Why Everyone Is Fighting To Get This VFX Tool | MOVA

when creating Thanos in The Avengers movies actor Josh Brolin performed the characters lines and movements on set while wearing a motion capture system the system captured his facial expressions and movements which were then mapped onto a digital model of thanos's face the resulting Digital model was then animated by artists at digital domain to create the final performance of Thanos the use of this technology allowed for a high level of detail and realism of facial expressions and a lot for the actor's performance to be accurately translated onto the digital characters that you can see in the Marvel Blockbuster in reality it is very hard to create such performance even for the best VFX houses for digital domain the secret is called mova but actually making this Motion Performance system and incorporating it into movie productions was not an easy feat and came after years of efforts on top of that this deck is now held in a legal battle and digital domain and can't even use it right now so how did this tool get created in the first place and what the hell this fuss is all about if you work as a 3D artist in the VFX industry you know firsthand how TD is certain aspects of 3D animation and VFX work is when you think about it one of the most time consuming aspects is facial animation this admittedly is one of the hardest tasks ever even for the best artists and studios in the field because you have to spend hours on your computer attempting to move and keyframe every single part of a given face to simplify this process digital domain one of the world's leading visual effects and Animation Studios that work on some of the most iconic movies of all time such as Transformers Avengers and Titanic use let's say a secret weapon to facilitate the facial animation process and this weapon of course is called mova a revolutionary and exciting technology that allows animators to capture an actor's facial expressions and movements and apply them directly to the digital double without having to rely on traditional animation techniques which may take their duties less serious let's just say in addition to having time and resources while still delivering a level of realism and conveying genuine emotions which was very hard to do if not impossible to achieve mova is a multi-camera have resolution facial capture system that captures an actor's facial expressions in the real world and directly translated into a digital character meaning it eliminates the tedious facial manual animation workflow which is very hard to do and delivers less convincing results needless to say this groundbreaking technology can instantly achieve realistic results with ease with a tune-like mova animators can focus on other areas of the pipeline instead of facial animations which takes a lot of time for example they can focus on animating other types of characters like dragons or robots or anything else it is also important to note that traditional facial animation skills are still in high demand and they are considered valuable skills especially for stylized or fantasy projects because it is very hard to capture movement from something that does not exist especially if its Anatomy is very different compared to the human body the sudden shift from traditional animation to using Advanced tools like mova to capture human faces was not an option at all because digital domain had no choice since it was facing an impossible project using what was available at the time but understand this let's take a trip back in time to the early 2000s a time when the tech industry was booming and VFX Technologies were emerging one person who was at the Forefront of this was Steve Palmer an entrepreneur and inventor who previously worked as Apple's principal scientist and Microsoft division president he had the vision to create world-class motion capture Technologies and thus movo was born but Steve couldn't do that alone he needed a team of Brilliant Minds to help bring his vision to life and that's what Roger Van Der Len comes in as the vice president of engineering Roger worked on mobile hardware and software development throughout the years co-inventing and implementing Cutting Edge Technologies along the way and of course one of the most significant achievements was the creation of mova Contour motion capture system after being established mover made his debut in the 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button where it was used by digital domain to capture Brad Pitt's facial movements and apply them to addition original version of his younger self the success of this technology earned Brad Pitt an Academy Award and a Golden Globe nomination for his role in the film and mova also won an Oscar for best achievement in visual effects which was the first time a largely computer generated facial performance had reached the level of a claim showcasing from the get-go how tremendous this technology is there are a lot of technical reasons that made mova stand out first of all it is a photogrammetry based motion capture system similar to 3D scanning software but with the added benefit of capturing facial animation this means that it can capture the exact motions of a person's face and convert them into a realistic 3D model this makes it a valuable tool for 3D artists and VFX Productions also one of the most valuable tools for VFX artists is stock footage that's why I recommend you take a look at action via fax which is one of the best stock footage resources for visual effects right now they are one of the best in the industry combining significant dynamic range high resolution and frame rates in addition to an extensive library that includes anything you can think of things like fire explosion particles people Optics sound effects and more over the years their products have been used in many blockbuster movies and TV shows such as Avengers Infinity War The Last of Us Spider-Man far from home stranger things and much more so if you are interested you will find the necessary links in the description mova has several advantages over traditional motion capture techniques starting what we've already said which is the fact that no special attachments are required making it both simpler and faster to use additionally it is much more accurate because the cameras record the actors motions from multiple angles making the results appear more natural and realistic and by the way the recording process is in real time this makes the actors and directors see the results on the spot which enables them right away to decide whether the result is good enough or bad it also uses a series of cameras that are placed around the subject to capture their emotion from different angles the Donna is both processed by the software and combined to create a 3D model that accurately reflects the motion of the subject you can then retarget this motion to any 3D character you want whether it is realistic or stylized additionally no special attachments are required but just a regular makeup that is captured as data points and immediately translated into 3D geometry mova is actually a tool that completely changed the industry for starters it provided a much more efficient solution for facial animation that is both fast and realistic it was also the first software that was able to scan high quality facial animations which opened up a whole new realm of possibilities in terms of what can be achieved in VFX from digital movies video games as well as entertainment industry as a whole along with opening the door for generations of software that were designed for the same purpose as for digital domain if we take a look at their VFX Productions we can assume that a lot of their Productions and projects could have had significantly less quality and immersion without the use of this technology which could have resulted in less revenue for example The Curious Case of Benjamin Button would have been almost impossible to produce without mova movies like adventures with characters like the Hulk and Thanos simply could not have been done without facial capture at least in my opinion regardless of the fact whether mova was the tool that was used or not the fact remains because it was what started it in the first place at least at the highest level I mean it won an Oscar for a reason unfortunately all of this came to a sudden hold after the stack was the topic of what we can call at least legal chaos from different parties claiming ownership over it to accusations of illegally using it for example the software company of erden claimed ownership of the mova Contour technology after they won an injection against two Chinese companies that had Acquired mova and illegally transferred it into different Chinese companies and Farms after that they suit this need for using the technology in their movies because they claimed it doesn't belong to them the movies in question include Adventures Guardians of the Galaxy and Beauty and the Beast all of which are Productions the digital domains was involved in and they used this technology as a consequence according to various articles the topic varies from claiming that Disney stole the technology to other Disney used mova or not but the case against Disney just got dismissed recently but only time will tell if this Saga is gonna end or not I hope you found this video useful cool and informative if you did please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to this channel thank you very much for watching and I will see you in the next one

Channel: InspirationTuts

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Length: 10min 7sec (607 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 14 2023