In this talk, Eric Saindon (Senior VFX Supervisor), Sam Cole (Sequence VFX Supervisor), and Alexey Stomakhin (Principal Research Engineer) will overview the process of creating Wētā FX’s Oscar, BAFTA and VES winning 3,100+ shots from Avatar: Fire and Ash.

They will reveal how the team blended extensive native stereo photography with CG environments, fully digital performance-captured characters, and physics based coupled effects simulations using new and existing in-house tool sets. Everything was ultimately handcrafted - every character, tree, leaf, pore, sweat drop and insect – to ensure Pandora is a believable world.

The team will dive into the new challenges this third instalment posed: new characters and environments, bigger models, and more water.  To accomplish the titular element, fire, the team at Wētā created a new tool aptly named Kora (“spark” in Māori), that allowed for more art directable fire. Additional improvements were made to Wētā's muscle-driven facial system, to stay anatomically plausible, while preserving the intent of the performances.

During this talk, audiences will see how the film is the product of 20 years of close collaboration with filmmakers, and continual technical innovations to achieve the highest quality storytelling and visual spectacle, yet again.