Avatar, VAD, and LightWave

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By Ben Vrost and Kelly Dove

Avatar VAD Viperwolf Trail Environment modeled and textured in LightWave 3D and displayed in a real-time OpenGL pipeline using Motionbuilder. Images © Twentieth Century Fox

"Avatar" captured the attention of the world and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with multiple Oscar® wins, and is the highest grossing film of all time. Of course, building the worlds of Pandora required a new way of working in Hollywood - and the creation of a completely new system called a Virtual Art Department (VAD). Devised by Rob Powers and his team of artists, VAD is a real-time, interactive workflow that harmoniously integrated NewTek LightWave 3D® with other software tools, such as MotionBuilder and Vue, to deliver assets that would become the virtual world of Pandora. "LightWave's integration with programs like Vue and Motionbuilder worked so seamlessly for me, that is was a no brainer - I had everything I needed at my fingertips," explained Powers.

"Directors are really good at live-action shooting, because they can see the actors' performance in the environment in real-time," said Powers. "With effects-heavy and animated films, all that goes out the window, because they are in an unnatural workspace, where they have to wait months or years to see the final shots. When decisions are deferred for months at a time, as part of the post-production process, it becomes a filmmaking process that is not only alien and disenfranchising to their creativity, but also expensive and time-consuming."

Avatar VAD Hometree ground level Environment modeled and textured in LightWave 3D and displayed in a real-time OpenGL pipeline using Motionbuilder. Images © Twentieth Century Fox

The Virtual Art Department for "Avatar" was a complex pipeline, where almost all the assets were created in LightWave® using polygonal geometry, and textures baked in LightWave's renderer. Powers chose LightWave because as the initial artist on James Cameron's team at LightStorm, it was the smartest choice for him. "LightWave has advanced radiosity, high dynamic range, ambient occlusion, soft shadows, and beautiful lighting that we baked into the textures," explained Powers. "We were able to incorporate LightWave's renderer by baking its beautiful lighting into the texture maps used on our 3D models. This made the MotionBuilder real-time display look much more appealing for production. The efficient workflow in VAD gave Cameron a real-time workspace, and the flexibility to make changes on the fly - a process that was previously unheard of in the creation of CG-laden movies. As live characters on the motion-capture stage were being shot, Cameron could see CG representations of the aliens and environments in real-time, in-camera. He used these CG assets for composition and blocking.

Avatar VAD Biolum Falls Environment modeled and textured in LightWave 3D and displayed in a real-time OpenGL pipeline using Motionbuilder. Images © Twentieth Century Fox

Using the environments created in the VAD, Cameron and his team delivered to Weta Digital, a detailed template that invoked all the art direction, lighting, composition, camera motions and placement, plus performances that Cameron wanted. Recently, Powers joined NewTek as director of entertainment and media development. Acting as a liaison between studios, 3D artists and NewTek, Powers will be sharing the benefits of LightWave with the visual effects community, as well as communicating the studios' and artists' needs to the NewTek LightWave 3D development team.

See Rob Powers' interview on "Good Morning San Antonio", where he discusses his role in the creation of "Avatar" and the use of LightWave 3D in the Virtual Art Department.