New tools and setups

Creating The shape-shifting symbiotes required new effects animation Tools and setups

“You’re moving between character and effects animation, so one builds on top of the other and [they] inform each other,” explains Paul Franklin. “There was a fair bit of work that also went into streamlining the pipeline because there were so many shots, particularly in the final sequence when Venom and Riot are confronting each other at Carlton Drake’s rocket launch base, which is largely CG. Changes were made to the workflow so that we could see first-pass lighting consistently in context, understand whether we were on the right track in making sure that all of the shots were balanced, and that the story was being told dramatically.” Final shots are still reliant on the skills of artists. “It has been a collaboration of all talents, starting with the layout guys and then going on through creature animation to effects animation to lighting to rendering,” notes Franklin. “Compositing has played an absolute invaluable part in making this work because at the end of the day we’re trying to show things with a degree of photographic reality that don’t exist in the real world. The nature of Venom’s body, the way that he shifts shapes, and moves between a solid and liquid state; there isn’t anything that you can look at and say, ‘That’s your objective reference.’ That ability to finesse the shot on a frame-by-frame basis was absolutely essential in getting this right.”