The making of the VFX for Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1
Ingenuity Studios has released its VFX breakdown reel for Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, the first in Kevin Costner’s series of four planned epic Western movies.
The studio delivered 256 VFX shots including CG environments and set extensions, digi doubles, CG horses and insects, and FX elements includng smoke, mist, fire and blood.
The work was caried out in software including Maya, Houdini and its Solaris toolset, Nuke and RenderMan, along with Hiero and Autodesk’s Flow for production tracking.
Below, you can read the studio’s own descriptions of the key effects.
Creating the CG river
“The film was shot in Utah but set in New Mexico. Ingenuity’s environment work made mountains look more like New Mexico. Most notably, the titular town in the movie has a giant river next to it that didn’t exist.
“Encompassing 90 shots, Ingenuity Studios transformed the 15-square-mile environment with a giant 6-mile-long river including surrounding banks and terrain. The river is shown as close as a few feet to the camera, and as far as a few miles away. It’s shown at various times of day and night, across a myriad of different angles, as well as with people and objects inside the river interacting with the water.
“[Ironically], in some instances, the real Colorado River had to be removed as well.”
Simulating smoke and fire
“The VFX that Ingenuity Studios provided for the dramatic massacre scene elevated [its] intensity, scale, and danger. The drama unfolds with the Native population of Apache tribe members setting the town on fire, leaving the settlers terrified.
“The night they shot the sequence, it was really windy, so there wasn’t enough real smoke for photography. Ingenuity delivered large-scale smoke and fire simulations.
“The practical dance hall structure was replaced with a burning CG recreation complete with simulated cloth and embers raining from the sky, with the light responding appropriately. It was a heavy lift to make the dance hall fire look photoreal, since the structure had to look burnt out, with the canvas burned, and an exposed interior.
“Since there was no fire on the day, a lot of the light interactions with the characters and the environment in the scene needed to be recreated digitally.”
Turning day into night
“In another standout moment involving a gripping horse chase, Ingenuity transformed a scene that was captured in daylight into a moonlit night with a striking, dynamic sky.
“The team augmented the lighting of the landscape to complement Cinematographer J. Michael Muro’s photography. Ingenuity Studios also created a seamless, fully CG horse for a shot where a child switches from a CG horse to a practical horse, mid-ride, a stunt that was too dangerous to attempt practically.
“For another day for night example, the canyon sequence, there is a practical horse and rider coming down a steep ledge. The team began with photography of them on a small hill, and created a massive canyon that transformed that view into a dangerous cliff edge, with added rain, lightning flashes, and simulated mud under the horse’s feet.”
Visit Ingenuity Studios’ website
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