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Production Manager ……………………………..……….. Sophie Zhang
Head of Production ……………………………………….… Sonia Niu
Executive Producer …………..……………..………………. Shad Davis
Founder, Chief Executive Officer ……………… Chris Bremble
It would be an understatement to say this project was one the proudest achievements that we have worked on yet. It took our 96 artists close to 4 months of post-production to complete approximately a hundred shots through 8 sequences.
Base FX is thrilled to have developed such a strong workflow and line of communication with the client. Led by Sonia Niu – Head of Production, Sophie Zhang – VFX Producer, along with the daily efforts of our internal production team. We are fortunate and always grateful to be able to work with such talented and efficient Marvel production teams. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was extra special.
The sequel, as we already know incorporates the passing of King T’Challa’s into the film. It picks up after his death, leaving Wakanda vulnerable to attacks. Queue in the Talokanil, and the bulk of Base’s work within the movie.
THE SHAPE OF WATER
Our first sequence involved the Talokanil emerging out of the water on whales. Water simulation and its natural elements are challenging to emulate. The set was filmed on a blue screen and the actors were completely dry. This required us to wet down the characters and include CG water to the shots.
Xu Li – VFX Supervisor, led the artists at Base FX to deliver the work. These shots required full roto-anim for the entire body of the characters. Precision to detail is particularly key here – from every inch of skin to the minute points on their outfits. “If the roto-anim was off by just a touch, the rendered water pass would not have succeeded in comp,” explains Xu Li. “We went through many iterations of refining these shots with our rigging, modeling, and matchmove teams before getting the roto-anim close to a 100% accuracy,” he adds.
Once this was achieved, the FX artists began work on the water simulations. This is also the first time the audience would see the Talokanil up close. As soon as this project came on hand, it was made clear no detail was too molecular to be left out because it was shot in high-speed. It had to be spot on, as briefed by the client.
The team simulated the water body, splashes, water vapor and particles, all in which had to be synchronized from slow, to real-time motion on different textures – bare and blue skin, the fabrics on clothing or armor made of iron and stone, not forgetting the ground surface.
We had to understand water’s absorbency levels on all these various elements as well as the gravitational pull as the Talokanil emerged and landed. “Recreating its natural fluency became a craft, perfecting it became the mission. The results needed to be as realistic it could be, and the team delivered,” Xu Li shares.
The process started with basic water body simulation, then proceeded to secondary simulations to add the water vapor in the surroundings (these are around 10 million particles). Then using the basic water body, a character was separated into 7 sections based on the UV, so we could adjust the look and motion of the water in each section separately. We also added another vapor layer that’s close to the character based on these 7 sections (these are around 30 million particles),” shares FX Lead, Yao Pengcheng.
We created the wetness on the ground using 2D volume sampling, and ended up creating a 8000*8000 simulation for the ground wetness that gave it enough details.
BREATHING LIFE INTO FICTION
One of the key components of the Talokanil costumes are their rebreathers. The matchmove team needed to ensure the movements of the mouth between the facial structure and neck were consistently accurate, yet still appear natural. “The edge of the masks (rebreathers) were fitted perfectly to the plate. We used controllers to adjust the angles and facial expressions to ensure there was no room for error,” explains Matchmove Lead, Melody Liu
Water was simulated inside the rebreathers which was essential for the Talokanil to breathe on land. The water-feature rebreathers were rendered in Katana Renderman. “We generated a texture that incorporated refractions and water shader to achieve the realistic translucent look,” explains Lighting Lead, Duke Sun. Tiny bubbles were added in 2D which then provided greater detail that water was inside the mask.
”The final renders came out beautifully, and we loved the outcome,” Sophie shares.
‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ also sees the debut of yet another anticipated MCU character, Riri Williams. As she suits up for the first time, the task was to make her fight scene not just powerful but exciting at the same time.
We experimented many looks for Ironheart’s power blasts. The weapon powers up before it launches. The FX is a combination of electric arcs, plasma, particles, and energy trails. A lot of time and effort went into working out the timings of these elements and how they integrate. Riri’s suit was lit based on the intensity of the power FX. Then some distortion and lens flare were added to help with the final outcome.
Finishing the last scenes as Shuri memorialized her late brother T’Challa was for most, a bittersweet ending. Those flashback scenes were mainly referenced from the first installment to maintain the consistency and mood. “We experimented with some variations in the edge defocus and timing, so those shots were able to capture the essence of the emotion that we wanted the audience to experience and leave with,” shares Compositing Lead, Li Yingying.
