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| Final CGI xenomorph in Alien: Covenant |
a) MPC in Cuilver City
MPC based in Culver City in LA worked on the digital version of the "Xenomorph".
For this movie, Scott wanted the freedom to move away from
the ‘guy in a
suit’ look of the Xenomorph from the original film and create a more
unnatural version of the creature.
The Xenomorph needed to have
non-human proportions and its own physical signature, but still be
recognisable as the original Alien.
H.R Giger’s original designs were continually referenced throughout the creation of this .
There was a
physical animatronic version of the creature on set to match to, however a lot of work went into
how this new version of the traditional Alien would move and a lot of
different animal movements were incorporated into the animation.
The concept art department that involved names such as Leandre Lagrange,
Mark Tompkins was led by Ravi Bansal, and they created different
designs for the Xenomorph in pre-production, Stephane Levallois also
contributed some designs.
b) Tinkering android
As visual effects supervisor Ferran Domenech would see how they understood the idea that character David the android has spent
years tinkering with the pathogen DNA and re-combining it to create what
was known as the "Xenomorph" which was the perfect organism.
In the
original Alien movie, this creature was a cool and stealthy killer, and
so this beast was a larger version of the bioweapon that the engineers
had designed in that is the creature that we know of as Neomorph.
The exploration of the Xenomorph movement language went through a similar
process as the Neomorph, with research into natural references and work on
animation studies and reviews with Ridley.
They looked at the all the scenes on the original 1979 film for close up details, like the facial and inner mouth working, lip quivering before the bite and how much drool he made.
c) Insects
From nature, they found that the praying mantis was as a good reference
Ridley liked.
They are a cold and stealthy, sitting perfectly still until the moment to strike, and moving at a blinding speed.
The mantis had this otherworldly head movements as it feels the environment around it, turning and locking into place with a mix of robotic and organic motion, truly biomechanical in nature.
d) Layers of specular
The Xenomorph had many layers of specular.
It had a main skin specular layer very similar to the human one; a wet layer on top, then geometry of water drops and a goop as the top layer.
Every layer was driven by textures where we painted the textures in an organic way to avoid the use of fractals.
Due to the fact the Xenomorph did not have
much colour variation overall, every part of it had a texture to drive
the reflection roughness in order to achieve a different look for the
different parts of its body. Specular was used to differentiate bones
from skin and other parts like the dome of the head, nails, teeth, etc.
Level of reflection had to be adjusted per shot basis depending on how
fast the creature was moving. When moving fast, we increased the
displacement on the skin to bring detail on the specular and avoid the
soft skin effect you get when there is too much motion blur.
The displacement on the skin was animated at rig level by a primvar (primitive variables), ripping the muscles when in tension, and relaxing when not.
This combination added extra complexity to the skin as it would change as the muscles fired and added lots of pins of specular detail variation with the animation.
- artofvfx: The iconic Xenomorph is back too. Can you explain in detail about his creation??
Ferran Domenech: The concept art department at MPC L.A. led by Ravi Bansal, created different designs for the Xeno in pre-production. These were inspired by the original H. R. Giger’s Xenomorph artwork and a new more organic aesthetic the director wanted. Particularly, Ridley loved the anatomical ‘écorché’ wax sculptures in the Museo della Specola in Florence, Italy, and this brought a slimmer frame and fleshier look to the creature. (http://www.artofvfx.com) - artofvfx: On the animation side, what was the main difference with the Neomorph?
Ferran Domenech: David spent years tinkering with the pathogen DNA and re-combining it to create the ‘Xenomorph’ a perfect organism. On the original 1979 ALIEN, the Xeno is a cool and stealthy killer. This made sense to us as he is a larger version of the bioweapon the engineers designed in the Neomorph.
The exploration of the Xeno movement language went through a similar process as the Neo, with research into natural references and work on animation studies and reviews with Ridley. We looked at the all the scenes on the original 1979 film for close up details, like the facial and inner mouth working, lip quivering before the bite and how much drool he made.
From nature, we found that the praying mantis was as a good reference Ridley liked. They are a cold and stealthy, sitting perfectly still until the moment to strike, and moving at a blinding speed. The mantis had this otherworldly head movements as it feels the environment around it, turning and locking into place with a mix of robotic and organic motion, truly biomechanical in nature.
We also reference growing larvae and different clips of insects breathing and wriggling at an accelerated rate, this became motion references for the fleshy details on the Xeno’s head and torso, where we could see the skin pulsating and breathing as he moves. We paid close attention to the muscles on the head, connecting the movement of the jaws to tendons and twitches on the side of the head. (http://www.artofvfx.com) - artofvfx: How did you handle the reflective aspect of his skin?
