Plus, the challenge of realizing the color RED on screen.
Today on the befores & afters podcast, I’m joined by Wētā FX VFX supervisor Dan Cox and animation supervisor Sidney Kombo-Kintombo, who break down in a lot of detail all the challenges in bringing Red Hulk in Captain America: Brave New World to life. A couple of really interesting things they mention include the fact that Wētā FX actually took the original Marvel design for Red Hulk and re-modeled and sculpted it to have more Harrison Ford traits, especially the eyes. Wētā FX had to find ways to distinguish between previous versions of the green Hulk from past films – where that character was like a gorilla, their red Hulk was originally more like a bear, and then a honey badger in how relentless it became.
It was also the first time Ford has ever done some motion capture on a film, although ultimately the red Hulk was one of the most keyframed characters done in a long time at the studio. Wētā FX looked to a real bodybuilder brought in for reference to see specifically how the muscles would move. It was the first film in which the VFX studio used its Loki state machine for muscle simulation. They also built a new muscle set for their generic ‘gen-man’ to accommodate more define muscle fibers. The result was a lot of detail and a lot less shot-sculpting – only around 7% of the final shots.
Another fun thing the pair share is about transformations of Harrison Ford’s character into red Hulk – Weta FX developed all kinds different approaches include breaking bones and skin…just in case they were needed in the film, although it was ultimately a little more subtle than that. Finally we talk about the challenges of realizing a red character on screen, even to the point of giving accurate red color details to Legacy Effects which made a reference bust of red Hulk for shooting.
Check out the podcast above, and this progression of images showcasing the work, and a breakdown video.
