In this VFX breakdown of Marvel Studio’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, we go behind the scenes with the team at Rodeo FX to learn how Clarisse iFX played a key role in layout and set dressing of the feature’s Academy Award nominated VFX.
Rodeo FX specializes in visual effects creation for feature films and television shows, including award-winning productions: Stranger Things, Foundation, Game of Thrones, Blade Runner 2049, Dune, the IT series, and of course Marvel productions. It employs over 700 talented artists at its studios in Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Munich, and Los Angeles.
In this ‘Behind the Scenes’ video, Shang-Chi Environment Pipeline TD Jeremy Boissinot and Environment Lead Alexandre Durocher share how Clarisse helped them to collaborate on CG environments, and work faster and more creatively, to deliver 150 shots over a period of 18 months of production.
Learn how Rodeo FX reproduced the entire city of Macau in CG, building the ground level of the city in a traditional DCC application, like Blender, Houdini or Maya, and then loading their assets into Clarisse to set dress the city by hand to the most minuscule of detail, including individual pole placement, sidewalks, and street lamp locations, to achieve the rich level of detail seen in the final shots. Relying on Clarisse’s combiners, powerful scattering tools and interactive viewport, Rodeo FX’s artists were able to imagine exactly what the desired outcome would be and then work quickly and creatively on the final image to nail the shot.
Not only did Clarisse allow the team at Rodeo FX to create incredibly complex shots, it also made them more efficient, allowing artists to collaborate, share work, and take over from one another with ease. And even more importantly to the artists themselves, Clarisse gave the team the power to have fun while creating, giving them the opportunity to focus on the artistic part of their work, rather than getting bogged down in the technical details.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Congratulations to Jeremy, Alexandre and the team at Rodeo FX for their amazing work. We can’t wait to see what incredible projects you deliver next.