Harry Potter Deathly Hollows Part 2 Minimal Cover Art

David Vickery is working at Double Negative for nearly 10 years. He has participated in projects such as CHILDREN OF MEN, THE DARK KNIGHT or CLOVERFIELD. He oversaw films such every bit SHERLOCK HOLMES and HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1.

What is your background?
When I left school I enrolled in an Art and Design foundation grade, from there I went to De Montfort University to written report a degree in Industrial Blueprint and Engineering. 3D was a discipline I learnt to love whilst designing products and when I finished my degree I inverse tack slightly to reflect this and enrolled in the MA in Digital Moving Prototype at London Metropolitan University. Double Negative was my first job in feature pic. I joined D-Neg in 2002 equally a General 3D Artist and worked my manner up to the role of CG Supervisor on films such every bit BATMAN BEGINS, CHILDREN OF MEN and CLOVERFIELD. I'm currently one of Double Negative's VFX Supervisors and have recently completed work on Guy Ritchie'southward SHERLOCK HOLMES and HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PARTS ane and 2.

What sequences have you fabricated on this evidence?
Nosotros completed 410 shots for THE DEATHLY HALLOWS Part two, which spanned over 50 sequences! Our team was split into two distinct 'units' to make working on the hugely varied content more manageable. The 'Dragon' team were responsible for the arrival at Gringotts, the cart ride down to the dragon's vault and then all the shots with the dragon as information technology makes it escape across the Diagon Aisle roofscape. We also did a big part of the look development and R&D for the multiplying treasure sequence which nosotros eventually handed over to Tippett Studios to finish.

Any time y'all see the outside of Hogwarts or the surrounding environment it was handled by our 'Hogwarts' crew and we completed all the FX piece of work that goes with it. The shield creation and subsequent devastation, the collapse of the wooden span and the massive devastation that was wrought beyond the schoolhouse past Voldemort's ground forces. All of this is D-Neg. It was a huge claiming for us – there were over l completely CG shots for the Hogwarts squad alone.

Most the Gringott ride sequence, how did you choreograph information technology? Were at that place a previs or a storyboard for it?
We started pre-product on THE DEATHLY HALLOWS Part 2 dorsum in summertime 2008 – whilst we were withal working on THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE. Kieron Helsdon, one of our environment leads was installed in the production fine art section at Leavesden studios to begin constructing the previs for the cart ride. David Yates envisaged the sequence as a truly os shaking, INDIANA JONES manner mine cart chase so the shoot had to be planned meticulously to make sure that we got the live activeness elements that we needed. We spent a long time getting the previs right.
We then had to figure out a way of translating our carefully choreographed previs into live action footage. We used Maya to build a digital replica of the practical cart rig that John Richardson's' SFX squad had built. So wrote Maya scripts to transfer all the cart previs blitheness into a format that would bulldoze the practical rig to move in the same way. We substantially ran the entire cart sequence as one massive movement control shoot.

Can you tell us how y'all build and so huge an environment?
Stuart Craig'south team had crafted a beautiful clay sculpt of the Gringotts cavern. It was huge – measuring 6ft x 10ft and detailed the types of stone structures, location of the dragon vault and waterfall. It even included the helical twisting cart rails clinging to the rocky surface of the vast cave. Kieron Helsdon went to an expanse on the west declension of Scotland called Ballachulish and photographed the vast slate edifices there as inspiration for the slate-like stone formations in the cave. These were subsequently interspersed with towering limestone stalactites.

We started out in Maya building a digital replica of the art department clay model. We divided high resolution Lidar scans and manual theodolite surveys into many small manageable sections and rebuilt them as clean depression resolution polygonal geometry. These pieces were then textured using a combination of projected photography and hand painted Photoshop textures with Mudbox sculpts to add a fine level of displaced detail. It was congenital in modular sections to let multiple artists to work on it concurrently and so that information technology was more than versatile when the limerick of shots didn't work and we had to start moving individual rocks and stalactites around.

