2pm Thursday, May 9, HMLT103

Material Modeling in a modern Production Renderer

Abstract: Recent film productions like Mortal Engines or Alita: Battle Angle exhibit an unprecedented visual richness that was unthinkable ten years ago. One key component to achieve this is a flexible but expressive material system that is capable of reproducing the complexity of real-world materials but is still simple enough so that it can be used on a large scale. Andrea will talk about material modeling in a production path tracer in general and the constraints that come about when artistically driven decisions meet a physically plausible world. She will demonstrate how a modern layer-based material system as it can be found in Weta Digital’s in-house renderer Manuka influences design and look development decisions and give examples of how it is used in production.