Very often we find that we can manipulate something that may have been created for an entirely different purpose to achieve our goals…

The main focus at Weta Digital is visual effects of feature films. The idea is to create digital versions of the film’s characters and to use these in place of the actors in scenes that would be either too dangerous or just not possible to shoot with live actors.

The digital doubles as they are called, have to move and behave just like the action character that they replicate, so much so that they are indistinguishable from the live characters. Weta Digital 3D artists use dynamic simulations on the hair, clothing and skin to enhance the appearance of realistic movement.

Due to the vast array of clothing used in “The Hobbit” the 3D artists chose a pattern based approach in the modelling stage to give the clothing the volume feel they were after. The 3D artists used Marvelous Designer 2 as it had a fast and stable solver which they used to drape the clothing when modelling and it also has a really simple and easy to use interface. They created literally hundreds of clothing elements in this way.

The Weta Digital 3D artists used reference images and scans to create precise and accurate digital copies of the characters bodies and used templates from the patterns of the live actors costumes.

The artists did not render the geometry from Marvelous Designer 2 but rather they used the geometry as a template and rebuilt the topology in Maya using seams, and all other details were added and this created the hero digital costume for their models department.

The hero geometry was then attached or wrapped to the simulation geometry and this was then invisible in the final renders.

Interestingly, although Marvelous Designer 2 was actually created for the fashion world, it proved adaptable enough to create these digital doubles and the Weta Digital team were delighted with the results.

– Val Cameron / Dreamlight

P.S. If you want to create your own 3D models, and earn extra income, then head over HERE.

Val Cameron