Autodesk Media & Entertainment
The talented team at Chromatica VFX used the Golaem plug-in for Maya to populate complex battle scenes with dynamic digital characters for L’Abbaglio, a 2025 film set during Giuseppe Garibaldi’s 1860 campaign that reunified Italy.
Please introduce yourself and the studio.
My name is Mattia Donelli, and I am a crowd technical director at Chromatica, a visual effects studio based in Rome, founded in 2009. The studio has a longstanding association with art-house cinema and TV series and has won multiple David di Donatello awards for Best Digital Effects for our work on Il Divo, La Grande Bellezza, and Pinocchio.
Tell us about your team and the work you did on this project.
Our six-person team, led by VFX Supervisor Massimo Cipollina, tackled crowd simulation and integration for L’Abbaglio. Francesco Zecchinelli served as both CG supervisor and lighting artist. I was responsible for the simulation settings, agent behaviors, and scene integration, with support from Giovanni Tosatto, who oversaw asset implementation and framing iterations. Elisa Petrelli cleaned mocap animation and created cycle-based 3D animation, while Roberto Battelli contributed to the development of the final look and lighting.
How many shots did you work on, and what types of shots were they?
There were 44 shots of marching and battle scenes, both on land and at sea, containing a wide variety of animations performed by our 3D characters. Below is a scene with more than 30 different animations replicating the actions of the extras.
What were the key challenges and technical features of the shots?
The main challenge was managing the large number of unique shots within a limited timeframe—about three months. In the first few weeks, we implemented an AI motion capture tool into our pipeline. The AI mocap played a crucial role, helping us create more than 90 animation takes for the crowd scenes.
How many characters are there in the shots? How close are they to the camera?
The most populated shot featured a battle between the Bourbon army and the Garibaldians, with more than 1,000 CG extras. Another particularly challenging scene had characters positioned very close to the camera, requiring animation that synchronized seamlessly with the live-action actors. For this, we used Golaem to mix multiple animation takes, triggering them at different times to maintain realistic interactions.
Did you have to replace or match real extras with Golaem characters?
We designed the digital characters based on the costumes worn by the live-action actors. For the Bourbon army, there were slight variations in uniform designs, while for the Garibaldi army, we created a greater variety in clothing, assets, and facial features.
Did you integrate FX with Golaem characters? What was your workflow for integration with FX?
For certain close-up shots where clothing needed to appear more natural, we used PhysX to improve cloth simulation quality without making the scenes too heavy. The ocean simulation under the boats was done using Houdini and rendered with Arnold in Maya. For this workflow, each boat was animated individually, and crowd simulations were grouped and synchronized with boat movements. The FX team simulated smaller ocean sections where the boats were positioned, optimizing rendering and simulation times.
How did the Layout tool help speed up production?
I believe the Layout tool is the most powerful feature within Golaem. Using it, we created a cache library containing every simulation of the various animation takes. This allowed us to adapt quickly to the needs of different shots, make adjustments without modifying the main cache, and easily implement last-minute director requests or corrections.
What part of the project are you most proud of?
We are especially proud of the crowd caches we created. Some were extremely challenging due to their length, the number of characters, and the variety of animations included in a single shot.
Anything else you’d like to add?
We’d like to express our gratitude to the Golaem team, who were always available to support us. This film represents our best crowd work to date, combining everything we’ve learned from our past experiences.
Looking to try Autodesk Golaem? Get powerful artist-friendly crowd simulation, character animation, and layout tools with, now available exclusively in the Media & Entertainment Collection.
Watch the official trailer for L’Abbaglio here.