UNDO created effects for the new 3D Moomins and the Comet Chase film

UNDO worked on some 100 shots for the latest Moomin film, Moomins and the Comet Chase 3D.

The work was divided into roughly 4 different categories: error fixing, background extensions, addition of digital elements, and completely digital scene replacement.

The easiest errors to fix were just garbage on the film scan. The hardest were image elements that moved erroneously and had to be kept in place, and especially if characters pass in front of such elements.

We extended a couple of backgrounds horizontally to achieve better framing, as the original material was shot for 4:3 aspect ratio.

Most of the work we did was in adding digital elements to the existing background plates. The conversion method used didn’t allow for very dramatic stereo effects, so we were tasked to add digital elements to many scenes to enhance the feeling of depth.

This guy here is an extra goofy grasshopper that was added to a couple of scenes:

We added an extra tentacle for the dreaded octopussy, it gropes farther into the audience than the original ones:

When Snufkin is playing his flute, some CGI notes come dancing out:

Other things we added were for example a water splash, a ball lightning, stones for an avalanche, dust, wind, glows, flares, little things that are not immediately visible but do add to the 3d experience.

The single biggest new 3d element was the red comet itself. It was doubly challenging, as we needed to first remove the original comet and then add the new one after 2d->3d conversion.

The design took quite a few iterations to get right, but it did end up looking quite nice in our opinion:

For a few scenes it was easier to just recreate everything digitally, for example some sky/space shots, Muskrat’s comet vision, the sand tornado, and a few of the later comet shots.

For the fellow 3d-geeks reading this: the comet was done in Houdini, the rest of the 3d work in Lightwave. All compositing/post production (plus some 3d!) in Nuke.