SERENITY - A Science-Fiction Western in Space

BodyPaint 3D was a huge aid in the completion of the work.

In 2002, Joss Whedon collaborated with Loni Peristere from Zoic Studios to create an exciting action-filled adventure that let the loyal fans of the television series "Firefly" follow the further adventures of the crew of "Serenity". The "Firefly" series had a loyal fan base that was ready and willing to move on to new excitement on the big screen. The television series had already garnered the Visual Effects Society's award for best visual effects in a television series in 2002 as well as an Emmy in 2003 for best visual effects in a TV Series.

Lance Powell was the texture supervisor working on "Serenity" at Zoic Studios.

The majority of Lance's work involved creating exteriors and shading, along with making everything look very good within the two-week time frame they had.

The combination of live shots, photography, 3D modeling and digital matte painting became a wonderful marriage of genres that resulted in an excellent and unique visual production. An image would be blocked in quickly, so Loni and others could make changes. Then Lance was able to add detail quickly and effectively with the help of BodyPaint 3D. BodyPaint 3D's 3D painting functions allowed for the completion of scenes much faster than had they been created in 2D paint.

Lance explained, "BodyPaint 3D has become a staple in any production pipeline that I [control]. I've set it up as a primary texture tool here at Naughty Dog, at Zoic Studios, and at Omation because I feel its broad range of Photoshop-like features allow me to block in textures in one environment, with the bonus that it lets me to move quickly from modeling to painting to shading. Also, because of the bridge between BodyPaint 3D and other 3D software such as Maya and LightWave, it provides for more LookDev time since I'm not bogged down flipping between 2D painting, saving out files, and going into my 3D package. I love it. I like to paint fast, block in the look, and check out the shaded results. The process that BodyPaint 3D provides is exactly what I need to move and get results."

BodyPaint 3D was a huge aid in the completion of the work. Lance remembers, "We wanted to have a sense of layered depth in our planet and give the illusion of extreme distance between the action and the planet. Our camera work for Serenity was a very specific handheld style, and at times had extreme zoom-ins on elements in order to emphasize the action. I used the cameras from a Maya scene in BodyPaint 3D, and would place my matte card geometry according to the action. From there, I would block in the details from what the camera would see. Then I could port things back and forth from BodyPaint 3D to Photoshop to tighten my painting. I thought "Serenity" turned out exceptionally well."

Serenity
ZOIC Studios

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