How did yous design and create the Gringott dragon?
Some of the first concept images nosotros were given for THE DEATHLY HALLOWS Role two were of the dragon. They depicted an emaciated yet feral looking animal, sprawling in a dank and cavernous environment. Nosotros were also given concepts of the brute'due south destructive climb to freedom through the foyer of the bank. Individual still images frequently give y'all a faux impression of an objects shape. When you look around that same object in 3D it suddenly looks very unlike. We wanted to get the creature modelled as soon equally possible to avoid this and really showtime to understand its class from all angles. Tim Shush envisaged the creature equally an emaciated, malnourished, mistreated wild animal and David Yates insistent that the audience needed to emote with the creature – to sympathise with it simply at the same time be terrified of information technology.

We began work on the dragon in summer 2008 with a small team. Two of our 3D artists, Kristin Stolpe and Andy Warren, created a series of 3D Maya models, Photoshop texture studies and Mudbox sculpts using the production artwork as a basis for their piece of work. Even though Tim Burke was working on the THE HALF Blood PRINCE and prepping for THE DEATHLY HALLOWS Part i he still had futurity in and review our piece of work on the dragon. Nosotros would evidence him our designs every couple of weeks. At this early phase the animate being went through a lot of changes. Nosotros designed shackles, muzzles and harnesses that could be used to restrain the creature and painted high res textures to show how the dragon could be wounded, scarred and disfigured. There were hundreds of subtle tweaks and variations made to the design of the creature during this phase.

We also had Creature TDs scripting lots of new pipeline tools to handle the many layers of cloth, muscle, bone, peel and tendon simulations nosotros knew would be required to create a convincing creature. After the Dragon team grew to include nigh 100 coiffure; a small army of Lighting Artists, Beast FX TD's, Compositors, Matchmove and Rotoscope Artists

How was simulated the dragon presence on the set up?
We created extensive previs for the entire of the dragons escape and then when it came to shooting the picture crew had a really good idea of where the dragon would be and actors knew where to look. When the dragon breathed fire the DOP directed interactive set lighting to illuminate the actors accordingly. At that place was no physical representation of the Dragon on set until the kids climb on its back, at which point nosotros needed something for them to interact with.

What was the main challenge with the dragon?
Getting the lead characters to sit convincingly on the back of the dragon was a massive technical claiming for us. We really wanted to avoid the tedious grinding mechanical feel that you lot often get when humans have to ride or interact with large imaginary creatures.

The starting time hurdle was creating a mechanical creature rig for Daniel, Emma and Rupert to sit down on. Nosotros provided John Richardson (SFX supervisor) with our finished Maya model of the dragon and he used this to CNC car a 1:ane scale 12 foot sculpt of office of the dragon'southward back. Nick Dudman (Animal Supervisor) then used this to create a flexible foam latex skin that would grade the creature's hide whilst John Richardson built a mechanical rig to control its movement. The rig had pneumatic rams to drive the dragon'southward shoulders upwards and down, twist the cervix and spine in 3 places and lift the top of the tail. John detailed the components of his rig and we built our own digital version of information technology and constrained it to our 3D dragon in Maya. Our Pb Creature TDs Gavin Harrison and Stuart Dear wrote a series of tools that immune us to extract our previs blitheness and use the information to bulldoze John'southward mechanical rig. We could animate the creature in Maya, consign the data and run across the mechanical rig do the same movements on fix just this fourth dimension with the actors on the back!!

