viewpoint tackles a monster of a modeling challenge

When I first set out to do an interview on the Godzilla film, my first call was to Zygote, since I knew that they had done a small amount of work on the project. At Zygote I reached Eric Merritt. I asked him if he had worked on the film.

"Yes, I worked on Godzilla," Eric admitted. "But all I really did was model the Japanese freighter that is seen at the beginning of the movie. VisionArt sent over the plans for the ship and I created a clean model, and a second model with a big hole punched in it. They added most of the real destruction and texturing themselves. We really didn't do anything exciting on that one."

I appreciated Eric's honesty and modesty, but I could see I didn't have much fuel for a full interview. Luckily for me, Dan Farr got on the line with me at that point. I explained my purpose in calling.

"Hey Darris, if you want to talk to someone about modeling on the Godzilla movie, you need to call Viewpoint and talk to Walter Noot. They did most of the outside modeling on that movie, I believe" he said. "I can get you his number if you want".

It isn't often that someone in this competitive industry will put you in contact with someone from a competing studio, so that you can feature them in an article. But that is the kind of classy guy that Dan Farr and all the others at Zygote are. I took advantage of his help and wasted no time in calling Viewpoint. Within minutes I was speaking to Walter Noot (pronounced Note), who is a pretty classy guy, himself.

Walter is the Vice President of Production at Viewpoint, and he could not have been nicer to talk to. For those of you who are not familiar with Viewpoint, and there can't be many of you, they are a 10 year old company that has become a major supplier of 3D content. Their long list of clients includes such companies as DreamWorks SKG, Microsoft, Pacific Data Images, ViFX, Warner Brothers, Dream Quest Images, Digital Domain, Sega and Sony, just to name a few of the more familiar.

In addition to Godzilla, Viewpoint's work can be seen in Armageddon, Titanic, The X Files: fight the Future, and Air Force One. Their work can also be seen on the small screen on shows like Johnny Quest and Perversions of Science as well as in commercials for Dodge, Taco Bell and Toyota. They have also worked on games such as Abe's Odyssey, Apocalypse, and Civilization II. Most VMM readers are probably also familiar with the huge archive of 3D objects maintained by Viewpoint. These models are created by over 100 independent modelers around the world.

     VMM: Hello Walter, it is good of you to speak to me on such short notice. I understand that you were heavily involved in the modeling for the movie Godzilla.
     Walter: Yes, we digitized the models for the main character, the large monster if you will. We also digitized the baby Godzillas as well as the Brooklyn Bridge and the taxi that is prominently featured at the end.

     VMM: That must have been quite an undertaking.
     Walter: It was literally a massive effort. Not only did we have to create the models, but for each of them we had to create both a NURBS and a polygonal model. The NURBS models were used by Centropolis while VisionArt used the poly models.

Keep in mind, these were huge models, too. The first model we digitized was 2 feet tall, but later when we went back we were digitizing models that were 9 feet tall. And each one had to be digitized point by point.

     VMM: How did you go about accomplishing this?
     Walter: We had a dedicated team of 10 modelers.They worked for an entire year on this project, although not all at the same time. The digitizing phase alone, took three man months, and that was at a very accelerated pace. We were digitizing intricately detailed physical models created by Tatopoulis Designs (those of you who saw the film may recall that the hero's name was also Tatopoulis). Each of our 10 dedicated modelers was assigned a different body part and they digitized literally 24 hours a day. As a result we were able to create each version in about 3 weeks, a feat that ordinarily would require 2-3 months.

We actually had a modeler on site at Centropolis to help coordinate the effort. The SoftImage Special Projects Group was also a big help and we had a modeler on site with them too, making sure that the models were properly tuned for the animation process.

     VMM: Those must have been some very large digital models, that you created. Give us an idea of what the finished models were like.
     Walter: Okay. Well for starters, the high-resolution NURBS version of the character totaled over 1 million triangles, 3.08 meg, and 166,890 control vertices . That is with no textures or IK information; this model has no blends or trims, which dramatically reduced the file size and aided in texture mapping; there are 200 + groups in the model. The highest-resolution polygonal version totaled over 500,000 polygons (mostly quads).

