Technologies used in “Avatar” Movie

Writer-director James Cameron is making another cinema history with the breathtaking new 3D technology in his latest sensation “Avatar” which has swept the world with more surprises giving a new dimension to the world of cinema. Cameron developed this new technology that could finally revolutionize the film making by getting the 3D and the CGI to new heights while mixing the real footage and the motion-captured CGI in an immersive 3D technology. A brief review of the technologies used by the director that powered some of the most stunning effects of the movie is given below:

Performance Capture by CGI

Cameron has used the Computer generated imagery (CGI) extensively in Avatar

. Though he has already been using it since his earlier movies days like Terminator2: Judgment Day, and Total Recall, but in Avatar he specifically used a novel technique called “image-based facial performance capture” that required actors to wear some special headgears already equipped with camera. As the actors performed, the camera transmitted facial movements that were put on the virtual characters. This made the movements of the body back to a connected array of systems which acted out their scenes on a ‘performance capture’ stage six times bigger than anything that was ever used earlier in the industry. This resulted in an amazingly emotional authenticity by the movie characters. The movie’s footage was built from around 70% CGI including its female lead.

Digital Animation

All the movie’s animations were rendered by Weta Digital, the digital-effects studio of Peter Jackson, and a huge team of the artists were constantly working for over a year to transfer the renderings to the photo-realistic images. Every minute detail was taken care of, by rendering every tree, leaf or even rock individually with the most innovative methods in rendering, lighting and shading that used over a petabyte (1000 terabytes) of hard disk storage.

Cameron pioneered a specially designed camera built into a 6-inch boom that allowed the facial expressions of the actors to be captured and digitally recorded for the animators to use later. 

The virtual camera system in use on the set of the film. The motion-capture stage known as "The Volume" can be seen in the background.

Reference :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_%282009_film%29#Visual_effects