VFX secrets: uncovering the movie magic behind National Treasure: Book of Secrets.(VFX/Fluid Simulation)

In National Treasure: Book of Secrets from Walt Disney Studios and Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage), who descends from a family of treasure hunters, is after the ultimate find: a collection of riches first amassed by the Knights Templar and eventually hidden by the US Founding Fathers. But Gates is driven by more than fame and fortune. When a missing page from the diary of John Wilkes Booth surfaces, Ben's great-great-grandfather is suddenly implicated as a key conspirator in Abraham Lincoln's death. Determined to prove his ancestor's innocence. Ben and his friends and family--along with others who are less noble in their pursuit-follow an international chain of clues that take them on a chase from Paris to London and, ultimately, back to America.

Some of the clues are hidden well from sight, while others are hidden in plain sight. One clue leads m another, often in unique locations, with CGI making the locale look more exotic. The hunt leads to an underground location near Mount Rushmore. There. the group has to navigate a treacherous maze of rotted platforms and ladders above what appears to be a bottomless pit. Finally, they locate the treasure room filled with some of the world's most treasured objects and secrets. After surviving more perils, including a near-drowning experience, the heroes escape.

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Helping to establish the film's unbelievable locations and perilous situations was Los Angeles-based VFX and design company Asylum Visual Effects, which delivered an array of visual effects, from painting, to set extensions, to digital doubles, to building intricately detailed CG environments. In fact, from opening credit roll to final scene, Asylum created more than 700 seamless visual effects shots for the film using Side Effects Software's Houdini and Autodesk's Maya, Flame, and Lustre.

CG Thrills

In creating the effects, Asylum employed a multitude of techniques, including photorealistic CGI, matte paintings, compositing, and rotoscoping. The visual effects work ranged from a seamless transition from the Bruckheimer logo, to the opening shot of the soldiers coming home five days after the end of the Civil War, to complete environment replacements for one locale, the City of Gold.

Asylum's work ran the gamut from relatively simple wire removal to inventing full-blown CG environments, particularly in the sequences after Nicolas Cage's character and his team discover a hidden lake behind Mount Rushmore. To create the lake, Asylum incorporated shots of Mount Rushmore with shots of Sylvan Lake in South Dakota. The locations were 20 miles apart, so matching the lighting was critical, as was some environmental cleanup--removing all signs of civilization. including roads and the film crew, and adding the rocky backs of the presidents' heads.