Industrial Light & Magic puts Autodesk products to work in ‘The Creator’. © Disney. All Rights Reserved.
It’s Oscars season, and we’re once again celebrating the unsung heroes of the film industry – the technology and people that bring cinematic magic to life. Autodesk has been a trusted partner in this process for more than 25 years, powering many Oscar®-winning and nominated films.
Autodesk technology is a secret weapon for Hollywood’s artists, empowering them to turn visionary ideas into reality and create breathtaking scenes and characters. This year, we’re honored to celebrate nominated films made with Autodesk design and make software.
“Autodesk Maya is intuitive and flexible enough to accommodate our proprietary toolset while serving as the animation department’s keyframing foundation, said Kelsey Wagner, Supervising Animator, Sony Pictures Imageworks. “This allowed artists to create the spectacular visuals seen in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.”
Autodesk Maya helps artists create spectacular visuals in ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’.
“At Pixar, Autodesk Maya continues to be a vital part of our workflow,” said Sanjay Bakshi, VFX Supervisor, Elemental. “The majority of our character and set models start off in Maya and its flexible API allows smooth integration into our pipeline.”
Autodesk Maya is a vital part of Pixar’s workflow on ‘Elemental’ and other films.
“Autodesk Maya played a key role in our effects work on The Creator,” said ILM Visual Effects Supervisor, Ian Comely. “It was used for robot, simulant, and vehicle modeling, rigging, and animation for the film. With multiple ILM locations contributing to the film, we also leveraged synchronized RV sessions for cross-site collaboration, annotation, and presentation to Director Gareth Edwards. Our ILM Production team on The Creator worked magic in Shotgrid, to stay on top of this evolving puzzle, and found efficiencies and savings to put the most ‘visual value’ on screen.”
Autodesk Maya plays key role for robot, simulant, and vehicle modeling, rigging, and animation in ‘The Creator’. © Disney. All Rights Reserved.
“Autodesk’s tools play an important role at every stage of our pipeline. Maya acts as our primary platform for modeling, rigging, animation, and serves as the bridge for rendering in our proprietary renderer Freak, equipping us with the necessary tools to bring our CG characters to life,” said Alexis Wajsbrot, VFX Supervisor on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3. “Maya was instrumental in the creation of multiple variants of Rocket Raccoon; its flexible rigging and animation tools allowed us to create diverse iterations of the character, each with its own unique personality and expressions. This was key to delivering Rocket’s powerful performances during the film’s emotionally charged sequences that saw audiences reaching for their tissues.”
Multiple variants of fan-favorite Rocket Raccoon were created with Autodesk Maya, each with unique personality.
And Maya is also utilized throughout the pipeline by Wētā FX on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
“Our Assets and Motion teams, such as Modeling, Motion, Creatures, and Layout, are the primary users,” said Weta CTO, Kimball Thurston. “We believe in having an integrated approach from virtual production to post-production, so artists from VAD and Optical, who work with on-set data, to our Lighting team making last-second edits all use Maya and other Autodesk tools to help produce the rich scenes you see in our work.”
Rich scenes in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ made possible with Autodesk Maya.
As we look forward to the Oscars with those nominated for the industry’s most prestigious awards, we’re proud to be a part of it, and celebrate the people and technology bringing films to life.
With its industry cloud for Media & Entertainment, Autodesk is shaping the future of film and animation, and working to connect every stage of the production lifecycle, revolutionizing the way data, workflows, and teams are managed. Autodesk Flow is unlocking new opportunities for innovation and creativity, addressing hurdles that arise as productions grow in scope and complexity.
Beyond the silver screen, Autodesk is a trusted technology partner to the design and make industries and its software is used by architects, engineers, students, and more, inspiring creativity and innovation that is helping to make a better world.