BODYPAINT 3D created realistic textures for 'The Incredible Hulk'
Written by Tombalina
MAXON Computer, a developer of professional 3D modeling, painting, animation and rendering solutions, announced that Rhythm & Hues (R&H), one of Hollywood's visual effects and animation studios, have chosen MAXON's BodyPaint 3D, to deal with a range of complex texture painting challenges associated with the creation of central scenes and characters in the recently released Universal Pictures feature film, 'The Incredible Hulk'.
Based on the Marvel Comics superhero created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the movie tells the story of scientist Bruce Banner, who is desperate to find a cure for the radiation that poisoned him and lets loose the rage within him that transforms him into The Hulk. Animators at R&H took advantage of MAXON BodyPaint 3D's speed, agility and intuitive processes to quickly create the complex and dynamic effects necessary to bring the story to life, and particularly his muscle bulging skin. A team of texture artists used MAXON BodyPaint 3D primarily to paint and texture The Hulk and his nemesis, The Abomination, in addition to painting props and portions of buildings and environments.
"We're committed to using the best software that will allow us to quickly and efficiently produce the highest quality texture maps, and BodyPaint 3D is number one," said David Perkins, technical support supervisor at Rhythm & Hues.
According to Sarah Kym, a lead texture painter at Rhythm & Hues, a 3D paint and texture package needs to be smart and adaptable, and BodyPaint 3D more than fit the bill. "BodyPaint 3D's tools make us more efficient. Examples include the Clone tool, the ability to hide surfaces to get around tight spots, multiple cameras, and layer effects. It makes me very happy when I see a tool that can cut my paint time in half." Kym, who has also seen an increasing demand for realism and complexity in 3D paint and textures in the past several years, along with an explosion of technology to meet the new challenges, noted, "We're constantly pushing for bigger and better effects and packages like BodyPaint 3D have helped us get to that next level."
MAXON BodyPaint 3D's interactive, real-time capabilities proved particularly invaluable to the R&H team when they were faced with creating a wide array of highly complex action shots, including the story's signature metamorphosis of Bruce Banner into The Hulk. Additional key scenes developed with the help of BodyPaint 3D included The Hulk coming under heavy weapons fire and both The Hulk and The Abomination demolishing vehicles.
"The artists at Rhythm & Hues did an outstanding job of using BodyPaint 3D to create the wide array of complex textures and painted surfaces that comprise much of The Incredible Hulk's core graphic elements," said Paul Babb, president and CEO, MAXON USA. "Rhythm & Hues' positive experience using the software on Hulk underscores MAXON's commitment to developing critical and intuitive 3D content creation tools that enhance digital production workflow and allow artists to quickly create highly detailed and accurate texture maps."
