Congrats to Exocortex for Harry Potter VFX

There is a good article online about Exocortex and the work they did using Slipstream VX for the last Harry Potter film. You can find it here.

Some excerpts:

The pool, known as the Pensieve to Harry Potter fans, contains an oillike liquid that sloshes around in its basin whenever someone gazes into it. While they had managed to make do with available tools in previous Harry Potter movies, this time around animators wanted the effects to be bigger, better and more realistic than ever before.

Houston, 32, sold the company a piece of specially designed software that mimics real world physics and helps to accurately create water digitally. The water special effect had taken Houston more than three years to perfect. The software tool was designed to work with Gradient’s existing special effects software.

“I went and further customized our software to meet the needs of the Harry Potter production,” said Houston, adding the experience has been “awesome.”

Animators at Gradient learned about Houston’s software from a review in a computer graphics magazine, he said.

 

Having written the magazine article in question, I couldn’t be happier for Exocortex. Good work, guys!