Smart Hulk
Framestore was tasked with breathing life into a ‘Smart Hulk,’ a never-seen-before Bruce Banner / Hulk hybrid. Balancing the human performance of Banner and the seismic power of the Hulk required a deft mix of cutting-edge tech and Framestore’s world-renowned animation, and the result is a striking fully-CG character whose unique performance is loaded with human nuance, emotion and comedy.
To kick-start this process, a small team at Framestore were tasked with developing their machine-learning technology to take source footage of Mark Ruffalo and create a solve from that to match it in animation; ‘it was a way of convincing the client that we had the software that could do this quickly,’ explains Robert Allman, CG Supervisor. The result was a first pass of animation that could be used by the filmmakers to decide on the edit and begin the process of refining and adding face-shapes to use in the rig. Keyframe animation was then deployed for over 60 Smart Hulk shots, with head cam footage from the shoot used for reference. This performance was key for the animators on the film, ‘it was absolutely about channeling Bruce Banner,’ explains Max Solomon, Animation Supervisor.
His face is very expressive. Every nuance, every little twitch and eye dart, slight curl of the lip and muscle tension needed to be translated.
Smart Hulk’s facial build was particularly challenging, as VFX Supervisor Stuart Penn explains: ‘There was a lot of work involved as their face shapes are so different - Hulk is massive, his mouth proportionally bigger, his eyes are sunken with deeper sockets. Tiny changes to his face had a huge effect on the performance.’ A new subset of facial shapes was built to enable the animators to achieve more complex and nuanced expression and give them more control in the animation.
Before and After
Mark Ruffalo as Hulk in Avengers: Endgame
Related Case Studies
Avengers: Endgame
Avengers: Infinity War
