Rodeo FX was brought on board to contribute almost 360 shots to ‘Downsizing’. They created 285 CG assets for Leisureland, including 129 buildings. Their work on this film includes environment extensions, compositing, digi-doubles, CG environments, water simulations, animations, and others.
Our team helped scale down the world of Downsizing through environment extensions, compositing, digi-doubles, CG environments, water simulations, animations, and more.
For the reunion sequence, our team assembled the elements to show a downsized couple brought in in a transparent carry-box. In the composite, we added back micro jitters and movements and created glass reflections on the box.
More of our compositing work is seen in the first downsized community sequence, where the first volunteers are wheeled out on a gurney. We also composited the Leisureland showroom, replacing the model home with a 3D asset, and we composited the bus ride to Leisureland, with full-size and downsized passengers riding along.
We created CG environments for the ride into Leisureland along with 285 CG assets, including 129 buildings, for the city itself, which our compositing team layered into scenes with custom lawns, vegetation and landscaping.
For the sunset scene, we layered the bonfire with set extensions, redesigning the environment to incorporate the lighting changes. This became a mostly CG shot, retaining just the setting sun. Our artists then had a lot of fun animating the anticlimactic avalanche, adding little details that won over Overall VFX Supervisor, Jamie Price.
“We had planned to do the explosion as a miniature. That was always my strategy. When we got into post, we roughed it in digitally, and the animation [by Rodeo FX] was so good and so funny that we just kept it. All of the dropping of the rock, including one final pebble that punctuates the moment, was choreographed by animators and artists.”
Inside the main worker city building, we expanded the 2 floor set to a 12 story environment. Our modeling team made creative use of textures and we also populated the building with people walking, standing, sitting around. We put a lot of effort into the lighting, with neon around the doors, and older bulbs mixed with newer ones flickering on and off. Everywhere the camera looked, it was controlled chaos.
In the travel to Norway sequence, we created 3D water simulations, scaling the motion of the full-sized water and the downsized yacht.
Back on land, we created a full digital Norwegian environment and we built a significant library of vegetation assets using IDV SpeedTree. Using Houdini, we added effects like small backlit hairs and fur-like growths on branches and leaves.
