Speed Racer on CGW

Computer Graphics World has a great article on the work accomplished on Speed Racer! Check it out at this link.

In addition to Digital Domain, more than a dozen visual effects studios worked on postproduction for the show—compositing greenscreen shots into the digital bubbles and creating the races. Of those studios, Digital Domain, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and ILM focused primarily on CG cars and the racetracks, with Digital Domain landing the bulk of the CG work.

A crew of 440 artists at Digital Domain drew on the studio’s experience in creating digital cars for television commercials, along with their expertise in visual effects, to create the stylized look of the cars, tracks, and environments in Speed Racer.

With two or three minor exceptions, the cars are always CG. Working in Autodesk’s Maya, Digital Domain’s modelers started with the previs cars to create the hero and background models. Animators referenced animatics and live-action footage of actors “driving” digital cars that compositing supervisor Darren Poe had assembled on set.

Be sure to hit that link to see all the sweet background detail that we had to do to accomplish the shots, and some of the reasoning behind the way they did what they did.