So much for Jackson, Wyoming is a safe sanctuary in “The Last of Us” season 2. In section 2 Surprise attackHordes of infected show up from Stasen under the snow after being buried by an avalanche and soon united by a new FumadeThe King of Cordycep-infected victims. Only this one is bigger and more tougher than the first from section 5’s night attack in Kansas City.
“So showrunners (Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann) wanted to make sure Bloater for this season in Jackson was not the same as the one in Kansas City, “Emmy-winning production Vfx Supervisor Alex Wang told IndieWire. “He is the highest level of (fungus cordyceps) infection, and it is really difficult for an infected to survive and develop into a bloater. But when they do, they are just a brute force. So we definitely wanted it in our new design, as we strengthened and modified him, to make him higher, a little more athletic and a little more athletic and a little more athletic.
Emmy-winning Wētā FX returned to deal with the breathtaking VFX for hordes of infected and impressive bloaters (led by VFX supervisor Nick Epstein and animation supervisor and returning animation leader Dennis Yoo). Each member of the nearly 400 infected audience was built to hero level to enable close-ups and interaction with stunt artists, and each infected had its own facs-based facial movement forms and fully simulated hair and clothing.
When it comes to Bloater (which begins with Mo-Cap), art director Gino Acevedo began with the appearance of the first Bloater, which was strongly affected by the iconic creature from the naughty dog game: a body consisting of fungi and mucus mixed with an incredibly shrinking head. He then designed a new bloater from scratch, complete with snow and frost layers. The big difference, however, was that this bloater was not hidden by darkness.
“It needed to be” Holy Shit “, there is a bloater, and he is even bigger than in season 1,” Epstein told IndieWire. “And how he would be revealed was different. We obviously knew that conditions, from our point of view, less forgiving: broad daylight, diffuse lighting. And we did not have the same trick, so this bloater would be seen from every angle and very close to the camera, full body. Which meant we had to build him for more intense simulation.”
Showrunners wanted Bloater to resemble a wrestler. He is not oily or too muscular. But he is powerful. He is like animals in nature that seems slow, but once they have gained momentum and have their eyes directed at their prey, they can run fast.
When it comes to Bloater’s monstrous appearance, there is actually an organic beauty for the fungal design. “Basically, you had these mushrooms, which were very solid and grew in clusters,” Yoo told IndieWire. “They had their own language where they grew. And then it was the extra penny and the shoulder ticks. And we built them from real worlds of fungi that we actually photographed and scanned.
“He also had a full muscle simulation rig, and I would say that an unhealthy time may have been dedicated to a certain appendix of his that we talked about and if it needed to be simulated,” Yoo added. “So there are a couple of pictures where you see him the whole body.”
The highlight of the Bloater action occurs when he meets Tommy (Gabriel Luna) in an alley with nowhere for the hero to hide. Fortunately, Tommy has a Flametrower, which is like Kryptonite to Bloater. Unfortunately for Wētā, they were not available to work on the bloater being torpedoed because they were completely submerged in completing the infected hordes.
As a result, Wēta’s Bloater access and animation examples were provided to important pirates to handle the setting of bloater on fire. “This was one of the moments where you read the script and you make a silent encouragement,” said Wang, “because you as a fan of the game understand the power of Flamethrower and Tommy is the perfect hero.”
It started with research on how mushrooms and other vegetables burn when they were torpedoed at high temperatures. “At the end of the day we wanted it to be grounded,” Wang continued. “He may be a big deal, but he is still made of organic material, right? He used to be human and just infected. So what does it look like when his skin is charred and it starts to flake off? Does it start to pull?
“What was important to Craig was that we show the gradual development of the bloater becoming more and more burned to the point where he just could not survive. The pain has come to his heart, and he gets dead, and we believe it.”
