Posted by
william-james88
Nov 18, 2024 at 9:54am CST
114,050 views
Rassoul Edji was one of the lead VFX designers on Rise of the Beasts, and is responsible for, among other things, the head face and battle mask of Optimus Prime. He took to Twitter to discuss at length about the process and studio notes he received from Paramount, including how the film was meant to be a soft prequel to the 2007 movie. Read on for all the info.
I modelled the head, face, and battle mask for Optimus Prime for #Transformers ROTB.
I also designed his new "centurion" open battle mask look along with it's animation.
The director wanted the face to resemble the face from the 2007 Transformers film as ROTB was a soft-prequel to it but also wanted it to be tweaked to fit the new design and for us to give it some new unique features.
This is where we came up with the new mask design which doesn't get entirely hidden when open. Instead, it gets stored on the side of his cheeks, like a Roman centurions helmet.
The head design is derived from his model from the 2018 Bumblebee film to keep some consistency with that film too as ROTB was also a soft-sequel to Bumblebee. There are new pieces, adjusted proportions, and reworks to detailing in ROTBs version.
The face proportions are modified from the 2007 face to be a lot wider and beefier, matching his new head shape and look.
I redesigned and built the eyes from scratch using our kitbash pieces like I did for all the Maximals and Mirage. The studio decided against going for the holographic eyes look from the 2018 Bumblebee film but rather wanted a more simple look in between the 2007 and the 2018 eyes.
I added a lot of small mechanical details to his battle mask animation which we unfortunately never get to see in the film. For example, I designed a fully functional mechanism which pushes his chin piece back when his mask closes. This was very cool when it was visible, our Animation Director and VFX Supervisors were super excited about it, but unfortunately no shot showed it off in the final film.
It was a lot of fun to help model and design Optimus Prime for this film. I'm happy I got to contribute to such an iconic character.
CREDITS:
Video: Paramount, MPC, WetaFX
Ruairidh MacNeill modelled the body for Optimus
Let me clarify that despite being a Lead on this show, I personally did not decide to do any of these changes. All of these decisions came from senior leadership in the VFX studio, Paramount, and the director. We are usually provided with concept art or at least references for what needs to be done and we have to do it that way.
The only bit of this design which I had creative freedom for was the centurion battle mask, which also had a few different versions which I showed to the director, Paramount, and VFX leadership team for approval.
I’m glad the teams work on breathing emotions into his facial expressions paid off, I remember how hard everyone worked on them!
My personal favourite Optimus Prime design is the Dark of the Moon one so I do agree with you. I pushed back on some of the studio notes but at the end of the day we have to do what the studio tells us to do.
It was decided by the leadership team to add a bit of deformation to the faces of the characters to help them emote.
The reason [to show his face under the mask] was because they needed him to emote and it’s really difficult to do that with just the mask. The 2018 Prime is more of a cameo than anything so it works, for this film they wanted him to show emotions through his facial performance.
Despite what the director has said online, we never got the note [to make the face look like Cullen] from the studio or from him. The official note we received from Paramount was "make it look like Optimus from 2007"
Perhaps the 2007 design was inspired by Peter Cullens face and that's what he meant.
[There are] Around 1,350 [pieces on the head alone] if I remember correctly.
