If you see a Sci-Fi or Fantasy film loaded with out-of-this-world creatures and massive effects, chances are Weta Digital had a hand in making them. Weta is an award-winning VFX studio known as one of the leaders in the industry. Dedicated to putting sheer detail and realism into their work, the studio is capable of bringing the most imaginative of landscapes and characters to life. All this is possible for Weta thanks to having the right tools.
I had the immense pleasure of working at Weta for a few years and see it develop into the amazing VFX and Animation juggernaut it is today.
What software does Weta Digital use? Weta uses Maya, Mari, Houdini, Massive, MotionBuilder, 3D Equalizer, Katana, and Nuke during foundational phases of production. To enhance details, they use their proprietary software: Eddy, Tissue, Wig, Lumberjack, Totara, Synapse, Manuka, and Gazebo.
Weta prioritizes both quality and speed when it comes to their work. As a result, they make use of tools that can streamline their pipelines to provide their artists with more time to focus on carrying out their creative visions for the project. Learn more about the specific software that they use, why they use them, and how they apply them in their films through this article.
Industry-Standard Software – the Key to High-Quality VFX
Weta has utilized numerous software to achieve the quality in every aspect of the effects they’ve worked on. Many of their projects had them deal with at least a thousand shots worth of CG for each film. With the number of assets to make and production deadlines to beat, the studio needed tools to speed up the work process without compromising quality. Below are the key software that Weta uses to make all this possible.
Detailed Asset Creation for World Building
Image Courtesy of Weta Digital Official Youtube Channel
Autodesk Maya
Weta makes use of Maya for modeling. Maya’s specialized tools help them create their models with the detail they need. It’s also flexible enough that anyone can design their own plug-ins that would work in Maya to fulfill specific design purposes. This is the case of some of Weta’s own proprietary software which will be discussed later on in the article.
Image Courtesy of Foundry Official Youtube Channel
Mari
For 3D texture painting, Weta uses Mari. It was developed by Weta, but they partnered up with The Foundry, a VFX software company, to make it available commercially. Mari allows the artists at Weta to directly paint onto their models and immediately see the changes they’ve made. The software also makes sure that the textures maintain their quality even across a large-scale mesh.
Image Courtesy of Houdini Official Youtube Channel
Houdini
Houdini is often used by Weta for creating populated landscapes along with particle simulations. Although it’s a modeling software like Maya, Houdini has the benefit of supporting procedural workflows. This allows Weta to edit parts of assets without having to restart. This is especially useful for Weta when dealing with assets that require a lot more iterations.
Image Courtesy of MassiveSoftware Official Youtube Channel
Massive
Weta’s crowd shots are done using Massive. The software allows the studio to simulate big crowds, traffic, and other similar background elements within a large environment. These assets are controlled through artificial intelligence so that they can act independently without needing to be manually controlled one by one. This saves more time for Weta, especially when working on sequences with a bustling environment.
Merging Reality with CG
Image Courtesy of Weta Digital Official Youtube Channel
Nuance
Weta uses Nuance to process Mocap data within its specialized Motion Edit department. Highly skilled Motion Edit artists are able to use all the mocap takes available and craft together performances based on the directors wishes. That motion is then passed on to the animation department to finesse certain parts like hands, ears and so on or to make performance changes that were not captured on stage.
Image Courtesy of 3DEqualizer Official Youtube Channel
3D Equalizer
Weta utilizes 3D Equalizer to do all the matchmoving in their shots. When making films available for viewing at cinemas in 3D, adding CG to live-action footage becomes more complicated due to the stereoscopic camera set-ups. 3D Equalizer is able to help Weta automatically calculate and solve the placement of their assets. Even with complex shots and camera movement, the effects can appear properly in 3D.
Simplified VFX Compositing and Rendering
Image Courtesy of Foundry Official Youtube Channel
Katana
Weta uses Katana for lighting their assets. Katana is able to quickly load project files, making it a great way to save time. The software provides the artists with previews of their lighting that’s close to the final rendered quality. With this, Weta doesn’t have to second-guess the changes they make as they control the lighting.
Image Courtesy of Foundry Official Youtube Channel
Nuke
Nuke is the compositing software that Weta uses. Weta’s projects are usually made up of at least a thousand assets. Nuke makes going through all these assets on the assembly line much easier. The software is capable of deep compositing which can automatically layer assets for a shot in the right order based on their deep data.
Within Nuke is a plug-in called Eddy. Eddy provides compositing artists with the ability to create and adjust volumetric effects during the compositing phase itself. When making changes to a smoke effect, for example, they’d usually have to bring the asset back to the FX artists for editing. With Eddy, Weta saves time since they no longer need to go backwards in the pipeline for last-minute changes.
