MPC’s artists are presenting their work on feature films and commercials at FMX 2017 in Stuttgart, Germany.
Passengers: Zero Gravity Water dynamic simulation
Fabian Nowak (MPC)
Tuesday, May 02, Meidinger-Saal, 17:00 - 18:00
To deliver a large and complex film such as Passengers, MPC had to create a number of different types of FX simulation. This included various space effects, nebulas and meteors, along with a red giant, an exploding plasma reactor core, and effects inside the spacecraft, which often interacted with the main characters of the movie. One of the most challenging simulations to create was the Gravity Loss sequence: In this scene, the ship’s gravity system fails as Aurora Lane swims in its swimming pool. The water traps her inside a gigantic airless and impenetrable bubble as she struggles to escape. This was probably the very first time that this type of simulation has been done on such a large scale. Tackling the look of the water started with weeks of research and development and a number of different approaches were tested. In this presentation MPC FX Lead Fabian Nowak will reveal the artistic and technical challenges behind the FX simulation work on the Zero Gravity Water sequence.
Passengers: Awakening VR Experience
Matthias Wittmann (MPC)
Thursday, May 04, Planetarium, 18:00 - 19:00
In this presentation MPC VFX Supervisor Matthias Wittmann will reveal the work that went into creating the Passengers: Awakening Virtual Reality Experience. Developed in collaboration with Sony Pictures VR, MPC, Sound Lab at Technicolor, and Q Department and based on the 2016 Film, Passengers Awakening places you in the middle of the recreated environment of the Starship Avalon based directly on the Academy Award® nominated production design of the film. With over 20 minutes of gameplay, the players skills are tested as they fix broken machinery, escape the peril of a floating tidal wave, negotiate with the android bartender, don a spacesuit and venture outside the safety of the starship interior to meet up with Jim Preston in an action packed climax.
Cloud Rendering with MPC
Craig Dibble (MPC), Jeff Kember (Google), Gary Negus (Sohonet), Oliver Pennington (Sohonet), David Spilsbury (MPC Advertising)
Tuesday, May 02, Raum Karlsruhe, 17:00 - 18:00
MPC talk through cloud rendering with Sohonet and Google.
In this panel MPC Film and MPC Advertising discuss how we are utilizing cloud-based rendering tools in different ways and why.
The panel will focus on how MPC are managing to reach a level of visual complexity and detail in our work with increasingly tight deadlines. And how we are benefiting from expanding their compute abilities beyond in-house walls to deal with the dramatic spikes in rendering workloads as deadlines approach.
MPC and MPC Creative on the VFX and VR behind John Lewis’ Christmas 2016 campaign
Tuesday, May 02, Raum Karlsruhe, 17:00 - 18:00
MPC Creative’s Creative Director Pete Conolly and Diarmid Harrion-Murray, VFX Supervisor (CG) at MPC take FMX behind the scenes of one of the most high profile campaigns of 2016. In a joint presentation they reveal how they took one epic TV commercial, directed by Dougal Wilson, beyond the screen and into a groundbreaking interactive VR experience developed in collaboration with adam&eveDDB and John Lewis and launched exclusively in John Lewis’ flagship store.
