'Avengers: Infinity War' VFX Breakdown Reel Released

It's no secret that Avengers: Infinity War is anything short of a cultural phenomenon — its cast made up of over two dozen superheroes coupled with out-of this visual effects create the perfect recipe for a mega-blockbuster. Now, in the week following Infinity War's release on home video, one of the movie's visual effect vendors shared a video showing how of the movie's best shots were created.

Cinesite, a visual effects firm based in London, took to Youtube to share a four-minute reel on the work that went into creating the effects behind Ebony Maw's scene with Doctor Strange, Iron Man, and Spider-Man upon his Q-Ship.

According to their website, Cinesite was largely responsible for the creation of Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) and any related assets.

"Maw had to be an animation-friendly character," said Cinesite VFX supervisor Andrew Morley, "and it also had to be able to accept all the facial capture gathered on the shoot. We did a true facial capture solve from the face cam, which was very high quality, and used that directly to stay true to Tom's performance."

"Creating a full-screen CG Ebony Maw was quite a challenge—his head literally fills the whole screen at times. We combined the best of the team's artistic and technical abilities to produce this very photorealistic character."

In a previous press release, Cinesite explained how Vaughan-Lawlor's role as the Black Order member was filmed.

According to Cinesite, Vaughan-Lawlor's facial performance was captured using a head rig. They then used that film as a guide for Ebony Maw's full-body animation.

Cinesite also worked on the ensuing fight between the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Avengers after Ebony Maw had been sucked into space.

"For the fight between the Guardians and the Avengers, we created several entirely CG shots and the action is very fast-paced, with Quill using blasters, Mantis trying to entrance Spider-Man, Spider-Man fighting back with his webs, and Doctor Strange fighting off daggers being thrown by Drax," Morley said.

Morley went on to explain that the only parts of Iron Man and Spider-Man in this scene that were "real" were the faces of each actor.

"In the final fight scene, only the heads of Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland were live-action—their bodies in the "bleeding edge" suits were CG. "There was a huge amount of VFX work in these scenes," said Morley. "Both in terms of rotomation and in blending the necks of the suits into the live-action characters."

What do you think about the VFX reel above? Where you a fan of how Ebony Maw looked on the silver screen? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Avengers: Infinity War is now available digitally and on Blu-Ray/DVD.