Avengers Endgame Without the VFX – Part 2 [DNEG VFX Breakdown]

With a total of around 2,700 VFX shots in Avengers Endgame, there is certainly a lot of VFX to talk about. So, for that reason, we’ve decided to make a 2nd video breaking down more effects and covering bits we left out of our previous instalment.

For the space shots, DNEG used elements and techniques developed for ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ as well as adding layered gas cloud elements to enhance the depth. Spacing out layers helped give a better feeling speed and scale. Once they had it all designed, it could then be used as part of a lighting rig to better key in things like Captain Marvel and the Benatar.

When creating the Benatar, Previous models and textures of the Benatar were used as a starting point. However, the older versions didn’t have enough detail for the close-up shots and so several techniques were used to increase the resolution.
Extra greebles were added, straight lines were made to look more irregular, dirt, dents and flat surfaces were made to look more uneven in order to add more realistic imperfections.
As for the rigging, that had to be redone from scratch.
Additional parts that had never been seen before were also added, like the cargo hold, landing gear or the galley behind the cockpit.
And despite how comfortable Chris Evans may look in this picture, it’s not because of sitting on a sunlounger as this shot was actually mostly real! Well apart from Captain Marvel’s costume… and War Machine’s suit… aaaand Rocket.

Double Negative used Different approaches for Captain Marvel’s rigging and animation, such as digital-takeover, bodytrack augmentation, and digital-double shots.
DNEG created an animation puppet and face rig with their Modular Rigging System, ‘Pinocchio’,

Getting the movement right for the shot where Captain Marvel carries the drained Benatar ship back to earth was a challenge. In order to sell the shot, they needed to get a believable relation between the weight of the ship and her super-human strength. In order to remove to feel of Brie Larson dangling on wires, her body was replaced with a CG one. This way they were able to preserve the performance of Brie’s head while, at the same time, animate her body movement to fit perfectly to that of a person with super-human strength carrying a huge spaceship. Like anyone knows what that would look like anyway…

For Rocket, who wasn’t actually mocaped by a raccoon, which would have been ridiculous but also quite funny…
DNEG built a full CG raccoon skeleton and muscle system and based it on earlier models of the character.
For the fur, they ended up developing and new workflow that allowed them to quickly take in Rocket’s groom from other VFX studios.
They had to be careful with his facial expressions, too extreme would make the fur too dense in areas or look too cartoony, They also had to be careful with lighting so as not to tint the colour of his fur.

For the scene where Captain America fights his past self.
DNEG created a fully digital environment for the building interior and due to there being so much glass, a 360-degree digital environment and a matte painting of the whole city needed to be created because of the reflections on the glass needing to reflect parts of the background scenery that weren’t directly in front of the camera.
For example, the reflection of this building that would have been somewhere over there, off shot. And every shot of the characters also had to be tracked in order to be able to apply their reflections and shadows to the glass as well.

And finally, a fun little fact; DNEG actually injected some of their own personality into the movie by using the atrium and their London office as a reference for the interior design in the second half of the sequence.

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