‘Pier’ is part of the next installment in SSE’s multi-award-winning ‘Proud to Make a Difference’ campaign. The VFX team worked to re-craft orangutan Maya entirely in CG, developing her muscle movements and character.
The film sees a 100% CG photo-real Orangutan called Maya experiencing the wonders of energy in all their manifestations; discovering a funfair and encountering a wonderland of light, sound and movement.
The VFX team went to extraordinary lengths to create an orangutan that looked 100% photo-real, crafted entirely in CG. The team developed muscle movements and sculpted each skin wrinkle by hand, before seamlessly comping the orangutan onto live action plates of a busy pier and funfair. The skeleton was built first starting from very loose blocking to small details such as wrinkles and pores of the skin - Maya’s rig was then developed in-house, with the muscle system adding an extra level of weight to aid realism. The team created a system that enabled the development of realistic hair movements on the windy ride. The team built a custom eye rig in which the pupils dilated and contracted depending on light conditions and a small amount of liquid was added into each eye to give it a sense of depth.