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www.postmagazine.com 6 POST JUNE 2017 BITS & PIECES FRAMESTORE BURSTS INTO NEW TERRITORIES FOR ALIEN: COVENANT MONTREAL — Framestore (www. framestore.com) once again voy- aged into space to team up with Ridley Scott on the highly antici- pated, science-fiction horror Alien: Covenant, from 20 th Century Fox. The film features 295 shots con- taining futuristic VFX work by the Framestore team, including the build of the Covenant ship, its environ- ment and the tackling of cult horror creatures the 'Facehugger' and the 'Chestburster.' "Getting to work on Covenant was the opportunity to contribute towards a classic franchise that had been touched by so many of the great filmmakers," says Christian Kaestner, VFX supervisor. THE COVENANT The crew embarks on its mission onboard the Covenant ship, as- sembled by Framestore's Montreal team using individual pieces fixed together at rendering stage. "It was about 1,000 meters long," explains Kaestner. "We needed something that would hold up in close-ups as well as wide shots without chal- lenging our render times too much." The team was given a fairly specific brief, including concepts from Steve Burg, who designed and concepted the ship with Scott; blueprints; 3D models and on-set references of models that were built for the film- ing. "Anyone who has ever worked with Ridley Scott knows how much detail he likes to put into his prac- tical set," adds Kaestner. "All of this was obviously great reference for us to build and get the spaceship onto the big screen." Running low on power, the Covenant deploys ten million square feet of energy sails. Framestore un- dertook technical R&D to determine how the flimsy material would act in zero gravity and used deep-space lighting to get across the scale of the sails. "Lighting in deep space is always challenging; in this instance, we were not able to use bounce light from Earth or any other planets. We had to create lighting that would work for the shot without looking out of context," explains Kaestner. The team manually placed individual stars to brighten the space and to allow for slight color variations and pings on the sail surface. "Broader fill light would make the sail look like a cloth or plastic material," adds Christian. A cosmic 'shockwave' impacts the Covenant. The artists used a distortion effect that echoes the way that light warps around black holes. Crossing the starfield, the shockwave reveals a spectrum of color. "Our stars have very intense color values' explains Kaestner. "They only appear white be- cause they're really bright, but when we moved the camera it would bring out the color." THE FACEHUGGER Framestore was delighted to work on the Facehugger, the iconic cult creature as featured in Scott's orig- inal film. Keeping the feel of the trea- sured original, it was a process of tweaking an update within keyframe animation. "It has more leg joints than the original, and the ends of the legs have been re-designed," explains Stuart Penn, VFX supervi- sor. "We used a lot of reference from the original films, just to make sure that we were on track." A prop had already been shot on set, giving great lighting reference for the team tasked with replac- ing the creature. Building a model based on the puppet, they were able to sculpt additional detail into the surface using ZBrush, also building an internal skeleton, muscles and lig- aments to aid the proprietary flesh simulation, which included the ability to make its egg sack pulsate in a disturbing way. Framestore's hair system was used to "groom" dirt over the Facehugger's surface. The team produced some early animation tests to determine how the creature should move. After playing around with some walk cycles based on spider-like move- ments, it became clear that any set cycle was too clean and methodical. "Ridley was after something more visceral, instinctive and chaotic," explains Penn. "We wanted to make the movement quite random and dirty, and most importantly, scary." THE CHESTBURSTER Another creature revisited in the film is the iconic Chestburster. 'Everyone on the show wanted to work on the Chestburster. It carries great magnitude, and is synonymous with the names Alien and Ridley Scott," adds Kaestner. Based on a sketch by Ridley and an articulated maquette by Odd Studio, the final version of the Chestburster was created by Framestore's Montreal studio. Animation supervisor Spencer Cook helped to guide the team to create a fresh new take on Alien's iconic chest burster. Dubbed 'Chester' by lead an- imator Thierry Dezarmenien, the creature displays a different species of alien behaviour than the worm- like original in the first Alien movie. "Even though it is a fully formed biped with two arms and two legs, Ridley's direction was to keep the shape mysterious, and only reveal its true form at the end of the se- quence," explains Cook. The animation team referenced insect larva and reptiles hatching from eggs to enhance the violent and painful alien birth process. Unlike most digital creations, translu- cent skin was modeled and textured to reveal intricate layers of muscle, bone and organs. The complex ani- mation rig allowed the limbs to bend backwards and bones to detach, allowing the animators to twist and deform the anatomy into inhuman poses. A host of meticulous fluid, muscle and cloth simulations added multiple layers of gruesome detail to the final animation. Framestore's work also encom- passed the Hall of Heads environ- ment, as well as digi-double face replacements. "The work we pro- duced in the amount of time we had is incredible and I am so very proud of the effort and love for details that went into our work" adds Kaestner. Framestore completed 295 VFX shots for Alien: Covenant. Aliens' signature creature.