Special Effects artists at Framestore CFC made extensive use of MAXON’s award-winning BodyPaint 3D software for their work in New Line Cinema’s holiday hit, “The Golden Compass.”With a budget over $150 million US dollars the movie is already this year’s top holiday hit, with box-office receipts from this past weekend at over $25 million.
Framestore CFC was selected by New Line to bring numerous characters to real life on the screen, including the intense fighting bears.
Based on the first volume in Philip Pullman’s trilogy “His Dark Materials”, “The Golden Compass” is set in a parallel world that is similar to our own, yet very different. In this world, witches rule the northern skies, ice bears talk and are the bravest of warriors and every human is entwined with an animal spirit.
Framestore’s Lead Texture Paint Supervisor Daren Horley said, “The bears Iorek Ragnar and the guard bears were painted using Photoshop and BodyPaint 3D. BodyPaint 3D was particularly useful when painting the complex organic shapes of the Iorek’s rustic, beaten metal armor.”
You can learn more about BodyPaint 3D’s use in “The Golden Compass” by reading this press release here. There are several images from the film.