Deadpool Opening CG Action Sequence Rendered Using NVIDIA Quadro GPUs
Computers have long been used in Hollywood to add special effects to movies, but the level of realism that can be achieved with today's technology is nothing short of astounding. Keep that in mind when you go watch Deadpool, and in particular pay close attention to the 90-second title sequence.
From start to finish, that entire scene was created in CG (computer graphics). As you might imagine, some serious graphics horsepower is required for that amount of detail and realism, and NVIDIA is quick to point out that its Maxwell-based Quadro M6000 GPUs did the bulk of the heavy lifting (from a hardware perspective). They were part of a series of HP Z840 workstations that CG artists from Blur Studios had access to.
"The power of GPU rendering combined with the speed and real-time interactivity of the HP workstations equipped with M6000s allowed us to consider rendering things we wouldn't have been able to do before," said Kevin Margo, a visual effects supervisor and director at Blur Studios. "It made the process so much easier and more efficient."
NVIDIA's GPUs were key in greenlighting that opening sequence. It started with what's known in the industry as a previz, or previsualization. These previews of the finished product are often rudimentary with simplified models, lighting, and textures, and that can make it difficult for clients to imagine what the finished product might look like.
To make this particular previz as compelling as possible, Blur Studios built assets from the ground up using Autodesk 3ds Max. Those assets were then rendered using Chaos Group's GPU renderer, V-Ray RT, which only runs on NVIDIA GPUs and is up to 15 percent faster than a CPU renderer.
In a matter of days, the previz was finished, and because of the high level of detail it was pretty easy for executives at Fox to see what the intended sequence would look like and ultimately greenlight the project.
Cool stuff.
From start to finish, that entire scene was created in CG (computer graphics). As you might imagine, some serious graphics horsepower is required for that amount of detail and realism, and NVIDIA is quick to point out that its Maxwell-based Quadro M6000 GPUs did the bulk of the heavy lifting (from a hardware perspective). They were part of a series of HP Z840 workstations that CG artists from Blur Studios had access to.
"The power of GPU rendering combined with the speed and real-time interactivity of the HP workstations equipped with M6000s allowed us to consider rendering things we wouldn't have been able to do before," said Kevin Margo, a visual effects supervisor and director at Blur Studios. "It made the process so much easier and more efficient."
NVIDIA's GPUs were key in greenlighting that opening sequence. It started with what's known in the industry as a previz, or previsualization. These previews of the finished product are often rudimentary with simplified models, lighting, and textures, and that can make it difficult for clients to imagine what the finished product might look like.
To make this particular previz as compelling as possible, Blur Studios built assets from the ground up using Autodesk 3ds Max. Those assets were then rendered using Chaos Group's GPU renderer, V-Ray RT, which only runs on NVIDIA GPUs and is up to 15 percent faster than a CPU renderer.
In a matter of days, the previz was finished, and because of the high level of detail it was pretty easy for executives at Fox to see what the intended sequence would look like and ultimately greenlight the project.
Cool stuff.
