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GenArts Sapphire Brings "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" Character to Life

Visual Effects Artists Rely on State-of-the-Art Software to Put a Face to the Name "Diamond Girl"

GenArts Inc., the leading provider of specialized digital visual effects software for the film, television and video industries, today announced that its state-of-the-art visual effects software GenArts Sapphire(TM) was used to create the "Diamond Girl" character in this month's blockbuster "X-Men Origins: Wolverine." The much-anticipated feature film is the latest movie to leverage Sapphire for high-quality visual effects that capture the imagination of audiences worldwide.

Full-service visual effects house Hydraulx used Sapphire to create a look for Diamond Girl that resonated with the studio, 20th Century Fox. "Millions of Marvel Comics fans hold an image of Diamond Girl in their minds, and it was up to us to bring that image to life on screen," said Eric Liles, 15-year industry veteran and Visual Effects Supervisor at Hydraulx. "Sapphire was a huge enhancement to our productivity and our ability to manage such a complex project."

While all the characters required vision and artistic talent to come to life, Diamond Girl proved the biggest challenge. Emma Frost (aka Diamond Girl) possesses the ability to transform her skin and hair into diamonds at will. As Diamond Girl, she acts as a shield for her allies by deflecting bullets, while glimmering and refracting light like a diamond. Hydraulx artists created an entire virtual girl in 3-D, but after several revisions, they still felt she lacked something. The 2-D department at Hydraulx used Sapphire plug-ins for Autodesk's Flame system to provide the glints and glares that perfected the artists' vision of the dynamic character. This freed their expensive 3-D resources to work on other aspects of the project.

"GenArts is used throughout Hollywood for the development of state-of-the-art visual effects," said Steve Bannerman, Chief Marketing Officer at GenArts. "From summer blockbusters such as 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' to Oscar winners like 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,' our technology is peppered throughout the entertainment industry. GenArts proudly works with Hydraulx to help tell the X-Men 'story' through visual effects."

The gold standard for visual effects, GenArts Sapphire equips digital artists with a collection of more than 200 state-of-the-art image processing and synthesis effects such as glows, glints, lightning, FilmEffect, warps and textures. Over the last 13 years, Sapphire has become the plug-in suite of choice for production compositors and editors who require the perfect balance between creativity and productivity. Sapphire is used extensively and by a broad range of artists and editors in the production and post-production of feature films, broadcast television, commercial advertising and music videos. Sapphire has the distinction of having been a key component of an Academy award-nominated film for the past 12 consecutive years.

Click for more details on Hydraulx's use of Sapphire in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine." ("X-Men Origins: Wolverine" images courtesy of Hydraulx and 20th Century Fox.)

GenArts and Entertainment

Throughout the entertainment industry, GenArts technology is found in Oscar-winning blockbusters to the best in primetime broadcast and commercials. The company's technology has been used extensively to create an array of amazing effects for projects such as: "Iron Man," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"; "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"; "The Hulk"; "Spider-Man 1, 2 and 3"; "The Chronicles of Narnia"; "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy; "Star Wars - Episode I, II and III"; "Sin City"; "The Matrix" trilogy; "X-Men 1, 2 and 3"; "Titanic"; "Lost" and "CSI". Click for a list of GenArts credits or to experience GenArts demo reels.

About GenArts

GenArts, Inc. is the premier provider of specialized digital visual effects for the film, broadcast and video industries. The GenArts Sapphire, Monsters and Raptors portfolio equips digital artists with a collection of state-of-the-art image processing and synthesis effects such as: glows, light rays, lens flares, lightning, film damage, fire and fluid effects. The effects seamlessly integrate as software plug-ins into leading editing and compositing systems from Adobe, Apple, Avid, Autodesk, Assimilate, Eyeon, FilmLight, The Foundry, Quantel and SGO. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. www.genarts.com.