When developing Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, a dev from CD Projekt Red experienced a „personal nightmare.” Its source was Idris Elba
Developer CD Projekt Red admitted that recreating Idris Elba's facial expressions in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty was quite a challenge. The actor's „very specific” eyebrows were particularly difficult.
The Phantom Liberty DLC trailer for Cyberpunk 2077 is stunning, thanks in part to the brilliantly designed character Solomon Reed, portrayed by Idris Elba. One of the developers from CD Projekt Red admitted that recreating the actor's facial expressions was a very difficult task for the studio.
Problematic eyebrows
The animation director, David Cordero Iglesias, appeared at this year's Game Developer Conference, where he shared his industry knowledge. During his lecture, he admitted that bringing the characters of Silverhand and Solomon Reed to life was quite a challenge, particularly for the latter.
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.
What's interesting, the developer mentions that the biggest problem was recreating... Elba's eyebrows. He noted that they are "very specific" and move in an "incredible" way. He described it as his "personal nightmare."
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.
In the end, however, the efforts paid off. Maybe it wasn't solely due to the eyebrows, but both the trailer with Solomon Reed and the entire Phantom Liberty expansion received a very positive response from players.
