When we see something explode on screen, we don’t always think about all the work that went into creating that scene. But of course, the amazing visual effects in today’s Hollywood blockbusters are often created by complex software programs.
Vancouver-based Cebas Visual Technology is a developer of visual effects software that has been getting major attention from top film producers in Hollywood. Cebas software, featured not only in movies, but also in games and architectural design, allows users to achieve “realistic, innovative and compelling visual effects that are scientifically accurate and engineered entirely based on physics.”
With a movie resume that includes Lost in Space, Black Hawk Down, Spiderman 3, Transformers 3, Green Lantern and 2012, Cebas is creating explosions everywhere these days. The company’s array of custom-made intelligent programs make fire, water, wind, and explosions not only appear real, but also “behave” like they are real on the big screen. Destruction takes a surprising amount of work to recreate, and teams of developers are employed to apply the laws of physics to three-dimensional models. (The company’s programs are designed to work with Autodesk’s industry standard 3D software programs 3ds Max and Maya.)
With 3D films ragingly popular, Cebas recently partnered with the Hollywood studio Pixel Magic to develop technology which easily converts 2D to 3D, drastically reducing both the time spent in conversion and the studio’s budget. This new, and yet to be named, software is already being used to convert the entire Harry Potter series of films to 3D.
While company owner Edwin Braun does not believe that a “button pressing program that converts a 2D [movie] to 3D” will ever be able to fully “reproduce missing bits that weren’t in the original image,” it is smart technology like this new program that makes Cebas a VFX pioneer and keeps major Hollywood studios knocking on their doors.
