Wellington's Weta Digital computer graphics workshop is launching a working group aimed at bringing advanced research together with movie production.
The new group, Transfx, is headed by Sebastian Sylwan, who has joined Weta as head of research and development, Variety Magazine reported today.
Sylwan was most recently senior industry manager for film and television at United States software developer Autodesk, where he led work on stereoscopic 3-D.
Weta is already working on an innovative 3-D movie, James Cameron's Avatar, as well as Steven Spielberg's Tintin.
Transfx will be partly funded by the Government but mostly by Weta, Sylwan said.
But a Weta executive in Wellington, David Wright, told NZPA that there had not been any formal approval of a Government contribution to the project.
Weta's team writing computer programmes for visual effects will expand to about 20 people -- including advanced computer graphics researchers and students -- and about half of them will be recruited specifically for the new work.
Sylwan told Variety that the goal was to get computer graphics "closer to reality while maintaining artistic control".
Many visual effects were cobbled together with improvised solutions that looked good in that "shot" but couldn't be re-used on other shots, Sylwan said.
Transfx would look to find techniques that could be applied more generally in things such as simulations of fire and water.
The group would also work on speeding up rendering and on digital capture.
The Transfx group would work directly on Weta's films, including Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones.
