befores & afters – #20 – Avatar: The Way of Water – the deep dive

Issue #20 of befores & afters magazine is a new deep dive into the visual effects of James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water, with Wētā FX. It goes beyond the stories about new approaches to on-set performance capture, water simulation, real-time depth compositing, the eyeline system used during filming, and facial capture and animation that were all previously featured in detailed online befores & afters coverage. Inside issue #20, you’ll find new pieces on: – The making of the sea vessels for The Way of Water, including the practical Picador built for reference and filming, and the massive SeaDragon – Managing 5,650 CG assets for the film, including a diverse array of sea creatures – How the skimwing, ilu and tulkun creatures were built – World building, plant simulation, rendering and compositing for the Pandoran jungle – The art of combustion in The Way of Water – – how Wētā FX mastered fire FX and simulation – The animation of hands, and why animating hands with three fingers, crafting baby hands, and using hands to control throat microphones proved to be some of the hardest tasks – Compositing: how new deep workflows and many other techniques were developed for the film – ASIN: B0DBZG1H3C | ISBN13: 9798332711466 | ISBN-13: 979-8332711466