Fin Design + Effects制作的《蚁人与黄蜂女：量子狂潮（Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania）》-视效解析

FIN 与视觉特效总监 Jesse James Chisholm、Kevin Souls 和视觉特效制作人 Fiona Westgate 合作，为“Sub-atomica”和“Bluffs”这两个关键序列提供了 110 个镜头。这是漫威影业的第四次合作，FIN 提供了广泛而复杂的视觉效果，包括在通往量子领域的旅程中可视化完整的 CG 环境和多个动画 CG 角色。

漫威影业的《蚁人与黄蜂女：量子狂热》正式拉开了漫威电影宇宙第五阶段的序幕，超级英雄搭档斯科特·朗和霍普·范·戴恩将回归，继续扮演蚁人与黄蜂女的冒险之旅。在霍普的父母汉克·皮姆和珍妮特·范·戴恩的陪伴下，一家人发现自己正在探索量子领域，与奇怪的新生物互动，并开始了一场冒险，这将推动他们超越他们认为可能的极限。

领导 FIN 团队的是视觉效果总监 Roy Malhi、CG 总监 Juri Mejan-Fripp、合成总监 Aaron Barclay、视觉特效制作人 Haris Kruskic 以及视觉特效主管 Alastair Stephen。他们与 85 名才华横溢的 FIN 艺术家组成的团队一起，在悉尼 FIN 工作室的各个场景中进行创作。

主入口序列“亚原子”是一次进入量子领域的激动人心的旅程，主角们进行了一次危险的飞行，穿过三个不同的环境：尖刺的亚原子、水晶破碎和天空管，最终戏剧性地降落在量子领域。小说中的布拉夫斯风景。 

“这对电影来说是一个重要的场景，因为它在视觉上将观众与前两部电影联系起来，同时揭示了量子领域庞大的微观宇宙的新视角，发挥了重要作用，”视觉特效总监 Roy Malhi 解释道。

该片段完全在蓝屏上拍摄，利用起重机装置将演员悬吊在舞台周围飞行。我们创建了三个独特的数字环境，让人想起之前的电影中斯科特和卡西坠入悬崖的环境；我们忠实于之前电影的外观，同时保持快节奏影片的节奏和连续性”。

Malhi 继续说道：“我们规模最大的序列《悬崖》是在虚拟制作舞台上拍摄的；然后我们很快意识到杰西和凯文我们需要更多的创造性控制。我们将这些人才完全从底片上转描出来，并用一个充满能量束、精致的星云天空和奇怪的撞击岩石的错综复杂的 CG 世界完全取代了环境，其中一些岩石漂浮在空中，以慢动作爆炸，无视时间和重力。

解决悬崖外观的任务是将富有想象力的 CG 方面与一些经过研究的实际元素（例如岩石如何碰撞、倒塌和爆炸）相结合。当我们重新创建除斯科特和卡西之外的所有东西时，我们采用了数字双重匹配移动来在数字地面上重新生成准确的阴影，充当空气中丰富大气效果的遮挡物体。我们精心地重新平衡了每个板块，使其与顺序保持一致。”

除了构建广泛的量子领域环境外，FIN 的概念角色艺术还完全创造了攻击斯科特和卡西的太阳生物和巨型变形虫。“这里的一个关键挑战在于动画的复杂性，因为斯科特在我们的许多镜头中都是完整的 CG 角色，”FIN CG 主管 Juri Mejan-Fripp 描述道。“特别是在与太阳生物的特写和复杂的 CG 战斗序列中，它有长长的触手和数百根纤毛，所有这些都试图同时抓住斯科特。CG 角色之间的互动总是充满挑战，我们对结果都非常满意。”

为了满足项目严格的交付时间表，FIN 转向了自动化方法。Malhi 解释说：“通过在所有部门的管道中采用链式事件系统，它帮助我们快速有效地生成和传播变更，无需人工干预，也无需手动通知。 

“每个流程都创建了轻量级质量控制渲染和自动合成，使我们能够随时审查进度。我们交替使用 Maya 和 Houdini，并依靠我们新开发的 USD 管道来使协作和并发变得更容易。我们的合成团队与 CG 非常相似，同样采用模板系统和调制组件以非常高效且一致的方式生成最终合成。这种方法使合成师能够专注于镜头的独特部分。

“我们抓住了与漫威影业、杰西、凯文和菲奥娜合作的机会，这对我们 FIN 的所有人来说都是非常协作和愉快的”，视觉效果主管 Alastair Stephen 说道。“我们与所有部门一起为本次演出制作了大规模、复杂的镜头——从资产、外观开发到效果、动画、灯光和合成——在规定的时间内交付了出色的作品。结果证明了 FIN 整个团队的承诺和艺术性。”

FIN teamed up with VFX Supervisors Jesse James Chisholm, Kevin Souls, and Production VFX Producer Fiona Westgate to deliver 110 shots over two key sequences, ‘Sub-atomica’ and the ‘Bluffs’. This being its fourth Marvel Studios collaboration, FIN delivered a vast and complex scope of visual effects, including visualising full CG environments and multiple animated CG characters on its journey to the Quantum Realm.

Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania officially kicks off Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and sees Super-Hero partners Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne return to continue their adventures as Ant-Man and The Wasp. Joined by Hope’s parents, Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, the family finds themselves exploring the Quantum Realm, interacting with strange new creatures, and embarking on an adventure that will push them beyond the limits of what they thought was possible.

Leading the FIN team was Visual Effects Supervisor Roy Malhi along with CG Supervisor Juri Mejan-Fripp, Compositing Supervisor Aaron Barclay, VFX Producer Haris Kruskic, and Head of Visual Effects Alastair Stephen. Together with a team of 85 talented FIN artists, they worked across the sequences from the Sydney-based FIN studio.

The main entry sequence ‘Sub-atomica’, an exhilarating journey into the Quantum Realm, took the hero characters on a breakneck flight hurtling them through three distinct environments: the spikey Sub-atomica, crystal shatters, and skytubes towards a dramatic landing in the novel Bluffs landscape. 

“This was a significant scene for the movie, as it played an important role in visually linking the viewers to the previous two films while revealing a new perspective of the Quantum Realm’s massive micro-universe,” VFX Supervisor Roy Malhi explains.

‘The sequence was shot entirely on a blue screen utilising crane rigs to suspend the actors while flying around the stage. We created three unique digital environments reminiscent of the previous films in the lead-up to Scott and Cassie’s crash into the Bluffs environment; we stayed true to the look of the prior films while keeping the tempo and continuity of the fast-paced entry’.

Malhi continues, “Our largest scale sequence, the expansive Bluffs, was shot on a virtual production stage; we then quickly realised with Jesse and Kevin that we needed a lot more creative control. We rotoscoped the talent entirely off the plates and fully replaced the environment with an intricate CG world full of energy beams, elaborate nebulae skies, and strange crash rocks, some of which were floating while exploding in slow motion defying time and gravity.

Solving the look of the Bluffs was a task of blending imaginative CG aspects with some studied practical elements, like how rocks crash, collapse and explode.
As we were re-creating everything other than Scott and Cassie, we employed digi-double match moving to regenerate accurate shadows on the digital ground, acting as occluding objects for the rich atmospheric effects in the air. We meticulously re-balanced each plate to be consistent with the sequence.”

In addition to building the extensive establishing Quantum Realm environments, FIN’s conceptual character artistry came into play in entirely creating the Sun Creature and Giant Amoeba, which attack Scott and Cassie. “One of the key challenges here lay in the complexity of the animation as Scott featured as a full CG character in many of our shots,” describes FIN CG Supervisor Juri Mejan-Fripp. “Especially in the close-up and complex CG fight sequence with the Sun Creature, which had long tentacles and hundreds of cilia hair, all trying to grab Scott simultaneously.
Interaction between CG characters is always challenging, and we were all extremely pleased with the outcome.”

To meet the project’s strict delivery schedule, FIN turned to an automation approach. Malhi explains, “By employing a chained event system in our pipeline across all departments, it assisted us in generating and propagating change quickly and efficiently without human intervention, or a need for manual notifications. 

“Each process created lightweight quality control renders and automatic composites that would allow us to review the progress at any point. We used Maya and Houdini interchangeably and leaned on our new and developing USD pipeline to make collaboration and concurrency easier. Our compositing team, much like CG, similarly employed a template system and modulated components to produce the final compositions in a very efficient and consistent way.  This approach allowed compositors to focus on the unique portion of a shot.’

“We jumped at the opportunity to work with Marvel Studios, Jesse, Kevin and Fiona, which was extremely collaborative and enjoyable for all of us here at FIN”, says Head of Visual Effects, Alastair Stephen. “We produced large-scale, sophisticated and intricate shots on this show with all our departments – from assets, look dev through to effects, animation, lighting, and compositing –  delivering exceptional work in the allotted time frame. The results are a testament to the commitment and artistry of the entire team here at FIN.”