Milk: Compositing
The final piece in 3D World’s deep dive into Milk VFX explores the studio’s use of 2D with the compositing team
Part 5 of our inside look at the various departments at Milk VFX
We’ve gone deep into building Satan, raising Hell Hounds and setting a Bentley on fire in this special series about the visual effects pipeline and the artists at Milk VFX. Now we complete the journey with an analysis of where it all comes together: in compositing.
Using case studies from Milk’s major recent show, Good Omens, the sci-fi series Origin, and the stormy setting of Adrift, we look at the tools and techniques that go into taking live-action, computergenerated and simulated elements and finessing them in 2D to form the final shots.
SOMETIMES THE BENTLEY IS THERE, SOMETIMES IT ISN’T Compositing can run the gamut of visual effects work. Sometimes it’s about bringing together a live-action foreground plate and a live-action background plate. Sometimes it’s about incorporating a CG element into a live-action plate. And sometimes it’s about combining different CG elements altogether. Shots of the Bentley in Good Omens required all these different approaches.
“One of my favourite shots of the Bentley is where the camera move has it going from full 3D to being inside of the car,” discusses 2D supervisor Matias Derkacz. “That was really challenging because it was two completely different shots, and one is completely in the studio and the other one was filmed on the street, then we needed to add cars.”
In fact, adds Derkacz, there were many 3D elements in that shot that most viewers might not realise. “There were almost no cars in the shot and then we had to animate everything and connect the two plates together. And then there were the backgrounds, which were shot at different times of day, so we had to match the lighting of two different cameras to make it work.”
When the Bentley needed to be on fire, that was a different CG asset. For the compositing team, the challenge here was how ‘blackened’ to make the vehicle. “We originally thought, this needs to be completely charcoal,” explains Derkacz. “But then it didn’t look like the Bentley. It looked like a 3D model that was on fire. So we swayed back and forth trying to achieve the right look and we ended up having magic flames on some of the textures, burning into the car, and that worked really well. It made it look like it was about to explode.”
Other Bentley shots included principal actors David Tennant and Michael Sheen sitting in a car filmed against greenscreen, and
here traditional travelling comps were orchestrated by Milk VFX.
ROUNDING OUT COMP DUTIES ON GOOD OMENS
At one point in the show, Aziraphale’s (Michael Sheen) antiquarian bookstore goes up in flames. This was a practical burn sequence that was augmented by Milk VFX with a set extension. “We had lots of references of the fire because it was actually done on set,” advises Derkacz. “Then we had to extend the streets on the side and with matte painting we inputted the sky. Plus there was the fire simulation from FX. Trying to get it to blend with the real flames was quite challenging because you need to keep all the detail that is already in the plate.”
One of Good Omen’s biggest visual effects sequences is the transformation of a small dog into the ‘Hell Hound’. The sequence would see multiple departments at Milk VFX work together to achieve a scary, if only temporary, beast. The Hell Hound was essentially based on a Great Dane, with its head crafted by the studio’s assets department. Compositing then took various live-action plates and incorporated the CG build into the final ferocious shots.
Then there were the eyes of various characters, sometimes influenced by Hellish sources. For example, David Tennant (the demon Crowley) wore ‘demonic’ contacts for most of the show, but occasionally Milk VFX’S comp team augmented his eyes. “Sometimes they get wonky eyes because they’re in the whole day,” notes Derkacz. “So you go in and just straighten them up. We’d have to blend the contact better or make it look more like a reptile.”
Another compositing highlight for the team was the melting face of one of the Hellish demons after it is soaked in holy water. Most of the melting was accomplished in 2D in Nuke. “What we did here was add in a lot of textures from photographic reference of burns,” says 2D supervisor Jorge Oliva. “We’d patch that in and use warps and other tools to create the look of an animating effect on the face. Then when the face starts literally melting, that’s also an FX sim.”
COMPOSITING THE FUTURE Different kinds of compositing tasks needed to be dealt with by
“WE ADDED TEXTURES FROM PHOTOGRAPHIC REFERENCE OF BURNS”
Jorge Oliva, 2D supervisor, Milk VFX