The Software Used In The Making Of Avatar

Have you ever wondered what software was used in the making of Avatar, touted as the “second highest-grossing film of all time worldwide”?
If you’re curious to find out what tools Cameroon has mainly used for the Avatar movie, then check out the list below compiled by Armand Niculescu of Twin Pixels.

• Autodesk Maya
• Pixar Renderman for Maya
• Autodesk SoftImage XSI
• Auodesk 3ds max (for control room screens and HUD renderings)
• Autodesk MotionBuilder (for real-time 3d visualisations)
• The Foundry Nuke Compositor (image compositing)
• Autodesk Smoke (color correction)
• Autodesk Combustion (compositing)
• Adobe After Effects (compositing, real-ime visualizations)
• PF Track (motion tracking, background replacement)
• Adobe Illustrator (HUD and screens layout)
• Adobe Photoshop (concept art, textures)
• Many tools developed in-house
• Countless plugins for each platform, some of them Ocula for Nuke, Ktakatoa for 3ds max, Sapphire for Combustion/AE.

Besides Adobe, here are some of the companies which have also contributed in the visual effects.

• Industrial Light and Magic, USA (most of the character design, modeling and effects)
• Weta Digital, New Zealand (most of the character design, modeling and effects)
• Framestoree, UK (Sully’s arrival at Hell’s Gate and two other shots)
• Hybride, Canada
• Prime Focus, USA (design and compositing of the control room screens, HUDs, etc)
• Look Effects, USA (compositing)
• Hydraulx, USA
• Giant Studios, USA (motion capture)
• Pixel Liberation Front, USA (screens and HUD design)
• Lola VFX, USA (digital cosmetic)

One of a state-of-art technology James Cameroon embraced is the use of a specially-designed virtual camera that allows him to observe directly on a monitor how the actors’ virtual counterparts interact with the movie’s digital world in real time and adjust and direct the scenes just as if shooting live action.

“It’s like a big, powerful game engine. If I want to fly through space, or change my perspective, I can. I can turn the whole scene into a living miniature and go through it on a 50 to 1 scale. To create the world of Pandora as seen in the film, it required over a petabyte of digital storage,” he said in an interview.
Via Wikipedia & Twin Pixels

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