a bird! It’s a plane! It’s geometry,
texture maps and shading
algorithms! Although most people
watching Warner Bros. ‘Superman Returns’ might guess that Superman seen flying from a distance is a digital double, few will believe that in many of the close up - very close up - shots, the superhero is a digital character.
One reason Superman’s double looks exactly like actor Brandon Routh is that in a way, it is. Sony Pictures Imageworks used the LightStage 2 system developed by Paul Debevec to capture photographs of Routh’s face that they applied to a 3D model. Easier said than done.
“It’s not just a matter of shooting imagery,” says Rich Hoover, visual effects supervisor for Superman at Imageworks. Hoover led a team that created around 300 shots for the film including close-ups of digital Superman used throughout the film including a dramatic shuttle/airplane rescue. Bryan Singer, who directed 'X-Men' and 'X-Men 2', directed the film along with Mark Stetson supervising the effects. All told, 11 effects studios worked on 'Superman Returns' under the supervision of Stetson. Framestore CFC handled the digital Krypton environments. Rhythm & Hues built Superman’s Fortress of Solitude with the Jor-El (Marlon Brando) hologram, and maneuvered a sea rescue.
Rising Sun created a young digital Clark Kent skipping over a cornfield. The Orphanage helped Superman fall from space, bounced bullets off his body, rescued Kitty during a car chase, and added a mansion to the waterfront. Frantic Films developed a crystal-growing algorithm that other studios used and created the opening outer space shots.
Photo VFX, Lola Visual Effects, and Eden FX fixed eyes, costumes and cosmetics. The Pixel Liberation Front prevized the shot. And, New Deal Studios constructed miniatures.
Imageworks’ supplied its Superman to the other studios who used it when the digital double moved close enough to camera to be recognized. “I had been at Sony working on 'Charlie’s Angels', so I was aware of the work Imageworks had done, especially on 'SpiderMan 2',” Stetson says. “There are some impressive close-ups of Alfred Molina [Doc Ock] that people missed, but I didn’t miss them. I wanted to take advantage of that technology.”
For 'SpiderMan 2', Imageworks had used the LightStage 2 system at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies to capture Molina’s face. They used the same system for 'Superman Returns'; however, they tweaked the acquisition techniques.
