Read on Twitter
"War of the Worlds" (2005), visual effects by Industrial Light & Magic. Visual effects supervisors Dennis Muren and Pablo Helman, compositing supervisor Marshall Krasser.
Dust and smoke effects, simulation and compositing by Todd Vaziri.
Dust and smoke effects, simulation and compositing by Todd Vaziri.
This was a really tough one. The art dept. built the barn in a damaged state, to look like the tripod already ripped through it. The original photography began with the shot on the dark sky, then tilted down to reveal the already broken barn with wood planks all over the ground.
The on-set physical effects team set off two big dust explosions, complete with bits of wood and debris. Tom was hiding inside the barn, and as soon as it was safe, he ran out through the dust as the camera dollied left.
First thing we had to do was paint a completely clean roof, front face of the barn, & the ground in front of the barn. So when the camera tilts down to the barn, nearly the entire frame is synthetic. Then, we had to destroy it. As you may know, time was tight on this show...
...and FX resources were stretched thin on big destruction sequences. Comp Supervisor Marshall Krasser asked me if this might be a good candidate for After Effects work. He & Dennis were really happy with a dynamic transition I created for "Hulk" in AE. https://twitter.com/tvaziri/status/916865852456132608
He asked if there was a way to sim and render the destruction of the barn in After Effects. So I dove in, treating the roof and the front face as two separate Shatter simulations. I drew custom shatter maps to match the contours of the roof planks and the barn doors.
I remember painting those maps being really tricky, since I had to create orthographic views of the doors & roof, to make everything line up properly. Lighting controls in Shatter was primitive, so I ran out special additive passes for more control in the comp.
Then, the animation. I wanted the roof to get ripped first, then a giant explosion to break through the doors, as if the tripod's three toes slams through in one violent move. Animating those spheres and playing with the sim parameters in Shatter took a TON of trial and error.
I told Dennis & Marshall up front that none of the debris I'm simming are going to hit the ground, and they were cool with that. The real key to this shot was all the supporting dust & debris I added to help disguise my massive wipe to reveal the ground full of (real) debris.
I'm particularly happy with my dust coming off the barn before the big hit, as well as my 2D camera move. The movie is distinctly hand-held, so I wanted to give this shot that same feel. I did a slight tilt up after the big bang, which helped disguise my mega-wipe of the ground.
I used ReelSmart Motion Blur to add motion blur to my sim'd Shatter pieces (since Shatter didn't have built-in motion blur), and had to paint a lot of motion blur by hand. The tripod's volumetric lights were simple rendered cones with a ton of comp treatment of smoke textures.
Also look for my trademark aperture reflection flares. At the end of production, Alex Tropiec added some additional camera shake on the barn blast.
It was a fun--and terrifying--shot to take on [and I still cringe at the motion of some the simulated pieces].
It was a fun--and terrifying--shot to take on [and I still cringe at the motion of some the simulated pieces].
