Defying gravity with motion capture in Spiderman: No Way Home
Digital Domain’s state-of-the-art performance and motion capture stage in Los Angeles gave space to Animatrik’s post-shoot mocap sessions for one of Marvel’s biggest blockbusters in recent years - Spiderman: No Way Home. Animatrik worked closely with the director’s team through two days of rehearsals, followed by one week of stunt work and a mix of motion and performance capture on the floor. The team at Animatrik created a dedicated editorial lounge with monitors within the studio, to watch the capture session in real time and make adjustments as needed.
Spiderman: No Way Home (2021)
From the iconic fight with supervillain Electro among the power lines, to scenes involving all three spidermen, the focus of the sessions was ensuring the highest degree of accuracy in data and timing, so the end result integrates seamlessly with the filmed material. The sessions kicked off with lead actor Tom Holland, making use of the dedicated stunt truss in the middle of the studio. This feature enabled the stunt team to complete the signature gravity-defying moves of the Spiderman movies, swinging from buildings and flying through the air. The wires and rigging were all attached to the stunt truss, instead of using a mocap truss and running the risk of shaking the camera and losing calibration. The team at Animatrik collaborated closely with the directorial unit, pointing out the best spots for camera placement within the 18-feet high studio space. This ensured that the cameras were capturing the actors and all the necessary data, no matter how high the actors flew as they completed the choreography.
The elaborate rigging and the use of the stunt truss meant that the teams had to work around extra wires on the mocap suits, especially around the waist area where the wiring is often attached. Incidentally, this is also the area of the body that is responsible for many of the movements that affect the entire skeleton - real or digital. Occlusion is one of the worst enemies of accurate motion capture, so making sure that none of the markers were blocked was key.
Spiderman: No Way Home (2021)
Animatrik used a hybrid virtual camera solution to complete these sessions where the team tracked one of the reference cameras and used it as the designated virtual camera. This meant that the Director of Photography was able to frame shots with a normal motion picture or video camera and have that represented as closely as possible in the virtual world inside Motion Builder. The Animatrik team also tracked the other reference cameras so that they had the positional information at hand during the sessions. A wide selection of lens kits made the solution customizable. The team at Marvel ended up using Animatrik’s Blackmagic Design URSA 4Ks, along with the in-house lens kit.
The real-time element, in tandem with the Giant System from Lightstorm Entertainment, connected to Motion Builder which afforded the advantage of live retargeting onto different characters. This enabled the directorial team to leverage the real-time element of the solution and explore different creative scenarios with the stunt work.
Spiderman: No Way Home was released in cinemas in 2021 and has become the third highest-grossing Marvel movie of all time.