Our partner studio CVD VFX was hired by ILM to deliver over 100 shots for the war movie 12 Strong where the story takes place in Afghanistan. While CVD was able to complete most of the work in comp, certain shots required custom CG explosions. During a period of 3 weeks, Stormborn Studios delivered 6 shots, some of which you can see in the video above. Our most challenging task was to simulate the big close-up explosion and additional elements to integrate it into the plate. Next to rendering a realistically looking beauty pass, we always add some AOVs to our volume renders. This allows comp to adjust the amount of light bleeding into the smoke form the fire, as well as adjusting the Sunlight and fill light intensity from the environment.
This project marked the beginning of a successful symbiosis between the two studios and lead to more collaborations shown in our portfolio.

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