Machine Learning Saves 'Avengers' VFX Artists Time

For visual-effects artists, time is always a struggle. When the call comes in to create something spectacular, artists and supervisors have to calculate how much run- way they have to get from the point of the idea for the vfx to the deadline. On "Avengers: Infinity War," the vfx crew found that a new innovation -- machine learning -- made it possible to create the character Thanos in a way that would have simply been impossible without it. The filmmakers envisioned a version of Thanos -- played by Josh Brolin -- that would be CG, but also incorporate all the subtle facial expressions and delicate hallmarks of a physical performance that could only been done by an actor. They knew that the facial tracking tech was there but asking vfx artists to manually adjust every inch of the CG version of the face of Thanos once they had all the tracking and scanning information would have been a disaster.