Scanline VFX and Silhouette: The VFX Galaxy Behind 3 Body Problem

The Oxford Five in Netflix’s 3 Body Problem and Scanline VFX share many of the same attributes — being at the top of their game and having to solve highly complicated puzzles to tackle the tasks before them. Scanline worked on 500 shots during the season with a consistent crew of two hundred artists (ballooning to over five hundred artists as necessary). The team turned to Boris FX Silhouette and Mocha Pro to help undertake difficult rotoscoping and digital paint tasks.

“The show required that amount of manpower to accomplish so many different complex tasks. I started working on the show in December 2021, although we had already been working on the show doing some asset production, concept work, and pre-visualization,” states Boris Schmidt, VFX Supervisor. “The first turnover was in April 2022, which gave producer Ryan Flick and myself a bit of time to prepare and schedule all the VFX work we had to deliver. Our last delivery was in April 2023, but it was divided into multiple delivery phases.”

(Warning: Spoilers ahead, some disturbing.)

Credit: Netflix

The Red Coast

In episode 2, theoretical physicist Jin finds herself sucked into the VR world of the “Red Coast,” where she learns the goal of the game — how to ensure the San-Ti civilization stays alive amidst the chaotic and stable weather eras created by the three body problem of their specific planet. The San-Ti in this game can dehydrate their bodies into flat husks to avoid burning alive and then can be rehydrated when the weather is stable again. 

Two shots at the end of the sequence used plates of real actors swimming underwater. Each actor was shot separately with individual camera and swim motions. “We had to roto multiple people/crowds so our compositors could add their FX work and add more depth underwater,” says Charana Mapatuna, head of roto & paint, North America. “We used Mocha Pro to stabilize the actors against each other to place and animate them on 2.5D cards in 3D space and later film them with our shot camera. Then, we used Silhouette to get roto for all these actors. Silhouette and Mocha Pro are a big part of our daily workflow. It’s very efficient to bounce back and forth between the two. Plus, Silhouette’s built-in Mocha is a huge advantage and helps us do our roto work more efficiently.”

Credit: Scanline/Netflix

In addition to working on the dehydration/rehydration sequence in “Red Coast,” Scanline artists were responsible for constructing most of the elaborate VR headset game worlds, including the Shang Dynasty in episode 2. The team created 3D models, texturing, lighting, intricate FX setups, and crowds.

Judgment Day

Scanline was the sole VFX vendor on the season’s most harrowing sequence — the Panama Canal ship destruction (if you watched the series, you know) — in episode 5. The visual effects were astonishing, heartbreaking, and horrific. 

The team faced multiple challenges to ensure the FX worked together seamlessly.

Artists created a photorealistic CG environment of the Panama Canal itself, built a vast native CG plant library with wind simulations to create motion, and used Scanline’s proprietary Flowline software to simulate the canal’s water movement (including the tank’s wake, debris interaction, and colliding with the shoreline). They also had to consider effects such as dust, objects tumbling, fire, smoke, and explosions — and, of course, how the tanker and people aboard get devastatingly sliced by Auggie’s nanofiber technology. 

“We had a lot of fishnet wires to paint out in that sequence. Though the wires are transparent, they are still visible in tech check eyes,” comments Mapatuna. “We relied on frame-by-frame paint and used Silhouette extensively to create clean plates (character paint out and rebuilding some characters as they are getting sliced) to help with our frame paintwork.”

Photo credit: Scanline/Netflix

“The gore scenes required the creation of physics simulations. This included individual characters being sliced into pieces and tumbling across the ship with the simulation of their clothing, hair, and blood,” notes Schmidt. “We also had to make sure the slicing of the tanker itself looked believable in scale and movement, including the satellite dish, the helicopter, and all the various objects on deck and in the engine room.”

“Some artists and supervisors found it difficult to work on the gore scenes and specifically asked not to work on these. We understood their concerns completely, and accommodating their requests in our schedule was not a problem at all,” continues Schmidt. “I personally had no issues working on these gruesome scenes, as I could mentally remind myself that they were just pixels, polygons, and not real. However, I found only two scenes in particular difficult to watch.”

“We needed to ensure everything looked consistent throughout the different shots in the edit. Each portion needed careful direction to make sure they all fit together,” ends Schmidt. “My favorite part about working on 3 Body Problem was our involvement in the creative process on the many sequences. We enjoyed a great deal of freedom.”

Watch 3 Body Problem, Season 1 — streaming now on Netflix.

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