Devastating effects. (broadcast).(Riot creates tornado for Smallville TV show)

Powerful results can materialize by blending computer animation, visual effects, miniatures, matte paintings, and live action. Using this formula, digital artists at Riot (Los Angeles) conjured up a trio of tornadoes that devastates a stretch of farmland in the season-ending episode of Smallville, which re-aired in September.

The tornado sequence occurs after Lana Lang, a friend of the Kansas teenager who would one day become Superman, drives her pickup truck off the road. At first she is awestruck to see three thin tornadoes twisting across nearby farmland. But awe quickly turns to fear as the clouds converge and become one single, mammoth mass of wind and debris. Lang retreats to her vehicle just as young Clark Ken appears. As the storm lifts the truck into the air, Kent rescues her.

Ironically, rain dampened most of the season's shooting schedule, but on the day of the tornado shoot, it was warm and sunny. To create the illusion of dark, stormy skies, the digital artists used Discreet's inferno to replace the blue skies and soft cumulus clouds that appear in the raw production footage with menacing thunder clouds. "We also darkened the rest of the footage, replaced shadows, and adjusted the lighting to make it consistent with the violence suggested by the wind machine used on location," say Don Greenberg, Riot's supervising visual effects compositor.

Greenberg then ...