Digital Studio: The Body

There has been a ton of progress on the body model over the last week. I initially modeled the Body from the orthographic images that I gathered when the team was filming. The body did not have to be a perfect human replica because, given that it only needs to work under the same circumstances as the arm, it just has to silhouette the actor's body from the final footage.

Body model of actor made from orthographic references

One of the primary issues that I faced making the body was keeping it simple so the poly count was reasonable for the shatter effect without generating too may particles to calculate. Another issue that I have never encountered before on a more realistic proportioned human was the extremely baggy and lose uniform. The cloths made the model hard visualize proportionately and also harder to pose. Once the model was complete, I UV mapped him, created a simple skeletal rig, and positioned him to silhouette the film.

Wireframe of the model in position showing the silhouette process.

Positioning the model I faced a number of additional challenges. One of my major concerns was that the model needed to be positioned to match the shot shown above and an additional long shot. Because they are the same shot but done twice and at slightly changed times, the torso and legs do not properly line up, and because we do not have a scene that contains both cameras in the correct position and moving the right ways due to time constraints, it was much harder for me to get them to match. The second major concern i had was the focal length of each shot. The close up shot (shown above) is shot at 20mm focal length, and the long-shot in which the legs are matched is shot at 50mm. I was told to model and align the images in the front prospective which is unaffected by perspective and worry that when the shots transition from the closer shot to the longer shot that things may appear distorted. I was assured that this would be alright, and also agree believing that things at this point in time will be moving far too fast for anyone to notice such a slight change in the model.

Test render of texturing and rendering process.

Above is a test render I made for myself. The image is of the positioned and silhouetted body model with a screen of the actual film applied in a planar map down the front access. This test shows that the model matches the actual body reasonably well with only a few minor adjustments needed around the hands. The texture only works from this angle however, if the camera rotates around the model the texture fails.

-E.Doody