Peter Jackson's Academy Award Winning Film King Kong produced a lot of challenges for the team at Weta Digital, LTD. Releasing an enormous angry ape in 1930's down town New York allowed for a lot of destruction. Everything the ape destroyed was to become an extension of the scene, and not simply an effect. Spearheaded by Destruction Supervisor Gray Horsfield, the “Bomb Squad” an elite group of destruction artists was put together to handle the multitude of destruction shots. With King Kong's complexity, it immediately became apparent the need for a different approach to designing destruction shots.

“In my career, I have taken a focus on CG destruction related technology.", said Gray. "Traditionally this has been a technology heavy corner of the trade. Typically the bulk of the work is in wrangling large dynamic systems, managing data flow of complex events and mastering the procedural cracking and destruction of CG geometry. With all this technology focus, in the past the challenge has been in trying to maintain the artistry in the shots.”

For it's more artistic approach to destruction, Blast Code was used as the backbone for the demolition production pipeline. Blast Code eliminated the needs to understand dynamic systems and fracture methods. It allowed the artists to focus on the destruction performance.

Gray went on to say, “I've been working with Blast Code for the past six months and I've been impressed with how much time I've had to design and sculpt destruction shots, formerly this was time spent managing the data pipeline for complex systems. thanks to blast code, the focus is now back on the artist to create impressive events, where it belongs.”  

The artistic approach requires a lot of flexibility. The primary idea is isolate the artist from dealing with the dynamics system, and then place the creativity on the performance. Blast Codes open design allowed for the integration of additional tools. Inherit to the design, is its interface flexibility.

Mark Davies, Destruction TD “We have been working with Blast Code and it has proven itself to be a very flexible and capable package. It has a wide range of applications from glass shatter simulations to full destruction of sets. The product scales well and it's ease of use gives a great degree of freedom.”

King Kong went on to win 3 Academy Awards including Best Visual Effects. Blast Code Inc. would like congratulate all the people at Weta Digital for their incredible work, and the award is greatly deserved.

Blast Code, Inc. is located in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. The company specializes in animated destruction for simulation and entertainment. To learn more about Blast Code products and services, please contact Scott Davis at (775) 552-1300 x926.

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