By Travis Johnson
There was a time when you had to just march a thousand guys in knitted chainmail out into the desert and get the RSPCA rep drunk, but now so much of the big spectacle we see on screen is born in computers. Some of those computers are in Australia, though, such as those deftly manipulated by the boffins at Melbourne outfit, Iloura, who have just dropped a really nifty look at the sheer amount of pixels that went into bulking out “The Battle of the Bastards” in Game of Thrones.
it’s impressive stuff – at many points we’re basically watching a photorealistic cartoon, but that’s not a diss. Astheir release notes, “The battle required many photorealistic horse and rider collisions, 3,000-strong armies, a mix of close-ups featuring live-action and CG humans and animals and massive crowd simulations, as well as hundreds of assets – CG armoury, weapons, flags, saddlery, body parts, and environmental assets such as blood, mud, smoke, fire and mist. Iloura was selected to work on the episode after presenting the show’s VFX Producer and Supervisor, Steve Kullback and Joe Bauer, with a series of tests presenting photoreal CG horses and riders colliding with other horses, rendered from various points of view. With Games of Thrones’ huge fan base, its exceptional production values and the scrutiny that is placed on the VFX across the series, it was essential that Iloura prove its strength via its rigging and muscle pipeline and the robustness of its animation team.”
Well, they certainly did that.
