Innovative VFX Sequences in Life of Pi, Prometheus and Men in Black 3 Benefit from CINEMA 4D and BodyPaint 3D Technology

NEWBURY PARK, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — March 13, 2013 — MAXON congratulates the many customers that won and were nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Visual Effects Society (VES) and other prominent creative arts organizations for outstanding achievement in the visual effects and other categories who leveraged the company’s professional 3D solutions – CINEMA 4D and Body Paint 3D – to create this year’s most proclaimed characters, backgrounds and environments.

Life of Pi, this year’s, Oscar® award-winning film for Best Visual Effects was created by MAXON customers to create the stereoscopic shots of the tea tree fields, hills, towns and church featured in the Ang Lee directed film. MAXON’s state-of-the-art 3D software solutions were also featured in two of the Best Visual Effects Oscar nominees – Prometheus and Marvel’s The Avengers. In addition, many of the film and videogame projects honored by the VES also relied on MAXON products, including Men in Black™ 3, The Amazing Spider-Man and Halo 4.

MAXON technology played key roles in the complex onscreen and gadget display screen graphics seen throughout Marvel’s The Avengers and Men in Black 3, as well as the CG environments, creatures, costumes and spaceship designs that contributed to Prometheus’ futuristic tone. [Editors‘ Note: For a complete listing of Academy Award nominations, please visit: http://oscar.go.com/nominees. For a complete listing of VES Awards winners, please visit: http://www.visualeffectssociety.com/11th-Annual-VES-Awards-Winners]

“Each year, celebrated visual effects, motion graphics and animation artists choose MAXON 3D solutions to help bring their creative visions to life,” Paul Babb, president/CEO MAXON said. “We congratulate all our customers, those who were nominated and won awards this season, who continue to set the industry standard in 3D artistry and inspire and entertain audiences around the world.”

Life of Pi – Oscar Winner for Best Visual Effects

Life of Pi, the magical film adventure about a 16-year-old Indian son of a zookeeper and his shipwreck with a tiger won numerous awards from prestigious organizations around the world including four Oscar wins for 'Best Visual Effects,' 'Best Direction,' 'Best Original Score,' and 'Best Cinematography.' The film also received multiple VES Awards including the 'Visionary Award' for Lee; 'Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Feature Motion Picture'; and 'Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture.'

Acclaimed digital artist and long-time CINEMA 4D user, Steven Messing (Prometheus, Avatar, Alice in Wonderland, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Water for Elephants, and the upcoming film titles, Star Trek Into Darkness and Pirates of the Caribbean 5) served as visual effects art director on Life of Pi, working under Paul Graff, visual effects supervisor at Crazy Horse Effects, Venice, Calif. Messing used CINEMA 4D mostly for the wide establishing stereoscopic shot of central character ‘Pi’ Patel’s rural hometown in Munnar, India and outer lying areas that required the creation of very specific landmarks including a temple, mosque and church that still exist in some form today.

Messing explained that he art directed the landscape and buildings to be a bit more surreal in scale and scope.

“I created a wide overscan matte painting that was projected in layers onto 3D geometry in CINEMA 4D,” Messing said. “CG FX Supervisor, Luke Mcdonald and Compositing Supervisor, Josh Lacross were able to breathe life into the shot using CINEMA 4D's powerful tool set. We rendered fully lit and dynamic 3D tree elements, animated birds, people and animals, and moving clouds with interactive light rays casting shadows across the landscape. With CINEMA 4D we had a very efficient stereoscopic pipeline that allowed us to render amazing results in a practical time frame."

Prometheus – Oscar Nominee for Best Visual Effects

Digital artist Steven Messing utilized CINEMA 4D to conceptualize and design complex visual effects shots in the production of Twentieth Century FOX’s Prometheus, directed by Ridley Scott.

Messing served as Visual Effects Art Director, working under Prometheus Production Designer Arthur Max. He leveraged CINEMA 4D’s speed, agility and intuitive processes to produce several physical set builds, as well as CG environments, creatures, costumes and spaceship designs that contributed to the aesthetic and mythological visual tone of the film. He also worked through post-production creating matte shots and additional designs, working under VFX Supervisor, Richard Stammers and VFX Producer, Allen Maris.

“Using CINEMA 4D remains a top choice software that afforded us a highly flexible solution for previsualizing and experimenting with design elements such as intricate, surface detail textures and patterns that could be presented to Ridley Scott for approvals in a practical timeframe,” said Messing. [Editors’ note: For additional details on Messing’s workflow in Prometheus, see MAXON press release: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120613005456/en/Prometheus-VFX-Art-Director-Steven-Messing-Leverages ]