Leading visual effects studio delivered 266 shots for director Brad Peyton’s sci-fi adventure; film stills and concept art help illustrate the work on full CG environments, set extensions, spaceships, digital doubles, and FX simulations for epic battle sequences.
MPC recently delivered 266 VFX shots, from a team of 825 artists, for the sci-fi action-adventure Atlas, directed by Brad Peyton, now streaming on Netflix. Led by VFX supervisor Luc-Ewen Martin-Fenouillet and VFX producers Ryan Valade and Emma Gorbey, the team worked closely with Peyton, production VFX supervisor Lindy DeQuattro, and VFX producer Blondel Aidoo, creating full CG environments, set extensions, spaceships, digital doubles, and FX simulations for epic battle sequences.
The team’s most challenging sequence was Planet Fall. This choreographed free fall from a spaceship in low orbit to a crash landing on the planet's surface required meticulous planning and execution. The sequence captured the chaos and intensity of a continuous fall, with mechs battling drones amidst a dynamic and ever-changing environment.
“We mapped a fall path from low orbit to the planet's surface for the action to take place, resulting in a scene covering several dozen kilometers,” said Martin-Fenouillet. “Atlas, in her Arc Suit, needed to start falling above the clouds, then enter an electric storm, and finally emerge right above the alien planet's surface. To manage the scale, we created low-resolution geometries of clouds to have a faithful representation of the image composition without having to simulate volumes.”
Martin-Fenouillet explained that after the animation was blocked, the geometries were converted to cloud shapes, categorized by altitude.
“This way,” he continued, “cirrostratus remained only at high altitude while stratocumulus were found only at low altitude. This approach provided a subtle yet flexible way to tell the free-fall story of the sequence through cloud shapes.”
MPC’s artists also transformed Los Angeles and Hong Kong into futuristic metropolises with giant hologram projections, massive mega-structures, and flying vehicles. The team created eight full-CG shots for the space flight between LA and the security gates outside Earth's atmosphere. Developing the security mesh shielding the planet from AI invasion took significant effort to make it feel tangible and coherent with the human technology depicted in the film.
The set of the giant military spaceship, the Dhiib, was extended to include additional bays, CG engineers, and soldiers. This sequence featured a dramatic ambush from AI forces, fracturing the Armory and creating a chaotic environment with flames and flying embers.
For Centurion Camp, MPC enhanced a real location—a disused factory—into a well-protected camp inside a thick tropical jungle. The sequence, set under rainy conditions, featured CG overgrown vegetation, looming cliffs, and robot interactions with plants, with simulated droplets splashing on alien leaves and flowers.
To achieve this, the production design team built a modular Arc Suit cockpit rig capable of orbiting in all directions. MPC motion-tracked the cockpit and camera to seamlessly integrate the practical plate into CG Arc Suits. This innovative projection rig provided the flexibility needed for robot animation and dynamic camera movements throughout the film.
“Atlas was a really fun challenge for our artists,” concluded Martin-Fenouillet. “There were so many different sorts of effects to create, but our director Brad Peyton had an extremely clear vision and understanding of VFX, which really helped with the work. He really values creativity and gave our team the freedom to innovate and enhance the visual narrative.”
Source: MPC VFX
Debbie Diamond Sarto is news editor at Animation World Network.
