Cartoon Brew breaks down the creation of Logan’s doubles.
Film studios use more and more digital actors to shoot scenes. Rogue One resurrected deceased actors and now Logan used digital doubles of Hugh Jackman and Dafne Keen for a few scenes. Logan meets an artificial mutant with his DNA, with the same healing powers and adamantium claws, so there had to be two Wolverines. This is one of the cases of using digital actors in the latest X-Men film.
Cartoon Brew published an article on the role of digital actors in the latest Wolverine movie. The work here was quite seamless, so Cartoon Brew decided to break down the creation of digital doubles with the help of the studio behind the digital Hugh Jackmans and Laura, Image Engine in Vancouver. Using digital actors is really becoming a great way to tell the stories directors are wanting to tell.
It was the first time for the studio to work on full-frame actors intended to be indistinguishable from the real actor. So, they had to build the whole system from scratch.
Make sure to read the full article on Logan to understand the whole process, from planning the live-action on-set shoot, to filming it, to the special scans made of the actors, to the facial rigging and animation, and the final rendering and compositing work involved. It is definitely worth your time.
There are some other examples you can check out, of course. This video below shows a similar process: