Encore Hollywood provided animation and visual effects services for Fox Home Entertainment on ALIEN 3 for the Alien Quadrilogy, the nine disc boxed set, which arrives on December 2. Computer animator Greg Tsadilas created a 3D version of a baby alien for the birth sequence, which is part of 30 minutes of added material. The birth sequence shows the newborn alien creature emerging from the carcass of an ox then fleeing down a corridor. The new creature is in a form not seen in any of the ALIEN films.
Tsadilas said, "For reference, I had a puppet that was used in the production to represent the creature's infant stage and images of the adult creature. I aimed to create something that was in-between the two and to stay true to both. When it emerges from its 'womb,' it's covered in blood, bile and membranes. With its wobbly legs, it looked like a newborn calf. The creature's strange proportions would naturally tend to make its gait different from a dog's and other familiar animals. It took a lot of trial an error to come up with something that got the creature moving as fast as we needed it to move and still be convincing."
Tsadilas, along with Mitch Gates and Kurt McKeever, created the effects on Windows-based desktop systems using Discreet's 3D Studio Max software to model and animate the new alien, and rendered with Chaos Group's V-Ray renderer.
Encore Hollywood is a full service post-production facility, which specializes in television episodics, movies of the week, feature mastering, feature promo, and visual effects. For more information, call (323) 466-7663 or visit www.encorehollywood.com.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
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