R&D focused on a new approach to particle work like in the opening warehouse where there is gunpowder.  

For one difficult shot, where the ants pour off the top of the camera, they did keyframe animation. "Steven was determined to have it look as real as possible. We discovered that ants are so tiny that one of the things that would give them more interest in the wide shots was having the layout department create uneven terrain with bumps for them to navigate through. There were other bits of business, too, such as an ant crawling up a twig."

And what about the ultimate challenge of not having the character animation call too much attention to itself? "The hard part is you're trying to do something that feels natural, but, at the same time, the director is always asking for something that isn't natural. A good example is a shot of a scorpion that crawls on Mutt's hand and stings him. Obviously you start looking for reference and the Internet is a great resource for that. The animator working on that came to me and asked if we wanted a real scorpion sting or a Hollywood sting. And I said a Hollywood sting because people expect to see the tail coming up and striking down, whereas in reality [there's very little movement]. It's one of those moments where if you do what's real, people wouldn't buy it."

As for the mysterious aliens designed by VFX Art Director Christian Alzmann, the only thing Rawlins would say is that they tried to steer a middle ground between the familiar and unfamiliar, at Spielberg's request, meaning that there are definite similarities between Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Artificial Intelligence: AI. One of Spielberg's secrets will have to remain a mystery for now.

Bill Desowitz is the editor of VFXWorld.com.