Digtal Domain helps create a reinvention of 'Ms. Marvel '

For Ms Marvel Studios' latest episodic series, Ms. Marvel, the production faced an interesting and somewhat rare challenge, revealed today in a new analytics video from Digtal Domain, which you can watch below. Unlike some of the characters from the cinematic Marvel Universe that is firmly established through decades of exposure, the titular character of the Disney + exclusive series is a relatively new creation. This gave the production a little more flexibility in adapting her powers for a live-action audience and allowed the showrunners to work with the Oscar- and Emmy-winning visual effects studio to reinvent Ms. Marvel's powers. a new audience.

“From the beginning, we knew Ms. Marvel. The girl's abilities would change for her live-action debut, but everyone involved still wanted to honor the comics, ”said Aladino Debert, visual effects supervisor for Digital Domain. "We went through several iterations with the production to find a balance that will impress people who watch on TV, and that is still beautiful when the character makes the leap to the big screen."

The all new Ms. Marvel

Debuting in 2013, Ms. Marvel's character, aka Kamala Khan, quickly became a fan favorite, making her a natural choice to join the MCU. But rather than simply adapting her powers from the comics - which include physical stretching, growth and body morphing - the production reinterpreted her abilities to involve the generation and manipulation of a cosmic "Noor", or "light" energy. tough". This gave the Digital Domain team a starting point.

Building on the new origins, the Digital Domain team went through several iterations of Kamala Khan's powers (played by Iman Vellani) to offer an aspect that suggested an “otherworldly” source, while honoring the story of the comic. The result was a crystalline manifestation that radiated energy, highlighted by an internal luminescence, created in Houdini. The team then began experimenting with color combinations, settling on a purple-blue base, which highlighted Kamala's idolatry for the character. Captain Marvel while being unique.

As Kamala fully embraces her potential, the artists have refined and honed the look of her powers to suggest that they had become an extension of her. In a nod to her comic counterpart, she discovers the ability to shape hard light to enlarge (or "embiggen") itself, using constructs of light to create the sense of stretching and expanding the limbs and hands. To represent the greatest in life Ms. Marvel Digital Domain created a giant version of the character in Maya, then she finished the scene by enveloping her in the glow of bright light using Houdini.

There and back again

Digital Domain also managed several environments at Ms. Marvel, including a key position. In the final moments of episode four, “Seeing Red,” Kamala is accidentally transported back in time. Finding herself in a new place, she climbs a nearby structure. The camera then moves away to reveal that she is in a crowded train station decades ago, surrounded by dozens of trains and thousands of desperate refugees on the eve of the infamous partition of India.

To create the multi-shot sequence, Digital Domain started with real footage of a modern train station with a small group of extras. Using this as a model, the artists then extended the scene to create a huge sense of scale, including buildings for the station and background, and dozens of additional rail cars and steam locomotives, all art directed to look home in 1947. To create the insane, Digital Domain used scans from a handful of actors in period-appropriate clothing, which they ran through Houdini's crowd tool to add people to almost any open space. The artists then added engine steam, before rendering everything in Mantra.

Duplicates and destruction

While Digital Domain contributed filming to all six episodes, most of his work appears in the latest, “No Normal”. After a chase through Jersey City, Ms. Marvel's hometown, the episode culminates in a super-powered finale that required several VFX tricks, including shape-shifting characters, double-doubles, violent explosions, and more.

With heavily armed agents from the Damage Control Department approaching Ms. Marvel and her friends, the group decides to make one last stand at the local high school and set several traps. Along with an onslaught of softballs and smoke screens, the group unleashes a devastating trap based on a famous chemistry experiment known as "elephant toothpaste." In a real high school lab, responsible teachers tend to ensure a moderate reaction, but for the episode the heroes get bigger, much, much bigger. This has led the artists to create an expanding gray, bubbling CG foam substance, then animate it as it expands through the lab, through corridors and stairways, causing chasing agents to fall as it goes.

The confrontation soon boils down to a three-way fight, with government agents battling the similarly powerful character Kamran (played by Rish Shah) and Ms. Marvel trying to keep both of them in check to protect the crowd of spectators. With Kamran beginning to lose control, Digital Domain was tasked with showing the damaging effects of his powers. The artists began by depicting a pulsating shock wave of energy, which causes a combination of digital debris and CG damage to nearby objects. With each new impulse, its hard light powers send steep tentacles in every direction, characterized by an amber / gold coloring to differentiate them from the powers of Kamala. With Kamran at the epicenter of a growing disaster, Ms. Marvel takes the brunt of the onslaught as she defends the crowd. For both visual cohesion and safety, both artists have been digitally augmented with partial doubles.

Working from Vellani's full-body scans, the Digital Domain artists created a full-body duplicate. The photorealistic doubles allowed the showrunners to place the characters in dangerous situations, while eliminating any distraction from the live footage, including wrinkled fabric, exposed stitching, and any other imperfections that could have detracted from the actual performance.

The Digital Domain team also used digidouble for Ms. Marvel at the beginning of the series, including a memorable training montage on a roof where she jumped from one floating platform to another. The artists used the technique again in the finale to portray her as she raced over the streets of Jersey City on platforms with hard lights (respecting all traffic laws). The sequence also features a combination of clean plates and digitally generated backgrounds to bring Kamala's home to life.

A digidoppio was also used during the closing moments of the season, in what would become one of the distinctive images of the show. Shortly after the final showdown, Ms. Marvel sits on a lamppost and watches the city as her hair blows in the wind. To create the iconic shot, Vellani was filmed sitting on a physical light pole, surrounded entirely by green screens, while a wind machine blew. The water, the pier, and the cars are all purely digital, along with the buildings on the Jersey City coast, which were created using LiDAR scans of physical locations in Atlanta. A New York City plate was then added before the entire sequence was rendered in V-Ray.

Marvel Studios' Ms. Marvel is now streaming exclusively on Disney +.

Over the past quarter century, Digital Domain has established itself as a leader in cinematic visual effects and has expanded into episodes, commercials, games, previs and virtual production. The studio's artistic and technological mastery has helped bring films like Titanic, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Ready Player One, Avengers: Infinity War e Avengers: End of the game to the screens. Staff artists have won more than 100 major awards, including Academy Awards, Clios, BAFTAs and Cannes Lions. Digital Domain has offices in Los Angeles, Vancouver, Montreal, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Taipei and Hyderabad.

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