What CHAPPiE Looks Like Without VFX! // VFX Breakdown

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CHAPPiE is a 2015 SciFi action film about an autonomous police android in a crime-riddled Johannesburg that, after being damaged, has an artificial intelligence installed that mimics the human mind and becomes CHAPPiE.
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The film received fairly mixed reviews, some loved it, some hated it, but one thing that everyone agreed on was that the Visual effects were brilliant. Image Engine, The Embassy, Ollin VFX, and BOT VFX handled the digital effects while Weta Workshop built the practical versions of both CHAPPiE and Moose.

Combining Practical and Digital.
Contrary to the norm where the VFX team would measure and match a physical robot model, in CHAPPiE, the digital version of CHAPPiE was built before the physical one.
Weta Workshop had actually been working on CHAPPiE's character design on and off since 2010, basing the design on the director's previous short films, Tetra Vaal and Tempbot.
Once they had the overall designs approved Weta sent them to Image Engine who then blocked out the models and began working on the finer details.
The team really wanted CHAPPiE to look and feel like a real robot so they paid special attention to the rigging, making sure they found how far each joint could move and ensuring that CHAPPiE had a full range of movement without cheating and using ball joints or allowing parts to crash into one another as long as they weren't seen.
Once Image Engine was happy with the design and range of movement, they worked with Weta Workshop to create files suitable for 3D printing.
Weta then used a Projet and an Eden printer for the smaller parts and their own "Home-Built" 3D printers for the larger ones. Almost every part of the robots was 3D printed and a total of 19 full robots were built.

Roto-Mation.
Image Engine didn't use motion capture for this film, instead, the actor playing CHAPPiE wore a gray suit with tracking markers and various chest and shoulder pieces to bulk him out and provide accurate contact points.
Then using Rotomation, which is a technique for animating a 3D on top of an actor, matching it frame by frame to the live-action plate, all of CHAPPiE's movements were 100% keyframed, a painstaking and laborious process which, in some cases was straight forward and in others involved recreating actors or moving set pieces.
In addition to hand animating CHAPPiE, the team also had to use different shaders, textures, and arm, chest, and headpieces depending on what scene of the movie it was, and the level of damage CHAPPiE had received.

Lighting.
When watching the film you can't help but notice how well CHAPPiE sits in every scene, this is mainly because of the way the asset was lit.
Typically the VFX team would have a grey ball, a color chart, and a HDRI to work from, but for CHAPPiE, they got a lot more.
They took Dual Height HDRI's, which allowed them to triangulate objects and light positions, they also photo-scanned the set locations which, together with survey data allowed them to create a low-res version of the set that lighting artists could then use to set up scene and environment based light rigs, they also took HDRI's along the paths of movement, for example. In a scene where CHAPPiE walked through a room, the VFX team would follow the same route through the room taking multiple HDRI's, this data was then used to recreate the light there was on the physical set and re-project it onto CHAPPiE, allowing him to actually walk through the different light sources that were on the physical set.

Moose.
The Moose's design was refined by Image Engine and Weta Workshop but started from a rendered CG model made by the director Neill Blomkamp himself who actually started his career as a 3D animator.
Once they had settled on the design Weta Workshop started one of the biggest builds it has had to do for a long time consisting of around 10,000 individual parts, some parts were cast in urethane others were steel and aluminium.
However, not all the materials used on Moose were as conventional as steel and aluminium, for the cooling radiators, Weta found that they couldn't just bend wires to emulate the radiator fins so instead, they used ramen noodles.
They took 5 blocks of ramen noodles, painted them black, and then gave them a quick spray of silver.

Whether you think CHAPPiE is a great film or whether you thought it was a bad film, you have to appreciate the amount of time, skill, and attention to detail that the practical and visual effects teams put into this movie.
And just for that reason alone, the film is worthy of admiration.

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There is no good reason for people to hate on this movie honestly. Such a well made film

jack

No hurtings! While he beats up wolverine to a pulp. Gotta love his innocence. Absolutely amazing movie 👍

patrom

And 6y later I'm super stoked to work for Image Engine! What a great company to be part of!

arvidurs

Sharlto Copley (Chappie) outdid himself with his acting and body language. He breathed life into this movie!!

madzr

I am one of the few who love Chappie. It's one of the closest a film has come to match Robocop but turned on is head where AI and the artificial can create empathetic life. I think this film will hopefully will grove with time.

Kireiiii

This was great to see how my one of my favorite movies was made with the special effects Fame Focus. I'm just sad how they ended it with a potential possible sequel opener that never got worked on. :( I hope to see the world of chappie evolve someday soon.

CreativeSteve

В фильме всё есть: драма, комедия, романтика. Этот фильм один из тех где переживаешь за героев и музыка подобрана на отлично. Если снимут продолжение то я его обязательно посмотрю! Спасибо за ролик!

ДинарАхтямов-чя

I’ve enjoyed all of Neill Blomkamp’s Movies. CHAPPIE was a really good film. I honestly think the members of Die Antwoord were the marmite in this movie. For some reason they seemed to annoy a lot of people. I thought they were great. It’s such a good story. And to see the Robot from “Alive In Joburg” get a starring role. Amazing.

glyph

The VFX were undeniably amazing, but I found it painful to watch only because it was so sad what was happening to Chappie, being misled.

ejt

It looked amazing. Well done to the VFX team. They done well.

thegroove

loved chappie, Die antwoord stayed true to there aesthetic and the idea of AI - Consciousness was right on the money. Also the Blomkamp team never fails to blow my mind.

bplus