Feature Film VFX
White Bird
Rodeo FX
rodeofx.com
The creation of a photorealistic wolf was a task never done by the studio at this scale before, and allowed us to partner with Marc Forster, one of our favourite directors. The work started with reference footage shot by our team in a snowy wolf refuge in Northern Quebec. The fur itself required an incredible level of detail to faithfully render the different shades and hair textures that you can find on such a beast.
To assemble the wolf pack, we actually created three different wolves, with an alpha and two betas, each with characteristic body language and matching movement simulations. Creating a wolf is a totally different endeavor than a giant fantastic monster. The human eye is extremely discerning and creating a real life creature poses many challenges as audiences are already so familiar with the animal. This requires the asset to faithfully mimic reality, down to the last hair, claw, and tiniest whisker.
CREW
Patrick David, Nany Heller, Yvon Jardel, Andrei Delgado Ivan Cadena Luiz Couri Mahdi Darvishani Mathieu Antoine Thomas André Travis Paciocco
Software
Maya, Houdini, Nuke