Vfx

For his latest “Quick D” clip, Captain Disillusion looks at why we enjoy watching people walk on walls in video and cinema. He goes on to present a few very different ways to replicate the effect on screen, some significantly more costly and complex than others.

In RocketJump’s short film, Freddie Wong contacts his best super agent to retrieve his movie tickets, leading to an absolutely and undeniably “one shot” fight scene that parodies action movie moves. It’s technically true though.

3D artist Vladimir Tomin imagined what it would be like if we could edit and manipulate real world objects as if they were 3D models. Watch as an omnipotent cursor stretches, bends, generates, multiplies and generally messes with stuff.

(Gore) It’s not the first time we’ve had such a history lesson on visual effects in movies, but we really enjoyed Danielle Del Plato’s take on the subject, along with her great taste in music to accompany this 120+ year retrospective.

There are real-world treatments for acne sufferers, but if you’re looking for a virtual solution, check out this demo from Rousselos Aravantinos, who shows us how he dramatically improved a model’s skin using visual effects, preserving all the proper shadows and light.

The guys from Corridor have a bit of fun with their VFX skills, creating a “working” lightsaber which quickly gets out of hand when they start playing with the length of its plasma beam. You know it’s not the size of your saber, but the way you use it, kids.

By now, just about everyone on the internet has seen the video of the Plinko-like machine that appears to magically sort thousands of colored marbles neatly into a rainbow. We always figured it was fake, and now Captain Disillusion explains how he thinks it was done.

Most of the footage of SpaceX’s rockets are shot from far away, with little to no context to their size. Corridor Crew thought it would be nice to stack them up next to buildings so we can appreciate just how amazing it is that these babies can land and be reused.

Armand Dijcks took still photos of water taken by fellow photographer Ray Collins and then animated and looped each one of them. The results are mesmerizing cinemagraphs that are at once crisp and fluid. Check out Armand’s site for more cinemagraphs.

Wired spoke with Method Studios’ Visual Effects Supervisor Daryl Sawchuk for a glimpse at how the company made the visual effects for Black Panther‘s suits as well as the climactic battle. It never ceases to amaze us how much of movies these days are CGI.

While the early buzz is that Alden Ehrenreich does a solid job playing young Han Solo, Harrison Ford’s shoes will certainly be hard ones to fill. Thanks to video wiz Nick Acosta, we’ve got a little taste of what that Solo spin-off movie might look like.

Animator Alessandro Bavari assaults our eyes, ears, and brains with this headbanging short film starring a disembodied digital head that gets pounded repeatedly by bass rhythms for nearly 7 minutes, distorting its form to the driving beat.

Caravane, Camille Boyer, and Nik Mirus created Club Palace – a mindbender of a video which toys with our perceptions, and will make you wonder if it was created with computer graphics, miniatures, or some combination of the two. Your answer can be found here.

Whether or not you’re an Apple fan, you’ve got to appreciate the amazing creativity in director Spike Jonze’s “Welcome Home” promo spot for the tech giant’s new HomePod speaker. We’re dying to see a BTS of how they pulled off all the stretchy practical effects.

Marcin Nowrotek’s abstract experimental short film was created with a Kinect sensor and volumetric digital effects to transform a scene of jazz musicians into the most beautiful music visualizer we’ve ever seen – as the sounds from the instruments influence the imagery.

There’s a lot of talk about the performances in Craig Gillespie’s dark comedy I, Tonya, but the film wouldn’t be what it was without the skating scenes. Here’s an inside look at the effects work from Eight VFX, who helped make it look like Margot Robbie was an olympic athlete.

We’ve seen how they made some of the eye candy in Blade Runner 2049, but this 10-minute clip from VFX house Framstore offers a plethora of effects breakdowns from Denis Villeneuve’s science fiction spectacular, from close-up character work to giant CGI set pieces.

Nukazooka pokes fun at the wonky ragdoll physics of games like Goat Simulator with this live-action VFX clip about a young man whose body behaves just like the characters in those video games. Fortunately, he’s got the power of invincibility too.

VFX artist and LEGO fanatic Nicholas “Nixolas” King envisions how a zombie uprising might go if all of the undead were minifigs, along the way proving that World War Z would have been so much better as a LEGO movie.

Remember that video of the cheerleader who looked like she stepped over a non-existent box? There’s nothing to debunk here according to Captain Disillusion, so instead, he shows those of us without the strength and balance how to fake it with VFX anyway.

(Spoilers) A look at some of the visual effects used in Guillermo Del Toro’s wonderful film, and how VFX artists used green screen, CGI, and other techniques to not only create the amphibian man, but to magically transport viewers in place and time.

MPC VFX presents a look at the work that went into recreating Sean Young’s replicant Rachel in Blade Runner 2049. The incredible illusion was created using reference images from the now 58 year-old actress, combined with a younger performer, and state-of-the-art CGI.

The movie Downsizing might have come up a little short in both its reviews and box office take, but it did succeed in the VFX department. Here, the film’s effects supervisor Jamie Price walks us through the history of shrinking people down on the big screen.

As a tribute to Stanley Kubrick and Christopher Nolan, designer Thomas Vanz made a beautiful short film visualizing the death of a star. None of the visuals are computer generated; instead he edited together clips of ink dissolving in water to depict a supernova.

As overplayed as Animojis have already become, we’ve gotta hand it to the guys at Corridor for their latest video, in which they used their VFX skills to apply Apple’s latest gimmick to some appropriate scenes from TV shows and movies.