The dragon was such huge brute that in one case the rig was mounted on the movement command base at Leavesden its back stood almost 15ft off the ground, which you can imagine would be a pretty daunting thing to be thrown around on! The rig itself had a pretty good range of motion merely was so heavy that it was never going to attain the speeds nosotros were seeing in our dragon previs. We had to adapt our shooting methods for each shot to make certain we got the most out of the rig. Some shots were filmed at 18fps and re-sped to make the dragon back appear to move faster. Other shots needed to be filmed locked off – the resulting plates would exist re-projected into 3D camera moves to enhance the animation. We placed hundreds of colour coded LED tracking markers on the dragon rig then that after in Matchmove we could carve up the rigs motility from the photographic camera move. In instance nosotros had to completely reconstruct the scene in 3D afterwards we positioned three HD witness cameras to cover each shot from a wide bending and to give u.s.a. extra texture information. Our 3D and 2D supervisors (Rick Leary and Sean Stranks) were on fix throughout the entire shoot. They would take the video rushes from every shot, run a quick Matchmove and comp and so show it to the managing director to make sure we were getting what he wanted. By the cease of the 2 week shoot we had a really rough version of the sequence with the actors really sitting on the dorsum of the mechanical dragons dorsum! Fifty-fifty later on all this work on fix nosotros nevertheless had to completely supervene upon the practical rig of the Dragon with CG. It was only designed to requite the actors something to interact with so it wasn't even painted.

When the dragon escapes, he causes much destruction. Can you tell the states more about that?
The scope of the damage and the fact that we had a massive dragon correct in the eye of the shot fabricated it necessary for us to build completely CG version of all the Gringott's sets. Full calibration builds existed in one form or another for each location, so we had great reference, simply it meant we had to painstakingly recreate them all digitally, before smashing them upwards. We used Nuke to composite the dragon sequence. Robin Beard (our 2D lead) got united states to render our environments into many layers. ID mattes to isolate different pieces of geometry, specular, lengthened, reflection, depth and atmos all in carve up renders. He would re-get together them in Nuke and information technology gave him control over every aspect of the await and it meant we would only return a shot once or twice before it could be finished in 2nd.

D-Neg has fantastic tools for destroying things! Nosotros take a great rigid torso simulation plug-in called Dynamite, which uses Maya forces and allows the use to specify real world values such as mass, gravity and even a materials coefficient of friction. Dynamite gives you incredibly conceivable results only you accept to model your geometry in a very different way if you plan to use it.
If y'all want to destroy a wall, or a marble column you can't but build and texture a simple polygonal plane or cylinder. Every brick has to be built and placed individually. You have to understand how something is made before y'all tin destroy it. The desks in the bank foyer are all fabricated up of individual pieces of wood. If you look closely, on each desk-bound you tin can see scales and piles of money and they are all built as if they were real things. If you lot desire them to wait good, at that place'due south no cheating or matte painting work rounds when you lot are doing devastation simulations.

About the school, can you explain to us how you create a CG version of it?
For the past 7 movies Hogwarts has primarily been a practical miniature, with digital enhancements. Information technology'south a huge model, measuring over 20ft long and 10ft high. Tim Burke and Emma Norton realized that Hogwarts was going to feature and so heavily in the final instalment of the franchise it would necessitate months and months of planning and shooting on the miniature stage. That is what led them to ask Double Negative to create a completely digital version of the school and its surrounding environment. It was such a huge undertaking. We had to build an environment that was over 10 miles long at its widest point and used over 3000 individually painted 4k textures. The school itself was made upward from over 74 individual buildings all modelled to 3 levels of detail. All this information was specified in nearly 1400 blueprints provided to us past Stuart Craig's Art Department.

Stuart's squad had been crafting the school for the last ten years and we had to live upwards to his very high production standards. We were given such a wealth of architectural information that nosotros could take built the school for real if we had wanted – there was then much detail in the plans that it fifty-fifty covered profiles of the handrails that wound effectually the within of the staircases leading up Dumbledore's belfry, nothing was left out.
The mountains surrounding the school are all real places in Scotland, only we quickly realised that no one place contained the right style of terrain to suit Hogwarts perfectly. In the finish nosotros photographed in many locations – Loch Schiel, Glen Nevis, The Three Sisters and Glen Coe to proper name a few. Kieron Helsdon then worked with Stuart Craig to compose the ideal environment to situate Hogwarts within. We ended up with a 360 caste collage of landscapes surrounding the school. Our task was to re-create this jumbled jigsaw of pieces and graft them together to create a unmarried seamless environment.

