Luma Pictures Creates Seacraft, Skies and Scenery For Marvel Entertainment's "Captain America: The First Avenger"

July 22nd, 2011 — SANTA MONICA, CA - Visual effects juggernaut, Luma Pictures was tapped for the second time by Marvel Studios for the release of its highly anticipated blockbuster, Captain America: The First Avenger. Following its exceptional work on Thor, Luma was tasked by Marvel to lend its unique creative processes to an ocean pier scene, which called for the custom creation of multiple large ships. Invisible effects and background replacements were created as well to tie the scene together.

Chris Townsend, the Visual Effects Supervisor on Captain America: The First Avenger came to Luma needing highly detailed ships created to frame an action-filled scene featuring Steve Rogers, Captain America, escaping down a pier. Because of the character's close proximity to the boats, fine detail would need to be applied not only from an artistic standpoint, but also a historic one to match the period of the film. Luma was game for the challenge.

"When taking on any project we always look for what is unique about that scene or shot that our artists can immerse them selves in. Captain America: The First Avenger's historical era gave everyone that creative spark that kept expanding throughout the project," said Payam Shohadai, Executive VFX Supervisor.

"Once we had the direction from Chris, we were free to create customized ships. We researched how boats were constructed during that time period, then created highly detailed models that would meet various criteria important to the design and layout of the shots. In addition to constructing the hull and exterior structures, we also scrutinized all the set dressing that it was populated with to ensure everything was legitimate period items," remarked Luma Visual Effects Supervisor Vincent Cirelli.

Luma built 4 ships in total: 3 Steam Boats / Freighters and one small Fishing Boat, building them out in Maya and Z-Brush and texturing in Photoshop.

The action sequence places the hero roughly fifteen feet from the craft, meaning that Luma had to paint detailed color and displacement maps.

"In order to integrate the ships into the environments we simulated water, layered with foam and boat wakes that matched the scale and wave frequency of the ocean water filmed in the plates. The scenes were all rendered in Arnold, a brute-force ray-tracer that does an excellent job of quickly rendering many gigabytes of high-resolution textures," said Richard Sutherland, CG Supervisor. "Within Arnold we can set our real world light source, matching that of the shot, and because of its unbiased rendering we can avoid a significant amount of time-consuming light positioning."

One specific part of the project required Luma to almost completely re-create a scene digitally, which demanded a hand-off from one camera to another mid shot. Steve Rogers makes a leap off of the pier and is replaced by a stunt double as he dives into a small channel between the pier and the boat. Because of technical constraints on-set, Luma received the A-side and B-side with very different camera angles.

In order to solve the shot Luma built out the entire dock, then reprojected the Aside plate onto the geometry allowing them to skew the camera and line it up with the B-side camera.

The sequence also required performing some background replacement. They implemented a brilliant cloud-dotted sky, CG buildings on an extension of the pier, and the addition of Liberty Island. In order to maintain consistency between the skies that were blown out in the photography, which cast bright light wrap around foreground objects, Luma needed to paint the fine areas around objects frame-by-frame to match the background.

About Luma Pictures
Luma Pictures is a leading provider of visual effects services with a reputation for artistic integrity, technical innovation and efficient production. The company recently served as one of the lead visual effects providers on Thor (Marvel Entertainment) and The Green Hornet (Columbia Pictures), as well as the Academy Award-nominated True Grit (Paramount). Some of the studio's other recent credits include: Battle: Los Angeles (Columbia Pictures), Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (Fox 2000 Pictures), The Book of Eli (Warner Bros), and multiple Academy Award-winner No Country for Old Men (Paramount Vantage). Current projects include Underworld 4: A New Dawn (Lakeshore Entertainment) and In Time (New Regency Pictures). http://lumapictures.com