One of the earlier trailers for Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty expansion dazzled in part because it featured a rather realistic-looking Idris Elba, and thank goodness for that. One CD Projekt Red cinematic lead has revealed that recreating Elba's "very specific eyebrows" was his "personal nightmare."
Cinematic animation acting lead David Cordero Iglesias is one of few CDPR staffers doing the rounds at GDC this year to share some industry wisdom, holding a talk dubbed "'Hacking' the Secrets of Its Cinematic Animation."
There, Iglesias shares that bringing the likes of Keanu Reeves and Idris Elba to life as Johnny Silverhand and Solomon Reed was tricky – Elba especially so, as CDPR was not leaning on facial capture for his facial expressions.
"There are special cases, where we have customary pieces that are actually based on real actors, such as Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand or Idris Elba as Solomon Reed," he says. "For Idris Elba, he has such specific facial expressions, and we were not doing facial capture. This involved analyzing his expressions, the way that he moves his face.
"This is in collaboration with lots of departments – model, reading, even texturing, to actually try to match as much as possible his characteristic expressions in different stages of his life, and analyzing what we need – do we need to add more range on the eyebrows? We definitely needed that. That was my personal nightmare. Idris Elba has very specific eyebrows, right? He has this snake shape, or how he moves them is amazing. It was difficult to convey."
Thankfully, it was all worth it. Our Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty review gives the DLC a near-perfect score, calling it "the culmination of CD Projekt Red's efforts" – endeavors to master perfect eyebrows included.
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