from flying insects to six-legged bugs was produced in Massive alongside bats, various birds and crowds of native peoples.
Springing into existence to help artists solve real-world production needs on THE LORD OF THE RINGS films, Massive Software (www.massivesoftware.com) is the leading developer of artificial intelligence-based 3D animation systems, and the only proven commercial system for feature film. Massive was founded when Stephen Regelous programmed a unique piece of software for director Peter Jackson to make creation of complicated visual effects scenes involving hundreds of thousands of digital characters a practical reality.
Now a standalone, commercially available product, Massive is used by leading digital production and effects studios, including Weta Digital, The Mill, Animal Logic, Rhythm & Hues and Digital Domain. In 2004, Massive was honored with a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and with a Technical Innovation Award at the 3D Awards in Copenhagen.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
