X-Men: Dark Phoenix VFX Breakdown by MPC Film

X-Men: Dark Phoenix VFX Breakdown by MPC Film

MPC, Check out this VFX breakdown from Director Simon Kinberg’s “X-Men: Dark Phoenix” (2019).

Dark Phoenix (also known as X-Men: Dark Phoenix) is a 2019 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics X-Men characters, produced by 20th Century Fox and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is the twelfth installment of the X-Men film series, and the sequel to 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse. The film is written and directed by Simon Kinberg.

MPC was the lead facility on X-Men Dark Phoenix and delivered over 660 shots, with a team of over 1,500 artists.

MPC VFX SUPERVISOR: GREG BUTLER

X-Men team member Jean Grey’s dark powers come to the surface and begin to corrupt her from the inside out, as she transforms into the Dark Phoenix. The final X-Men film made under 20th Century Fox discovers whether the team will sacrifice their friend in turn for the salvation of mankind.

Subsequent to Director Simon Kinberg’s vision of a character driven film, MPC’s work on Dark Phoenix was an enhancement and complement to the performances, with the film staying true to the comic book storyline

MPC was the lead facility on the project and delivered over 660 shots, though they worked on many more. Over 1,350 out of the 1,700 shots have a visual effects component. With a team of over 1,500 artists, they created all of the X-Men digital doubles and supplied them to other VFX vendors. The project was led out of MPC Montreal, where the filming was done. MPC Bangalore did a lot of asset, compositing and other 2D work while MPC London did some of the key asset design work. There was also support from the MPC art department in Los Angeles for key periods of the design process.

Headed by MPC VFX Supervisor Greg Butler, one of the key aspects of the Dark Phoenix’s appearance was the crack pattern portrayed across her face; the team first focused on the cheeks, forehead and hands but used these zones for semi-random placement. The patterns were then projected onto the Dark Phoenix model, allowing the transferring of animations and patterns from shot to shot with a high level of continuity. MPC then looked to create an animation that caused the cracks to open and close using polylines for definition and animation stored in their points.

When character Dazzler made her debut on screen, the scene became a dreamy, peaceful, rhythmic particle show. While filming, a set of controlled lights shone on the actors, and set a base for the ideas that the team at MPC used to create their designs on. In other noteworthy shots, MPC built a strong relationship between special and visual effects when Jean pulls down the military helicopter. In creating a rig that allowed complete control with the blades off and the engine out, visual effects were used in putting the blades back on and creating a dusty result.

 

Source: MPC Film

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