SIGGRAPH Now - War for Planet of the Apes

"War for the Planet of the Apes" is surely one of the most impressive VFX films of 2017 - and a likely contender for best visual effects in the 2018 awards season.  To see how the sophisticated motion capture was done, go behind the scenes with Weta Digital VFX in this video by SIGGRAPH Now. Weta Visual Effects Supervisor Anders Langlands explains how body and facial performance capture systems were used to create the film's stunning VFX work.

Planet of the Apes

Motion Capture (or Performance Capture as it is now generally known) is something we take very seriously at Escape Studios. It's a growing and important part of the animator's skillset.

In a way, animating with Performance Capture data is not unlike working as an assistant animator in the old 2D days. Your job as an animator is not to create the performance, but to clean it, improve it, make it look pretty. 

And it's not as easy as it sounds; the trick is to retain the beauty and subtlety of the original performance but, at the same time, tighten up the timing, strengthen the poses, and remove the "noise".

Below is some excellent MoCap clean-up work done by Escape Studios graduate (and now Studio Assistant) Steven Lall.