     VMM: Wow, tell me more.
     Walter: Then there was Baby Godzilla. In addition to numerous 3D models of the title character, the Viewpoint modeling team created both polygonal and NURBS versions of Godzilla's offspring. The team digitized a "life-size" physical sculpture of the Godzilla baby to capture highly intricate detail from head to toe. The polygonal models ranged from 80,000 polygons for shots using the medium resolution version to more than 300,000 polys for shots requiring very high resolution. The NURBS models of the baby contained over 100,000 triangles for the lowest resolution version, while over one million triangles were used in the highest resolution version created for close-up shots.

We also created Brooklyn Bridge and taxicab models. We had to create digital versions of these objects since digital Godzilla interacts with them. Viewpoint built a NURBS and polygonal version of the bridge and a NURBS version of the taxi. The basic bridge was about 500,000 polygons, with as many as one millions control vertices in the NURBS model (depending on the pieces that will end up being used in the final shots). The taxicab was a lighter NURBS model with about 30,000 control vertices.

     VMM: What kind of equipment and software did you use on this project?
     Walter: For the actual digitizing process we used Faro digitizing arms and proprietary in-house software on PCs for digitizing and merging files. Digitizing was done on P-100s with 40 MG of RAM.

Modeling was done on SGIs (at least 7 boxes ranging from Indys to Impacts and 02s, configured with a minimum of 128 MG of RAM).

As for software, we used Viewpoint proprietary software, as well as SoftImage, Alias, Wavefront, Nichimen, and a few other off-the-shelf tools. We often had to develop proprietary tools to overcome specific modeling tasks and data translation which are hard to accomplish with traditional off-the-shelf modeling tools.

     VMM: I can't think of another movie of this type that relied so heavily on digital models of the main character. Can you?
     Walter: You are absolutely right. It is definitely one of the most extensive uses of a full-screen animated CG character to date. 90% of the shots involving the Godzilla character were accomplished using the CG model we created.

     VMM: What are you proudest of about this project?
     Walter: It would have to be the fact that the 3D model developed by Viewpoint was so close to the physical miniatures and animatronics of Godzilla that the producers at Centropolis were able to use them interchangeably in scenes and incorporate them with live-action background footage whenever necessary.

     VMM: What were the biggest challenges you faced?
     Walter: As far as digitizing is concerned, our greatest challenge was the sheer volume of digitizing required for each body part, for matching the CG model point-to-point (or in this case "bump-by-bump") with the intricately detailed physical model, and identifying where to create tangencies and surface boundaries. We overcame this challenge by marking up the physical model in minute detail, then devoted a modeler to each body part of the creature.

As for the modeling process, achieving minimal continuity flaws to improve the animation process and speed was our biggest challenge. Simply put, working on this scale we had to worry about keeping all the NURBS patches together and not having any seams showing. Bear in mind, this creature was entirely hand animated. We overcame this challenge by working closely with Centropolis to understand the level of continuity needed and where that continuity was most important for the animation. Viewpoint worked with other vendors to help develop special processes that allow a high level of continuity between surfaces. As I mentioned before, we had a modeler on site at Centropolis, working directly with them and the SoftImage representative to fine tune our model to the animation process.

     VMM: It has been a real pleasure talking with you Walter. What upcoming projects can you tell us about, where our readers can see your work.
     Walter: As you know, Armageddon has just been released, and we were involved with it. The next big movie coming out that we were involved in is Antz, a completely animated feature that stars Woody Allen.

     VMM: I can't wait to see it. Keep up the great work.

Having created characters as diverse as Sil from Species, the werewolf from An American Werewolf in Paris, and now the star of Godzilla, Viewpoint has proven they have what it takes to create believable organic characters with real screen presence. It is obvious that there is a lot more to this company than their libraries of stock models. Their work on Godzilla proves that they are a good place to go if you need a movie star that is definitely larger than life.


Darris Dobbs is a regular contributor to Visual Magic. He writes on a variety of subjects as well as operating HieroglyFX Design. He can be reached at hieroglyfx@aol.com.

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