With Over 3,000 Special Effects Shots, How Was Avengers 4 Completed in Such a Short Time?
Technologies such as machine learning, VR, and AR help in the production of movie special effects shots, which not only greatly improves the visual effects of science fiction movies, but also saves a lot of manpower and time costs.
First of all, I solemnly declare that this article will not contain any spoilers, so please feel free to enjoy it.
The long-awaited "Avengers: Endgame" was finally released today! Nearly 3 million people stayed up late to watch it at the midnight screening in China today.
So far, the only one that has such great appeal in the film industry is probably Marvel. Some people say, "Special effects started in movies and ended with Marvel." Therefore, in addition to the wonderful plot, the visual impact brought by the "Avengers" series is also the reason why it has attracted so many fans.
According to statistics, Avengers 3 contains 2680 special effects shots, and won the 22nd Hollywood Film Best Visual Effects Award. And only one year after the premiere of 3, Avengers 4 brought more than 3000 A special effects lens came. Behind this is 12 Special effects company,Thousands of peopleTeam and computer work.
Today we won’t talk about the plot, but rather the special effects and its new weapon, artificial intelligence.
If Avengers had no special effects
It is hard to imagine what the Avengers would look like without special effects. Without strong technical force, Avengers 4 might not be released so soon. You know, Avatar, which once amazed the audience with its special effects, took an average of 40,000 man-hours per frame.
Special effects refer to the effects of special effects in the filming and production of film and television works.Use digital technology to "produce" images that are difficult or dangerous to complete.
What we often call "big scenes" are excellent visual effects.
Avengers 3There are 2,680 special effects shots in the whole film, and only 4 shots did not use special effects. This broke the record of special effects shots in Marvel movies at that time. The production cost of these special effects was as high as 250 million US dollars.So who can resist such a visual feast?
If there were no special effects, the style of the Avengers you saw would be completely different
However, the production of special effects generally requires a huge amount of effort and financial resources, so if the special effects are not done well, they will be jokingly called "50-cent special effects". With the development of machine learning and the maturity of VR and AR technology,The work of visual effects has entered a new chapter with the help of artificial intelligence.
One of the AI nuclear weapons for special effects: Industrial Light and Magic
One of the 12 special effects companies involved in the production of "Avengers 4",Industrial Light & Magic (ILM, Industrial Light and Magic), created a new era of special effects with "Star Wars" and became the "leader" in movie special effects.
To date, ILM has produced special effects for as many as 300 films and won 15 Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects. ILM also participated in the production of special effects for films such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers.
In "Avengers 3", the battle of Wakanda was produced with the participation of Industrial Light & Magic, including Thanos's spaceship, all the battles on Wakanda, the anti-Hulk armor battle and other clips. A total of nearly 400 visual effects artists completed 600 special effects shots.
Special effects in the Battle of Wakanda
Today, ILM is working on using artificial intelligence to denoise images produced by ray tracing. This will reduce the burden on the CPU and save a lot of time.
The company's head also said, "We are still studyingTechnology that semi-automatically recognizes and replaces faces.This will be a huge leap forward." The face-changing technology he mentioned is similar to the deepfake technology that was very popular some time ago.
Industrial Light & Magic's Hulk special effects
Using this technology, the Industrial Light & Magic team can map an actor's appearance onto the performer's face, greatly improving production efficiency.
Rob Bredow, CTO of Industrial Light & Magic, said in a speech that if a deepfake algorithm is used in a movie, the quality of the effect is not high enough. But they have determined what the limitations are. Soon, they will use technology similar to deepfake but with higher quality in movies.
Special Effects AI Weapon 2: Digital Kingdom
In "Avengers 3", the "Big Purple Potato" Thanos who destroyed half of the universe was created by the famous special effects company Digital Domain using machine learning and other technologies.
There have been media reports that Thanos's appearance has injected soul into this character. Do you have a feeling that when you see Thanos's appearance, you can feel that he is a ruthless person?
A Digital Domain employee said, "If you're not using machine learning in your special effects software, you're doing it wrong."
Digital Domain used new technology to capture actor Brolin’s facial performance and, through machine learning, transformed his performance into the highly present protagonist, Thanos.
Digital Domain uses Masquerade custom machine learning software,Facial data is captured by two vertically oriented high-definition cameras, which track the facial 100 to 150 tracking points.
Afterwards, through computer vision technology, the machine learning model was trained and debugged to automatically map the obtained facial rendering to the character of Thanos, and finally obtain a natural facial visual effect.
Through their efforts, we see this paranoid, fierce, tough, yet tender villain. Without these technologies, perhaps Thanos' image would not be so full, and he would not be the ruthless character who implemented "population control" in order to watch the sunset.
Special effects AI nuclear weapon No. 3: Comprehensive dimensionality reduction attack
With the help of AI technology, visual effects will no longer require a lot of money to get a better visual experience.
At the same time, cloud computing, high-performance GPU and other hardware are used.In the past, twoA frame that might take an hour to render might take only two seconds to complete.
Thanks to these technologies, designers and artists in the industry can save more time to create more interesting things.
So if you have a smaller studio or even an independent artist, you can use technology to get the effects you see in Spider-Man or the X-Men movies.
Machine learning is already being used to create interesting effects in physics-based animation and media art, but as computation becomes more efficient and novel approaches like deep reinforcement learning techniques emerge, more scalable models will be created.
If this technology becomes mainstream, the cost of visual effects for studio films and independent films will be greatly reduced, which will be another blessing for movie lovers.
Avengers 4: Surprises beyond special effects
Compared to "Avengers 3" which eventually received multiple nominations for the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, I wonder what kind of visual feast "Avengers 4" will bring.
According to the list of 12 special effects companies that have been announced, plus the entire filmOver 3,000 special effects shots. It is conceivable that "Avengers 4" is absolutely of top production standards.
Moreover, Marvel will surely not take the final work of this series lightly. After all, the excellent previous work 3 seems to be a retreat to pave the way for the 4th.
So whether Thor will use the sledgehammer to unleash the power of thunder, how Rocket Raccoon will inherit Groot and become the funny man, and how spectacular the war between Thanos and the Alliance will be, perhaps only by going to the cinema in person and recharging your faith can you know the result.
I hope that every little cutie who is going to watch the movie will not be forced to be spoiled before watching the movie, and then go to the theater to watch this final battle!