When CG Devours Tanks (Even If No One Sees It) 🦑
The German studio Trixter proved in The Suicide Squad that sometimes the most impressive effects are the ones that aren't clearly seen on screen. Their work on characters like Incubus and Enchantress is a masterclass in VFX, even though the final edit hid some of their most mind-blowing details.
Incubus: The Monster That Took Everything (Literally)
This CG villain had a hidden superpower: absorbing objects into his body. Armament, vehicles, and even miniature tanks floated inside him as part of a tentacular simulation system created in Houdini. The problem? In the final cut, it's barely noticeable. Classic case of "hours of rendering for 2 seconds on screen"! 😅
- Technique inspired by Edge of Tomorrow
- Fluid dynamics simulations for the visual "digestion"
- Procedural textures for the organic interior
Enchantress: When Only the Face is Real
Fun fact: Only Cara Delevingne's face was real. Even her eyebrows were digitally recreated to maintain consistency with the CG body.
The team used:
- Advanced facial tracking
- Muscle simulations with Ziva Dynamics
- Skin shaders with sub-surface scattering
The Secret Pipeline: Python + Ziva
Trixter automated much of the process with Python scripts that managed:
- Caching of muscle simulations
- Data transfer between departments
- Render optimization with Arnold
💡 Tip for artists: If you work in 3ds Max, you can imitate this workflow with Thinkbox Deadline and tools like Redshift for distributed rendering.
The Mayhem Sequence: Houdini as the Star
For the battle in Corto Maltese, Trixter artists created:
- Sand explosions with pyro simulations
- Ballistic impacts with particles
- Volumetric effects for shockwaves
All this magic came from Houdini, proving why it's the king of FX.
The VFX Artist's Moral
As supervisor Alessandro Cioffi aptly said: "In this industry, sometimes you create entire universes... that end up hidden behind a building or a flash". But hey, that's cinema! And at least in the breakdowns we can show off all that invisible work. 🎬
"I rendered 72 hours of this incredible destruction... and on screen it looks like a blurry pixel. #ArtistLife" - Anonymous, TD at Trixter.