The layered shading system that has been the standard of choice at ILM for a number of years, Lama (short for LAyered MAterials) is now commercially available across the visual effects and animation industries, and writing over at ILM.com, Lucas Seastrom delves into how the system has developed over the last decade, from concept right up to Lama winning ILM’s 39th Scientific and Technical Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
“The way Lama decomposes material responses is akin to the historical bespoke shader solutions for different materials, but the glue is now something that an artist can apply instead of an engineer,” explains Mazzone. “The engineering job is to provide all of the building blocks that might be needed, and the artists can make new additions themselves. This is Lama’s true strength. It employs an infrastructure that conserves energy across material layers. We had experimented with this in the past, but not in a way that allowed general arbitrary layering. This commitment to automatic physically-inspired energy conservation while rearranging components is what has made this tool so flexible and useful.”
Starting as an incubator project at ILM’s London studio in 2016, by mid-2017 Lama was already being used in productions. Disney’s Aladdin (2019) was the first to receive full Lama deployment to great success, and later, Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) resulted in the tool’s deployment throughout the wider network of ILM’s studios. “Any film that includes CG elements from our main-line pipeline – hero creatures, crowds and environments – has been 100% powered by Lama since 2019,” Mazzone notes. That includes episodic series like The Mandalorian, Skeleton Crew, Andor, and many of the Marvel shows. All main-line assets at ILM now go through Lama.”