Innovation from Within – Weta’s Streamlined Solutions
Although Weta continues to rely on commercially available software for their projects, they’ve also found ways to further speed up their work. Weta’s proprietary software was developed so they could create their models and visual effects in better detail through a more simplified process. Many of these software act as Maya plug-ins, which helps them integrate seamlessly with the other tools they’ve been working with.
Added Realism in Character Features and Movement
Image Courtesy of Weta Digital Official Youtube Channel
Tissue
Tissue is a Maya plug-in developed by Weta to run realistic simulations of skin and muscle movement. Traditionally, artists would add rigging and create deformations in their finished models to warp it and provide the illusion that it’s moving. Tissue does the opposite by having them build characters from the inside out and calculating how the skin and muscle would move in reality.
Wig
For hair and fur, Weta has Wig. It’s been used by the studio to design the many furry creatures of their projects and make them look convincingly real. Wig gives artists similar abilities to those of hairstylists during modeling. They can control each and every strand and style hair to their liking with ease.
Creating Vast Environments and Volumetric Effects in a Snap
Image Courtesy of Weta Digital
Lumberjack
Lumberjack is yet another Maya plug-in developed by Weta. It was designed to create models of trees and plants at a much quicker rate. Even with the process of sculpting trees being much more simplified, artists can still control details like branches and leaves. Not only does Lumberjack provide more artistic control, but it also makes sure that the models still appear realistic.
Image Courtesy of Weta Digital Official Youtube Channel
Totara
As Lumberjack could only handle one tree or plant at a time, Weta developed Totara to speed things up. Totara can grow entire forests through a simulation that follows natural growth patterns affected by competition-for-resources logic. Depending on obstacles within the virtual environment and how the simulated light hits the trees, the result differs across certain areas. This helps Weta create forested backgrounds both quickly and naturally.
Image Courtesy of Weta Digital
Synapse
Synapse is Weta’s own sparse volumetric solver. They use it to run simulations for water, fire, dust, smoke, and other particle effects. The benefit of Synapse is that it distributes the data over multiple machines. This means Weta can run the simulations across large-scale scenes without compromising quality.
Shorter Wait Times for Lighting and Rendering with Gazebo and Manuka
Weta uses Gazebo as a pre-lighting tool. It’s capable of lighting scenes and providing a preview that’s close to the final rendered quality. It’s also possible to block the light sources as if on a real-life film set. As a result, Weta can light their scenes with more predictability. For us animators especially it is very important to see how our animation looks with lighting, Gazebo bridges that gap perfectly.
Image Courtesy of Weta Digital
Manuka was developed to work in tandem with Gazebo. It’s a rendering software that can process huge amounts of data in much less time. Lighting that’s done in Gazebo can be seamlessly transferred into Manuka and appear almost exactly similar. This is thanks to both software having the same reflectance models that were based on real world lighting.
Behind the Movies you Know and Love
With all the impressive titles appearing in their filmography, it’s amazing to see how even the most fantastical of scenes were made possible thanks to computer software. Below you can check out some of their movies and how they used the software explained previously.
Avatar (2009)
Image Courtesy of Weta Digital
Avatar is considered a technological breakthrough in 3D film. The movie had huge data requirements in order to build its world and characters. Weta developed Mari to handle this and maintain the quality of painted textures even with close-ups. The film also made use of MotionBuilder to apply the movement of the actors to the character models.
Weta needed to integrate footage of real actors into big CG environments. Since they needed to prepare the VFX to make them viewable in 3D as well, 3D Equalizer helped Weta easily solve the matchmoving. The success of Avatar prompted more 3D films to be made afterward.
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
Image Courtesy of Weta Digital
Weta’s goal was to capture humanlike emotion while keeping the apes’ movement as close to reality. Maya and Wig were used to create the ape models. MotionBuilder was then used to translate human performance into ape anatomy. Weta then used Lumberjack and Totara to create the vines and forests that set up certain scenes.
Nuke was used for compositing which made it easier to manage the film’s assets, especially for battle sequences with many apes. The entire film was rendered in Manuka and saved Weta a lot of time.
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Image Courtesy of Weta Digital
Weta was in charge of the fight sequence set on Thanos’ destroyed planet. This required a lot of debris and dust. They used Houdini to create procedural workflows in preparation for creating the particle trails of the meteor animations. Synapse was then used to add simulations for the heat shield effects, fire, smoke and destruction.
The film was the first time Weta used Eddy in production. It was used to enhance atmospheric dust elements, Infinity stone effects, and the meteor trails. They also used it to create Dr. Strange’s mandala shield from scratch during compositing.
Conclusion
Weta pays great attention to detail in their VFX. However, production deadlines require them to work quickly. To maintain the quality they aim to deliver, Weta has to use industry-standard and proprietary software that could work both fast and well. If you’re interested in creating intricate and lifelike VFX like Weta, you may want to look deeper into these software that made it all possible.