Julianna Kolakis
Julianna Kolakis first worked on the look development of Christopher and little CJ with James as well as the look dev lead Joe Eveleigh, the lead lighter Robert Bourgeault, and later Anna Ivanova, the second texture artist who came aboard to help with maps for the aliens and other models. The artists all contributed to the character development gathering references and giving artistic feedback on how materials such as the skin, shells, and tentacles should look.
"There were 2026 texture maps for a variety of adult aliens (excluding clothes), and each model had 21 UV maps at 4096 pixels," explains Kolakis. "These maps included colors, bumps, displacements, various specs, wet specs, roughness, masks, multiple subsurface, and reflections for materials such as the shell, skin, eyes, fur, bruising, blood, dirt, dust, war paint, and stickers.
"A lot of the textures were first painted in ZBrush and then brought into Photoshop for editing. This way I could quickly polypaint a simple pattern and export all maps for the body. I'd make the necessary changes to one map in Photoshop for filtering, adding color, photo details, etc, and apply the same adjustment layers to the rest of the body maps easily. I used my first maps as a template for all the others, just plugging in colors or masks to make the appropriate adjustments. More variations were created by inverting patterns and colors, diversifying war paint and stickers as well as changing clothes."
There was room for conceptualizing a few more things such as wounds, eye colors, and alien patterns. The faces were changed based on a few ideas from James. He had a great sense of how the face should look and feel, and came up with a new concept focusing on a more insect-like appearance- one with more shells and less skin than originally. Following his sculpt the team fleshed out a 2D concept which got approval from Neil right away.
MoCap
Ultimately all the mocap was refined to background aliens and specific key moment of alien behavior. and the animators added ticks and sped up some of the subtle movements to make them seem like aggressive seven foot insect like creatures. Animation Supervisor Steve Nichols had a deja vu moment when he saw the plates and there were the gray suits that he was familiar with on 'Pirates'. They were helpful to get the performance and interaction Neill wanted with the actors and aliens. One main actor, Jason Cope, put on the unforgiving gray suit for the performance scenes involving interaction between CGI and live action actors. He focused on Christopher Johnson's character. The Animation Team would try to get as much of his nuances and character ticks from the plate and then 'alienize' the performance to make if feel less like a guy in a suit.
Rotomation was mainly used for some of Christopher Johnson's performance. Jason or another actor was in the plate for keying the actor/alien moments. This kept the relationship and timing of the live action actors performance to the alien.
Keyframe
Many of the alien scenes and all of Little CJ was just straight keyframed by a small talented team of animators.
The Aliens had a fantastic bipedal rig that also had many cool alien appendages. They used simulations in Maya for the tentacles and the Lead, Jeremy Mesana created great tools to get the most from the rigs quickly. Antennae drag and cycles for the alien appendages. The Facial rigs were based on the muscles of a human face. It was a joint based system that transferred from one alien to another, so the team stored facial poses in a central server for general use. This would keep the expressions 'on model'. The eyes were a key part of the face for nailing the performance.
"I relied heavily on my team's abilities," explained Nicholls. "We discovered how Neill wanted the aliens to move. They couldn't look like guys in suits and they couldn't be too fantastical either, as the film is set in a very gritty, real world. We found we could use a subtle naturalistic motion and then add ticks and hyper shifts in the motion that an actor can't do. This kept it real but also something cool. The team was small, nine to 12 and then 16 at the peak. We knew we were working on something special so we all put our heart into it!"
Budget
Image-Engine managed to maximise the budget they had available through a combination of 'getting Neill's vision' and making that vision work within the budget that was available, with British Columbia's tax incentives for Vancouver VFX houses. "The important thing to remember was that we had a business to run and we knew if we couldn't make totally brilliant VFX with whatever budget there was, we were doomed to go under," admits Peter Muyzers. "It is important at all times to ensure that the business model is a solid one, and this was the case with Neill's project. There was very little 'excess' money available on the 'District 9' project."
The team made a point of separating themselves from what definitely could not be done and what could. "Neill had a great knowledge of what was possible, for instance we stayed away from cloth synth, which is expensive," explains Muyzers. "We were advising even before we started shooting on the approach, and Neill was very comfortable with that."
Peter Jackson's involvement was definitely a cache for recruiting the best for the project. People had not heard of Neill Blomkamp, but they had definitely heard of Peter Jackson. But the story holds some very pertinent issues for the world situation today. Set in real-world, gritty environments, top line crew became interested because they respected Neill's vision.
Peter draws the parallel to the feeling at ESC during the production of the 'Matrix'. Cool ideas, top VFX, great results from each department, a 'similar buzz' around the studio, which was great to be a part of.
On Set
Peter Muyzers had on-set VFX Supervision experience while working at Moving Picture Company in London on the 'Harry Potter' series and many other projects. He knew that he had to make sure what was brought back to the studio, could be used to its maximum edge, for the production. Because Neill knew a great amount of what was possible, Peter Muyzers could be almost invisible to the camera, talent and direction on set. "They could pretty much go on shooting 360 degrees what was needed and the HDRIs, texture plates and lighting maps could be generated on the go, despite the environment also being extremely harsh," says Muyzers.
BC Advantage
Vancouver's VFX and film industry is going through a 'transformation' at the moment. Peter Muyzers sees similarities to London's VFX 'coming of age', obviously many years ago now. "'Lost in Space' was being worked on by many studios in London at the time," says Muyzers. "The thing that time did in London was it made various companies work together, taking on this one big project. Competition kind of disappeared and everyone pulled together to make this film happen. On 'District 9' here in Vancouver, the same thing is occurring. With three Vancouver houses working on it, egos had to be set aside to final each shot. This is working at the moment, and I hope it continues to happen on consequent productions. Although as far as I know Neill isn't a 'franchise' kind of guy, not into doing sequels like 'District 10', 'District 11' etc, this certainly isn't the last you heard from him by a long shot."
By my reckoning, this isn't the last we're going to hear from Image-Engine either.
