issue #20 – Avatar: The Way of Water – the deep dive

Issue #20 of befores & afters magazine is a new deep dive into the visual effects of James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water, with Wētā FX. It goes beyond the stories about new approaches to on-set performance capture, water simulation, real-time depth compositing, the eyeline system used during filming, and facial capture and animation that were all previously featured in detailed online befores & afters coverage. Inside issue #20, you’ll find new pieces on:

– The making of the sea vessels for The Way of Water, including the practical Picador built for reference and filming, and the massive SeaDragon
– Managing 5,650 CG assets for the film, including a diverse array of sea creatures
– How the skimwing, ilu and tulkun creatures were built
– World building, plant simulation, rendering and compositing for the Pandoran jungle
– The art of combustion in The Way of Water — how Wētā FX mastered fire FX and simulation
– The animation of hands, and why animating hands with three fingers, crafting baby hands, and using hands to control throat microphones proved to be some of the hardest tasks
– Compositing: how new deep workflows and many other techniques were developed for the film
– Plus, a special tribute to Jon Landau from Wētā FX’s Joe Letteri.

Find it at your local Amazon store:

USA — UK — Canada — Germany — France — Spain — Italy — Australia — Japan — Sweden — Poland — Netherlands