Image Engine Masters Rotoscope & Paint Elements on Avatar: The Last Airbender

The artists at Vancouver-based Image Engine know how to bend the limits of visual effects. The team, which consisted of 225 members in multiple departments, spent around 10 months working on Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender. They contributed to 309 shots over the 8-episode season and completed over 700 paint and roto tasks with the help of Boris FX Silhouette. Their cross-realm efforts have led the studio to an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Season Or A Movie.

Much like the series’ trio of friends Aang, Katara, and Sokka — Carlos Conceição, Head of BG Prep, and BG Prep Leads Jared Hasslebach and Jerrod Tan (who both grew up as huge fans of the original animated Nickelodeon series) — teamed up to conquer extensive roto and paint obstacles. Follow their VFX journey, in their own words, below.

Jerrod Tan (left) and Jared Hasselbach (right) present the BG Prep team with awards for a job well done on the project. 

We worked on at least one sequence in almost every episode of the series, some of the most challenging being:

• The opening scene in episode 1 features a chase sequence between an Earthbender spy and Fire Nation Troops
• The attack on Kyoshi Island and the appearance of the iconic Avatar Kyoshi in episode 2
• The heartbreaking flashback to Fire Lord Sozin battling Monk Gyatso
• Fourteen-year-old Katara challenges Pakku to a fight in episode 7

Credit: Image Engine VFX and Netflix

Rotoscoping Across Earth

Bringing Aang’s world to life required very large amounts of roto to help integrate digital set extensions, add effects to the environment, and create interactive lighting on the characters.

Episode 7 features the Katara/Pakku fight sequence, shot extensively over volume stages (a larger and encompassing LED volume rig set on a sound stage that projects a 3D environment). This translated to detailed rotoscoping of any actors, their items, props, and finer costumes crossing over the volume screens. It was no easy feat considering the amount of fur and hair blown around by on-set fans. Some shots needed thousands of splines in Silhouette.

For the BG Prep team at Image Engine, roto and frame-by-frame paint are the most important skills we depend on in Silhouette in BG Prep. 

Credit: Image Engine VFX and Netflix

One of the biggest challenges we faced was the diversity of cameras and shutter angles used on set, which, combined with very creative retimes done in editorial, caused us to have to match a variety of motion blurs on a per-shot basis. Our solid strategy of sticking to a consistent spline placement that follows a real understanding of photography (no hard edge roto nonsense) allowed us to use the generated retime curves to drive the shutter/phase in Silhouette to perfectly match the motion blur of these dynamic retimes every single frame.

Mocha Pro inside of Silhouette is a fundamental tool we use to translate movement in general. Sometimes, using it feels like a cheat code. Especially when working with so much hair, it's essential to have a good general track for an area to keep all those splines moving together happily. 

Silbouette’s RotoOverlay tool is a great new addition that helped our crew with spline alignment and motion blur review to match those soft and hard edges perfectly. Looking at the plates through workable trackers generated by the Mocha integration helped us review shots at an almost effortless pace, especially on rotoscope shots with what seemed to be never-ending amounts of fur.

Credit: Image Engine VFX and Netflix

Invisible Paint Effects

Though rotoscope-heavy, Avatar: The Last Airbender was equally a paint-heavy show. It required a rig, camera crew, body doubles/stunt actors, practical LED palm lights for the fire benders, even stand-in creatures (actual chickens were used during filming, to be replaced with the Chickums), and various other on-set props that needed our hands to give the creators more creativity-freedom to remain faithful. 

Silhouette provided the efficiency needed and real-time playback for raster painting these complicated tasks whereas a more traditional tracked patches approach would prove very time-consuming and lacking accuracy.

Credit: Image Engine VFX and Netflix

As mentioned earlier, this project had several retime shots. Notably used in action sequences, which were many, and where Silhouette has played another significant role.

Retime in film is the process of skipping or interpolating frames, resulting in the illusion of a change of speed. The interpolation of frames in an optical approach results in distortion/corruption of the plate (broken pixels, distorted images, out-of-crop bleeding). We often refer to these broken imageries as retime artifacts. This requires us to fix the distortion whilst maintaining as much of the look and feel of the original footage as possible. Nothing can tackle these types of tasks like Silhouette, with the ability to reference other frames and plates and cache these changes so quickly and nicely. Unfortunately, this was done before the new Retime ML node was released (June 2024), which could have saved us tremendous effort.

Credit: Image Engine and Netflix

In conclusion, Boris FX Silhouette has been key to our tackling and delivering the sizable amount of work Image Engine had for Avatar: The Last Airbender. With sudden pivots on deadlines and priorities that keep us on our toes, it's crucial for us to have robust and extensive tools and functions that help us work quickly and stay relevant. 

The BG Prep team at a gathering in the Image Engine office.  Fourteen members contributed to Avatar: The Last Airbender.

We appreciate Boris FX’s openness to engage with industry users and their willingness to adapt, refine, and finesse the software. It has helped us innovate and create stunning visuals that continue to push the boundaries of artist creativity and efficiency.

“I'm beyond thrilled by our Emmy nomination. This achievement highlights the exceptional talent and dedication of our team. Bringing the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender to life was a unique challenge that demanded creativity and precision,” ends Thomas Schelesny, VFX Supervisor. “It’s a recognition of the countless hours of hard work and innovation poured into capturing the essence of this popular series. I'm incredibly proud of what we've accomplished together and grateful to see our efforts celebrated on such a renowned stage. Congratulations, and thank you to everyone on the team!” 

Watch Avatar: The Last Airbender — streaming now on Netflix

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For more information, read Image Engine’s Avatar: The Last Airbender case study.