Ferran Domenech:The Xenomorph had many layers of specular. It had a main skin specular layer very similar to the human one; a wet layer on top, then geometry of water drops and a goop as the top layer. Every layer was driven by textures where we painted the textures in an organic way to avoid the use of fractals. Due to the fact the Xenomorph did not have much colour variation overall, every part of it had a texture to drive the reflection roughness in order to achieve a different look for the different parts of its body. Specular was used to differentiate bones from skin and other parts like the dome of the head, nails, teeth, etc.
Level of reflection had to be adjusted per shot basis depending on how fast the creature was moving. When moving fast, we increased the displacement on the skin to bring detail on the specular and avoid the soft skin effect you get when there is too much motion blur.? The displacement on the skin was animated at rig level by a primvar, ripping the muscles when in tension, and relaxing when not. This combination added extra complexity to the skin as it would change as the muscles fired and added lots of pins of specular detail variation with the animation. (http://www.artofvfx.com) - For this movie, Scott wanted the freedom to move away from the ‘guy in a suit’ look of the Xenomorph from the original film and create a more unnatural version of the creature. The Xenomorph needed to have non-human proportions and its own physical signature but still be recognisable as the original Alien. H.R Giger’s original designs were continually referenced throughout the creation of this and there was a physical animatronic on set to match to, however a lot of work went into how this new version of the traditional Alien would move and a lot of different animal movements were incorporated into the animation. ( "Exclusive ‘Alien: Covenant’ Concept Art Reveals Ridley Scott’s Second Stab at the Xenomorph" by Adam Chitwood June 1, 2017)
- Charley Henley: From the outset Ridley had a lot of concepts and references at hand
for what these creatures should be like. The Xenomorph was to reference a
few favorite H.R Giger designs but also be a little less biomechanical
and more organic in a direction heavily influenced by écorché’
anatomical sculptures found in Museo della Specola in Florence Italy.
The designs started with concepts drawn up with MPC’s art department, where then picked up by the practical creature team for the shoot period and then further refined in post through zBrush sculpts and look development in Renderman. (http://www.artofvfx.com/alien-covenant-charley-henley-production-vfx-supervisor-mpc/) - Conor: So
it's a , it's a, it's a new experience of film making I suppose, that
we don't have really thought about, you know, it , nowadays, you know,
once upon a time, we used to go off to a life class some chuck, like
this, you know and six, three, four months late, something comes up,
you've got to hope it looks alright and you're happy with the way it
looks, the quality is good, quite often it wasn't, you know, shark,
jaws, the shark in Jaws, wasn't very, you know, one row or teeth when it
should have had ten or something, you know, all of that kind of stuff
Interviewer: Of course, yeah
Conor: And erm, yeah, er, you know, you know the quality of the alien suit in the initial one, it was sort of, when you look at the making of that, it was appalling even for the time
Interviewer: Was it?
Conor: Well the quality of it, you know. They struggled with getting decent foams out of it, and things like that, you know. Rambaldi, I think did the mechanics of the head, did a fantastic job of the head, but lots, it worked because of the film
Interviewer: Yeah, And did have the same issue with the eggs, something else that has appeared before , and is now a new version but has to be the same
Conor: Yeah
(both laugh)
Conor: The eggs
Interviewer: Sit down in your chair
Conor: You know, that, you know, it was all point of view, I suppose that film in many ways, was very er, descriptive of the sort of process, which is in a way what it should be, it should be this weird life experience, you know, I don't know, but er
Interviewer: You can sit down and talk to people about it afterwards
Conor: Well I sit, well I sit and think about it , you know, from a, it's not, I don't, something you turn up, get employed and go home, you know, you're not, don't forget about it, that's the trouble for me is that it becomes 24/7, so for seven, eight, nine months of my life, it is 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 'cause if I'm not working on it, I'm thinking about it
Interviewer: Yeah
Conor: Or worrying about it, or keeping me awake at night, that kind of thing
Interviewer: Yeah
Conor: Don't get much sleep. I know that Ridley, you know, he works seven days a week, he's fleeting it and he loves it
Interviewer: That's why it helps you, not in terms of the the sleepless nights, but because you know the head, head honcho cares about this film
Conor: Yeah
Interviewer: It makes it, you know, if he didn't care
Conor: It's a visual thing for him, you know, you know, visually, he's very, that sort of
Interviewer: Yeah
Conor: And he's fun, he's a good sort of
Interviewer: Mmm
Conor: He's very good fun on set
(Reel Feedback podcast https://shows.acast.com/reel-feedback/episodes/605f3602db73271e7558bbd9) - Ferran Domenech: We did kind of a chimera of insect and mammal. We studied the praying mantis for aglilty and speed. (Cinefex #153)
"Alien Covenant: The xenomorph - a stripped-down killing machine : Digital Xenomorph" was posted on July 31st 2021
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