Tron

A Disney Film

Stellar FX studio Digital Domain (DD) was charged with wrangling that world under director Joe Kosinski and VFX Supervisor Eric Barba. Legacy’s world has only two human inhabitants, Kevin and Sam Flynn, while everything and everyone else is digital. This world was designed by Kevin Flynn (played again by Jeff Bridges) and his cast of program characters. However Clu, Kevin Flynn’s digital self, has become a dangerous and deadly opponent, creating havoc in Kevin Flynn’s perfect world.

The New World

Many of the artistic decisions for Legacy as far as the foundation and look of the film were handled before serious production began. Many of the visual queues from the original TRON like the glow lines were kept to tie the two films together. Some of the film looks like something you might see sitting in your own home, while other elements have a look no one has ever seen before. These artistic decisions were first seen in a teaser trailer completed in 2008

Shot in Stereo 3D

The film was planned and shot fully in stereo 3D from day one, with Barba and Animation Supervisor Steve Preeg in a strong creative partnership with director Kosinski. Principle photography ending in July 2009. The stereo was designed so that the audience looks into the world as if gazing into the monitor rather than being filled with in-your-face stereo gags. “Since Avatar,” said Barba, “I think this is the only film that kind of follows that category where it’s a great use of stereo because it’s a computer world we’ve never seen before and doesn’t necessarily follow any rules.”

Previs doesn’t always require the artists to create a scene that is 100% perfect, and often the artists will cheat by moving assets around to get the best composition. However in stereo, those assets need to be correct in XYZ space, which is much more demanding. DD would strive to make everything to work flat first, and once they were happy with those results they would take it to stereo. If it was an all CG shot, that was relatively easy to do because the stereo is figured out ahead of time, but with plate photography, a plate could be left or right eye dominant which occasionally required small fixes in details such as proper alignment between the two eyes.

Brightness also required some adjustments. When shooting with a twin camera setup, one camera shoots through a mirror and the other shoots across a mirror. The results end up with different polarizations. For example, say the left eye is the fixed eye, and the right eye is the stereo eye, and the specular highlights and reflections are dimmer than in the fixed eye. When you view this on the screen in stereo it can be quite painful, so DD strived to make the viewing experience as comfortable as possible.

Concept To Models

VFX Supervisor Eric Barba, Oscar winner for his groundbreaking work on 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' leaned on that experience to create Clu, a 35-year old version of Jeff Bridges today. DD had a head casting of Bridges from when he was younger, and captures of Bridges at his current age, capturing multiple expressions and various face shapes which were used ultimately as more of a guide for the animators, allowing them to get the timing of any particular performance. Using that as a timing guide, the animators would reanimate the actors face.

In some cases the art department provided 3D asset models that DD modified for the film, and 2D illustrations that worked as a guide to the world of Legacy. Barba praised production designer Darrin Gilbert who commissioned some of the most talented designers he could find, many of whom had never worked in film. One of those was Legacy’s light cycle designer Daniel Simon who has an illustrated book and has worked in car design for most of his career. He stood on the shoulders of Visual Futurist Syd Mead who designed the light cycles for the first TRON, updating the designs while maintaining a familiarity from the original iconic light cycles, and adding the additional light jets and light cars.

Textures

Initially, the assumption was that this was a perfect digitally generated world and the textures would reflect that perfection. However, Kosinski felt this was a world that was heavily used and always in some sort of gladiator battle, so dirt and scratches were added.

The director was very clear that he wanted TRON world to look physical, as if a camera was in the world shooting the action.

The high quality craftsmanship on some of these set pieces helped set the standard. Set pieces are often a rough construction that is suitable for filming but on Legacy they were built with extreme attention to detail. The set pieces were well put together and looked functional, and made to look CG perfect but had the imperfections of something that was physically made.

Pixel Light

The classic look of TRON has the characters sporting suits with glow lines, and it was the use of glow lines that helped separate the characters from their dark surroundings in Legacy. During the filming of Legacy, the real world costumes were designed to actually light up. Barba made use of that during principle photography. “All the suits the actors wore were pretty sophisticated and hugely expensive costumes. They had battery packs and lit up on screen.” DD was able to use the actors costumes during post production “to get the colors right and add little flickers” and the lighting team was able to request more where it was needed.

Due to the dark environment the light cycle riders were getting little environmental lighting, and most of that was from the light inside the helmets. Since the real world actors were practically lit primarily to compliment their body postures and acting during

In one of the more spectacular displays of eye candy, each light cycle and jet has a light trail that emits from the back of the vehicle. This wall hardens into an indestructible glass wall. The players use this strategically throughout the game to try and kill the other combatants just as they did in the first TRON when one cycle would make a sudden 90 degree turn and the competitor who couldn’t turn to avoid the wall would crash into it, resulting in their digital death. The doomed riders’ cycle and the light wall explodes into a fiery display, giving the viewer a lot of eye candy.