Ghost VFX: Creating complex visual effects

Creating complex visual effects

When an explosion in the Norwegian mountains awakens an ancient troll, officials appoint a fearless paleontologist to stop it from wreaking deadly havoc.

Ghost VFX artists in Copenhagen worked closely with director Roar Uthaug, VFX Supervisor Esben Syberg, and VFX Producer Mikael Windelin to create visual effects for key sequences in the film Troll and were responsible for designing and building the troll asset that was used by all VFX vendors working on the film.

Ghost VFX artists were thrilled to create a main character in a film that contains so much complexity in its surface details and simulated dynamics. The asset also had to be shared with other vendors that didn’t necessarily use the same pipeline tools making the task even more challenging. Ghost VFX benefited hugely from being able to communicate directly with the director to achieve his vision for the film.

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The creation of the troll included everything from sculpting the base model, his facial expressions, and all surface details, to developing simulation workflows, building the rig, and underlying muscle structure, as well as texturing and shading the asset. It all had to be done to a level that would hold up in extreme close ups. 

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They found key frame animation to be the best approach, compared to having an actor try to perform in slow motion or trying to slow down mocap data, which would very easily lead to weird and artificial results.