Autodesk congratulates visual effects facility Weta Digital, who crafted champion visual effects for the Oscar-winning film King Kong. Autodesk also congratulates Industrial Light & Magic and Sony Pictures Imageworks, for shaping the Visual Effects category nominated films The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and War of the Worlds. For the eleventh consecutive year, Autodesk technology was used to realize winning visual effect ideas for films in this category. In addition, Autodesk's Discreet Lustre system was used to digitally color grade Oscar-winning films in the Visual Effects, Documentary Feature and Foreign Film categories.

Weta Digital relied on the Discreet Lustre system to help create the distinctive look and feel of King Kong. "We used Autodesk's Discreet Lustre system as part of the entire visual effects color grading process while making King Kong. We used it to grade at the front end before the computer-generated elements were added, and also at the very end of our pipeline to grade the final images,' explained Joe Letteri, senior visual effects supervisor at Weta Digital. 'As the elements came in, the Discreet Lustre system helped us work out the look for complex environments like Skull Island and 1933 New York." Digital color grading is the process of altering or enhancing the colors in a movie using scanned copies of the original film.

Sony Pictures Imageworks artists used Autodesk Maya 3D animation software, as well as the Discreet Flame visual effects system and Autodesk Burn rendering software to help reach new creative heights for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Autodesk Maya software was used to craft many of the film's talking animals such as the 3D wolves, beavers and foxes, as well as some of the film's mythical creatures such as Mr. Tumnus, a faun (half man, half goat). Great care was taken to ensure that these animated characters were believable as they moved, spoke and interacted with actors and other live action animals throughout the film

Several Discreet Flame systems, including the latest 64-bit Linux-based version, were used for 3D tracking, compositing and visual effects work on the movie. 3D tracking involves simulating a camera's movement by recalculating the three-dimensional motion of the original camera from a two-dimensional filmed image sequence. This enables new live action or computer-generated elements to be seamlessly composited into the moving background sequence. Compositing is the process of blending images from different sources together to make one image.

'To create a shot of the Narnia landscape, we had to rework footage captured from a helicopter flying over a forest. We used Autodesk's Discreet Flame system to replace a lake and mountains in the original footage with a digital matte painting of an ice castle sitting on a lake,' explained Sony Pictures Imageworks Digital Effects Supervisor, Dave A. Smith. 'We then used the Flame system to animate waves on the lake and to add glints, glows and lens flares on the castle, making the shot more photorealistic.' The system was also used to create the right look for other magical elements in the film such as the White Witch's stone victims, talking 3D animals and the countryside.

In addition, visual effects house Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) used Autodesk Maya software to create approximately 30 different creatures for the film. 'To create these characters on a tight deadline, we used Autodesk Maya software's geometry-based rigging system to set up template geometry for creatures and to save all of the carefully identified rig locations for reuse,' explained Jeff White, ILM's creature technical director and supervisor for the film. 'With the help of Autodesk's software, we were able to modify the creatures' geometry and rigs automatically to create new animation.'

Autodesk's Discreet Inferno and Discreet Flame systems were used as a part of ILM's proprietary SABRE visual effects system. For the coronation sequence, in which the lion, Aslan, and the children walked down an ornate hall lined with crowds of creatures, the SABRE system was instrumental in creating a believable scene involving the compositing of several hundred character layers.

ILM relied on Autodesk Maya software, as well as Discreet Inferno and Discreet Flame systems and Autodesk Burn software as part of their proprietary SABRE visual effects system, to realize various concept-based effects for Stephen Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Complicated concepts and sequences such as the warring aliens and their tripods were crafted using Autodesk Maya software. Another involved the Tripods' heat ray - the Tripod tentacles were imported into the Discreet Inferno system's 3D environment, and the system's 3D particles feature was used to create an organic-looking plasma spray that vaporized buildings and people.

Autodesk's Discreet Inferno system was also used as a part of ILM's proprietary SABRE visual effects system to shape the film's 'Fleeing the Neighborhood' scene, in which Tom Cruise attempts to drive his family out of the city while destruction looms around them. This scene relied on miniature models of buildings and cars, blowing debris and pyrotechnical elements. Miniature models of buildings destroyed by the aliens were created at ILM and shot on a green screen. The Discreet Inferno system allowed the artists to layer all of the elements, including the footage of these models, in 3D space and composite them seamlessly into the environment.

As a result, there was no visible difference between the original buildings shot on location and the buildings that were replaced with green screen footage of the destroyed miniature models. 'There are a lot of compositing tools that could allow us to stack up 50 rendered elements on top of each other, but Autodesk's Discreet Inferno system offers more,' notes Grady Cofer, Discreet Inferno system supervisor at ILM. 'The system's creative tools and interaction facilitate an artist's touch, and that's what really matters. We couldn't have done War of the Worlds without it.'

In the Animated Short Film category, Autodesk products were used to shape three of the five nominated films. Anthony Lucas of 3-D Films used Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Maya, and Autodesk Combustion desktop visual effects software to create The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper and Morello. Autodesk 3ds Max software was used to craft the film's iron flying ships, while Autodesk Maya software was used to create the clouds in the sky. Autodesk Combustion software was then used to composite the images together and to add glows and color tints to the scene. Two-dimensional film Badgered was conformed and onlined by John Rowe, head of digital post-production at the National Film and Television School in London, using Autodesk's Discreet Flame system. The Discreet Flame system was also used for color balancing to create a consistent look throughout the film.

Shane Acker used Autodesk Maya 3D animation software to craft his Oscar-nominated film 9. Acker took four and a half years to produce the film, beginning production in version 2 and finishing in version 6 of the Autodesk Maya software. 'Working on this project over an extended period of time allowed me to experience Autodesk Maya blossoming into the amazing program it is today,' said Acker. 'I was surprised at how smoothly my files would transfer into each new update, and I was thrilled with how the tools in each new version would expand the possibilities for the film,' he added.

Acker used Autodesk Maya software for modeling, animation, dynamics and particle effects. 'I wanted to create a dark, dirty, surreal world emotive of European stop motion animation and the paintings of Zdzislaw Beksinski. Autodesk Maya software allowed me to free up the camera and explore intricate movement and staging that I would not have been able to achieve in a real stop motion set,' explained Acker. The software was also used for lighting and rendering of the short, to achieve a non-photorealistic, stylized look. 'Autodesk Maya software rendering provided what I needed without the overhead of global illumination or radiosity style rendering,' he noted.

Autodesk technology was also used to shape Oscar-winning and nominated films in other categories. Autodesk's Discreet Lustre system was used by 'clair Laboratoires to digitally color grade Documentary Feature winner, March of the Penguins. Post-production facility The Video Lab relied upon Autodesk's Discreet Lustre system to digitally color grade Foreign-film winner, Tsotsi. 'Autodesk's Discreet Lustre system allowed us to create a look that captured the mood and grittiness of a contemporary South African township, while maintaining aesthetic appeal to an international audience,' explained Tracey Williams, digital intermediate and visual effects producer at The Video Lab. Color played an integral role in the storytelling and was used to enhance the mood of various situations. 'When we wanted the audience to feel empathy towards Tsotsi, the film's hostile lead character, we used virtual lighting gags to lift Tsotsi's eyes, allowing the audience to look almost directly into them,' noted Brett Manson, Video Lab colourist and visual effects artist.