#ALIEN SPECIAL EFFECTS ANDROID#

#ALIEN SPECIAL EFFECTS ANDROID#

The way he's just covered in android blood. A great touch is how the head falls over and they try to 'steady' it, before it's 'replaced' by the actor's head.

His robo-guts have been torn out, we have no idea what the hell they are or what they do, but it all works. Look at this scene of Ash's freaky android robot head. The cinematography and just the look of practical effects in Alien and Aliens is just so fucking good it holds up literally decades after release. Denton-Howes also wrote a sophisticated proprietary asset management system dubbed “Jabuka” to handle the entire scope of computer-generated 3D elements created at Image Engine.Why are we still in an age of choosing digital effects over practical effects? This included complex high-resolution builds for the alien mother ship and various other vehicles. Under the manic, genius leadership of an understanding and passionate director, the team realized – both professionally and personally – the exceptional opportunity this film presented.”Īsset Lead Nigel Denton-Howes developed hard surface computer-generated assets. “I found the team at Image Engine to be an amazingly talented group of resourceful wizards. “District 9 was an incredible experience for me as an animation supervisor,” says Nichols. Motion capture services were provided by Vancouver based Animatrik Film Design and Motion Capture Supervisor Brett Ineson. “ District 9,” says Stewart, “is a cumulative result of Image Engine’s investment in a film pipeline and the efforts of the supervisors on the crew, many of whom are Canadians that have longstanding international experience, returning to work in Canada on a high-end feature.” Ultimately, the creature build grew to feature some 50 or more discrete aliens.Īnimation of the alien characters was accomplished using a combination of key-frame, motion capture and roto-mation techniques. Image Engine produced three main characters in the film, as well as a general population of aliens all with specific characteristics related to their back-story in keeping with the film’s documentary shooting style. Image Engine’s creatures were based on a conceptual design provided by Weta Workshop, who worked with Blomkamp during pre-production based in Wellington, New Zealand. “Neill’s truly original take on the alien myth is guaranteed to leave audiences astounded.” “We are simply ecstatic about helping Neill achieve his wildly creative vision on this project,” says Shawn Walsh, Visual Effects Executive Producer. In addition, Image Engine developed the alien mother ship, digital helicopters and digital Casspir troop carriers, as well as delivering miscellaneous shots with computer-generated gore and compositing tasks.īlomkamp approached Image Engine to take on the alien work based on the studio’s strong film visual effects pipeline, highly regarded R&D department and reputation for handling complex creature work for such past projects as “Slither” and “Kingdom Hospital”.

Image Engine’s workload focused the studio’s efforts on creating 100% digital aliens that populate an area of Soweto, South Africa known as “District 9”.

Alien special effects