Lighting and rendering Alice in Wonderland

  • Authors:
  • Adam Martinez;Terrance Tornberg

  • Affiliations:
  • Sony Pictures Imageworks;Sony Pictures Imageworks

  • Venue:
  • ACM SIGGRAPH 2010 Talks
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Recent films such as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 2012 and Alice in Wonderland (Alice) have represented dramatic changes in the way Sony Pictures Imageworks produces imagery. We have moved away from the traditional biased, multi-pass rendering system to a largely single-pass, global illumination system incorporating modern ray-tracing and physically based shading techniques. We will discuss how these changes applied to our work on Alice, and look at specific examples from the film. Topics discussed will include: motivations behind moving to a physically based rendering system and how such motivations would ideally manifest, micro-facet illumination models, global illumination and layered materials. We will talk about the impact of these developments on our creative approach and lighting procedures in production, as well as some of the unintended consequences of these changes.