Our most freighting facial capture

With Halloween almost upon us, we decided to revisit some of our most ‘frightening’ facial capture projects. Great acting can really be spine-chilling – even in CG!

Our technology helped film directors and animators bring suspense and fear to their work by capturing the unique nuance of real acting performances. And no performance penetrates the senses more than authentic horror.

Dead Island CG trailer

The first Dead Island game was released in 2011 and saw players survive waves of zombies on an open world island. Deep Silver’s take on the zombie horde experience was noted for its visceral atmosphere and focus on melee weapons, something which raised the tension of the gameplay. This tension needed to be encapsulated within the game’s cinematic trailer.

Axis Studios was tasked with the creation of the trailer and opted for our facial capture technology to add a deeper level of realism to the character animations. With more than a decade passing, the trailer is still renowned for its unique approach to storytelling – the entire sequence plays out in reverse.

It has also been watched over 17 million times!

The project was a breakthrough for DI4D technology, serving as an example of the awesome fidelity possible with performance-driven facial animation.

IT Chapter 2

IT is one of horror’s most iconic monsters. The juxtaposition of play and terror remains one of the most effective story telling devices in the genre and Stephen King’s killer clown can be considered a benchmark villain for many writers. Chapter Two is the sequel to the 2017 film adaptation and stars Bill Skarsgård, who returns as Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

Rodeo FX took charge of the film’s VFX and our DI4D PRO and HMC systems were used by the studio to capture Bill’s performance for key Pennywise shots. The physical nature of Bill’s performance was a challenge, involving crawling like a spider while wearing the HMC. A final pick-up shoot took place at an audio recording facility in Stockholm, Sweden, where the DI4D HMC was used to record Bill’s final facial performances.

The PRO shoot took place at SIDE:LA in Los Angeles – originally intended as a test, the performance was used in the final film.

The Last of Us 2 trailer

The Last of Us Part II focuses on two playable characters in a post-apocalyptic United States whose lives intertwine: Ellie, who sets out for revenge after suffering a tragedy, and Abby, a soldier who becomes involved in a conflict with a religious cult.

We had the opportunity to work on the cinematic release trailer.

We provided 4D facial performance capture and processing services to MPC, the Moving Picture Company. Shooting on location at Rouge Studios in Los Angeles, both the DI4D PRO & HMC systems were used to produce the stunningly memorable trailer for one the most highly rated and popular games ever made.

A HMC was used to record Ellie and Abby’s facial performances during a motion capture session at Rouge’s mocap stage in Los Angeles. This allowed the facial performances and full-body motion all to be recorded simultaneously. The HMC was used during both the highly vigorous action scenes and the more subtle camp fire scenes.

In addition to the HMC shoot, we also brought our DI4D PRO system to Rouge and setup on location. This allowed us to spend the day shooting HMC scenes and follow up later in the day with a PRO session, capturing shapes, expressions and parts of the campfire for close-up work on the final trailer.

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