When we went to photograph and survey the Scottish locations we nonetheless weren't sure where the shots take identify within our 3D surround. We had to encompass every angle on the shoot and be able to accurately rebuild in 3D every location nosotros visited. Our Atomic number 82 3D Environment Artist Pietro Ponti devised a rig made up of 3 Canon 1DS mkIV digital SLR cameras mounted side by side and pointing out the side of a helicopter. The iii cameras were remote triggered and had their shutters synced. Pietro studied Google Earth and plotted out semi-circular flight paths effectually all of our mountains. The locations were a long manner from each other but Google Earth data allowed united states of america to make up one's mind the lighting and the sun'south location at whatsoever time of 24-hour interval and plot the optimum flying paths for the helicopter. The multiple photographic camera positions on each location allowed the states to use our proprietary geometry reclamation tools to re-build all of t he terrain and create textures from the photography at the same time.

Hogwarts buildings and environment changes a lot during the boxing, how did you create those changes and destructions?
We had to build multiple versions of any buildings or structures that needed to be destroyed during the movie. As a bare minimum we had to build it in a complete and destroyed state. A great example is the wooden span, which had to be built from scratch four times using different techniques so that information technology would work for wide scope of shots we had to simulate and return.
The commencement model was for shots where we had to apply CG to extend the partial set build visible in the alive action plates. We couldn't rely on the original set drawings that the construction team used. The actual sets often deviate from those plans and our digital ready extensions had to match the live action very, very accurately. We used Lidar to survey the sets and rebuilt them from that.

The 2d model was congenital from architecturally accurate scale drawings. We built all the roof timbers, slates, floor joists and even downwards to the private types of joinery used to connect the structures to each other. This information was all used in our rigid body simulation software 'Dynamite' to create the physically accurate FX simulations as the bridge was blown up. This resultant 3D model was incredibly dense and took a long time to render.
The third variation on the bridge build was a low resolution efficient render model that could exist used in medium and broad shots.
The fourth and terminal wooden bridge was built in its post destruction state. Our FX simulations looked beautiful as the bridge exploded simply it was very hard for the team to control the bridge so that it collapsed and left a nice looking structure. The finished destroyed model was completely art directed. The twisted remains of the bridge manus placed to become the all-time result.

What was the biggest challenge on this motion picture and how did you achieve it?
The sheer breadth of creative work that D-Neg undertook for THE DEATHLY HALLOWS Office two made it a very challenging and rewarding project to supervise. One second you are looking at Elizabethan architectural details and the next trying to devise a way to obliterate a Snatcher equally he runs through the Hogwarts shield. Great fun just difficult work…

You've worked on four Harry Potter films. How did it feel to consummate the saga?
It's a very proud moment for me, and I know that anybody at D-Neg is incredibly proud of their work on the pic. They gave everything to make this last one the best!

Was there a shot or a sequence that kept you awake at night?
All of them! That'southward what supervision is about. You become a lot of the praise when it goes well, but y'all as well have to prepare all the problems when its not.

How long have you worked on this pic?
I started work on THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PARTS 1 and 2 in September 2009 and finished in July 2011!

What was the size of your team?
At its peak, Double Negative had 263 artists working on information technology.

What is your next project?
Nothing confirmed at the moment, I'thousand taking the opportunity to recover!

What are the iv movies that gave y'all the passion for cinema?
ALIEN, BLADE RUNNER, THE Dark CRYSTAL and LABYRINTH.
I love all the beautifully crafted worlds and creatures that came out of Henson's workshop. When I was growing upward I wanted to exercise creature FX, but never actually thought it was something that the average Joe could go into.

A big thanks for your time.

// Desire TO KNOW MORE ?

– Double Negative : Dedicated HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART two page on Double Negative website.

© Vincent Frei – The Fine art of VFX – 2011

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Source: https://www.artofvfx.com/harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-part-2-david-vickery-superviseur-vfx-double-negative/

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