Markus Manninen (VFX Supervisor DreamWorks) answers quetions on the CG Society web site about Kung Fu Panda. On the third page he explains how they used Vue as part of their production...
A lot of our large locations went through a process where the world was created roughly in a software called Vue (e-onsoftware) by our matte painting lead Scott Brisbane. Then the renders out of that were painted on by our matte painters to define the finished detail and push the look and lighting further than what was done in Vue. The final matte paintings were then projected back on geometry by our matte painting compositors and rendered on the farm. Initially we used Maya for rendering, but late in the project we were able to switch to our own renderer.
Kung Fu Panda, directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne and produced by Melissa Cobb, premièred at the 61st Cannes Film Festival in May 2008 and has taken $117 million at the US box office in its first two weeks. Its the tale of a bungling panda who wants to be a kung fu warrior. Kung Fu Panda stars the voices of Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu, Seth Rogen, David Cross and Ian McShane.
