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MillimeterDr. Manhattan Project
Feb 25, 2009 12:00 PM, By Michael Goldman
Tech secrets from Watchmen.
The effects team kept Crudup’s face free of LEDs and instead spotted it with mo-cap tracking markers to capture nuanced reference data from which to build the character’s facial performance.
Photo by Clay Enos.
Face, skin, hair
More specifically, parts of Manhattan's facial movement are mo-capped. Since the LEDs were limited to Crudup's body, reflecting a glow on his face, filmmakers were free to spot the actor's face with mo-cap tracking markers — about 200 of them all over his face, using some of the same concepts used by Imageworks for Beowulf.
“We took that into Maya and it was a primer coat, so to speak, and then we did some fine-tuning of the performance,” Travers says. “But most of the performance is from skillful animation designed to match the reference and lots of rotomation — 3D tracking of the character's performance, matching what we had on set, using a kinematic skeleton, basically using the character rig. Since [Dr. Manhattan] is naked and Billy was covered in a suit, we did all sorts of extra reference shoots on how muscles moved. Usually, we would get the body performance all tracked in, and once we were close, we would work on the facial stuff and get into all kinds of secondary dynamics like jiggle and high-end deformations.”
The facial work was so detailed not only because of the goal of making the character as photoreal as possible, but also because he is unique for a CG character in that he largely engages in intense conversations in the movie, rather than in significant action. Thus, facial close-ups of the character are routine, and important, in Watchmen.
“CG characters usually jump around, climb buildings, break things, and go nuts,” Snyder says. “But Dr. Manhattan, much of the time, the biggest thing he does is furrow his brow. It's Billy's acting that we needed — subtle stuff. So, for me, the thing I was most worried about was getting those emotions to play on his face.”
Des Jardin says his team worked with Imageworks to do some early facial tests on the project using computer models from Beowulf, and they decided to mix some mo-cap data with hand animation largely because it was the most practical approach for the project's timeline and resources.
“I can't say our technique was better than entirely performance-capturing the face, but traditional mo-cap doesn't lend itself to how we were making this film,” Des Jardin says. “That array of cameras, in a set environment, wouldn't work on location all over Vancouver, and we had no time or ability for a crew to rig each location with a mo-cap array. So the approach we used is a lot more hand-intensive. But either way, the thing that drives the rigging of a character's face is: How many subtle things can you get out of it? Is it 100-percent real? The way we did it was to essentially copy a real performance. So, like with motion capture, Billy was totally driving the performance as long as we did our jobs right, and Imageworks did that. They did an amazing job with his skin, thin layers of peach-fuzz hair, and other things. He's a blue, glowing guy, but he's also supposed to be a real guy, and I think you believe he is when you see him.”
Among other things, central to making Dr. Manhattan's face move realistically was the time the animation squad put into analyzing and emulating the movement of Crudup's neck. The goal was to capture the realistic movement of tendons rolling; his Adam's apple moving; and his skin sliding across the muscles, tendons, and bones beneath.
“One thing about our approach: We realized that neck movement is critical to facial movement,” Travers says. “Often, facial animation is too localized to the obvious places, like the mouth. We analyzed movement of the tendons and other structures within the neck area, and that led to making the facial performance believable. We spent a lot of time getting our rig to move like Billy's neck, and that was why we kept his neck clear of LEDs and used it as a major reference. I think it paid off. The system slides the skin as the Adam's apple moves, and if he tenses his neck, it slides over the clavicle a certain way. The rig was somewhat cumbersome at first, but we had layers of animation, so we could do the basic body layers first, and then the neck rig is sort of built inside-out and can be applied to slide that skin around. But I want to emphasize: This wasn't based on theoretical discussions. It was based on what we learned directly from Billy's performance.”
Continue the discussion on Crosstalk the Millimeter Forum.