Back in 2025, Sheldon Stopsack walked us through the visual effects crafted by Weta FX for A Minecraft Movie. He now returns with Predator: Badlands, joining one of sci-fi’s most iconic franchises.
Three years ago, Karl Rapley detailed the animation work of Weta FX on Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. His credits since include Obi-Wan Kenobi and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
How did you and Weta FX get involved on this show?
Karl // I had been a fan of Daniel Trachtenberg’s movies and had been hoping to get a chance to work with him. As luck would have it, his next film was being filmed in New Zealand and I jumped at the chance of being involved when it was offered.
Sheldon // My involvement in the show started a little later than Karl’s. Having just finished another show, I came on after principal photography had wrapped and our team was knee deep in assets, character and shot prep work. While it is difficult to join a show at that stage, it was just the right time to come with a fresh set of eyes to get our work well underway.
How was the collaboration with Director Dan Trachtenberg and VFX Supervisor Olivier Dumont?
Karl // It was genuinely fantastic to work with Dan and Olivier. We were talking to Dan almost daily for the last six months of the postproduction schedule and he was very open to new ideas. It’s not as common as you might think for a director to be as involved in the VFX, so it was amazing to have Dan there to get direct feedback from and build a relationship with him. Olivier has an amazing artistic eye, and it was a pleasure to work with him also.
Sheldon // Olivier and Dan were an absolute treat to work with. As Karl said, it is not always the case to have such frequent and direct line with both the Production Supervisor and the Director. Not only did it help us to keep the line of communication short and react to notes fast, but it also led to a much closer working relationship that enabled us to come up with solutions and better results for any challenge we had on hand. Dan was not shy to engage in the space of VFX. And while he might not have had the exact answer to an issue we saw, he was typically on the money with his observations. It was then up to us to find the answers. I really appreciated how much trust Olivier and Dan gave us in that process.
What are the sequences made by Weta FX?
Karl // Our work involved the ‘oner’ shot of Dek crash landing on Genna and the ensuing fight with the elephant tree vines, as well when Dek heals himself by the river. We also looked after the Kalisk Den, anything that involved the Weyland-Yutani base, and the final showdown on Yuajta Prime.
Sheldon // Exactly what Karl said. The challenge with all of the sequences was how diverse the body of work was. We all had a fair share of long and complex Oners to deal with. The Elephant Tree Vine Sequence and the Kalisk Den were predominantly plate-based with loads of character animation, but also a significant amount of set augmentation. The Weyland-Yutani Campsite played across a number of sequences and required various stages and lighting scenarios. We used a mix of plate photography and all CG Shots. Dek’s return to Yuajta ended up being an almost entirely CG sequence.
How did Weta FX approach the challenge of creating a fully digital facial performance for Dek while preserving the iconic look of the Predator?
Karl // It was a massive challenge! We did some early facial animation tests using the 1987 Predator film as reference to touch base with our film history. The core challenge was preserving the iconic look and feeling of a terrifying Predator but also taking this creature into some uncharted territory as it had to have a much bigger range of emotions as the main character in the film. Dek had to have a lot of subtle and nuanced touches to the animation to make you believe that this classic screen villain was capable of much bigger emotional range and could hold our attention for the length of the movie.
Sheldon // Knowing that we were about to embark on a journey with Dek that shows a very different side of a Predator, we obviously were very mindful of not making this somewhat Predator uncanny. Not only did Karl and his team do a fantastic job with that, but the movie itself also eases the audience into a broader emotional spectrum. While the opening sequences show a mostly aggressive and at times confused Dek, it is not until after the fight with the Elephant Tree Vines where we are really starting to see a glimpse of what Dek would go through with us. The perfect example for that is when Dek tosses the glowworm away resulting in pyroclastic explosion. Dek shrugging his shoulders is such a subtle but nice shift into something larger including facets of humour.
Can you tell us more about the development of Dek’s facial rig — especially how you handled the mandibles, cheek membranes, and larynx to convey subtle emotions and speech?
Karl // A Predator is a very challenging creature to create a performance for as they essentially do not have lips; they can’t close their mouths as a human does and they have some scary prominent mandibles and other alien features. So, we had to use what we had to our advantage and keeping the mandibles, cheeks and larynx ‘alive’ with subtle but deliberate movements that added to the performance. This was key in helping the audience believe that this was a well-rounded alien creature but also something that could be empathized with and appealing to look at. We also had to find an acceptable range for these alien features; too much movement made it feel over animated and loose. It took a little bit to find Dek and what that performance would ultimately look like. But the subtleties were the most important thing, even when Dek is not speaking, to ensure that an audience believes that there is a real character existing there.
Sheldon // It is worth pointing out is that the facial performance is inherently different by design to what we would commonly do for a human. That required a lot of artist interpretation from our facial model and facial motion teams.
What kind of reference did the animation team use to guide Dek’s key-framed facial performances and emotional beats?
Karl // We had an amazing central performance by the actor Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi which we built the facial animation performance around.
Sheldon // Dimitrius was fantastic in setting the table for us. His performance was the foundation and always captured the creative intent. But like I said before – how do you translate that human foundation into something that is so fundamentally different by design? We couldn’t rely on established workflows where an automated solver would interpret Dimitrius’s expression and map it onto Dek. It came down to the Facial Motion Team to do that job for us and essentially keyframe every expression you see of Dek on screen.
Weta FX also created Dek’s digital double — how was this asset used by other studios, and what were the key considerations for sharing and consistency?
Sheldon // While the idea was to stick to the approach of Dek always being filmed in a practical costume and only replace his facial or head portion, we knew that this rule would be bent somewhere down the track. We opted for our digital Dek to be built with a very high level of detail in its entirety. Scans and Photography helped us to match the suit done by Weta Workshop. Once we reached a certain level of completion with the digital double, we started packaging up our work to share with other vendors. This is not uncommon between most of the established VFX studios around the globe. You always try to share as much technical insight to allow for the best possible parity. Ironically it also came down to the motion side of things. Olivier kept a close eye on the different vendors to ensure we all aligned and had a similar interpretation of Dimitrius and Dek.
The Kalisk is a striking new creature in the Predator universe. How did the Weta FX Art Department approach its design and visual personality?
Sheldon // The Kalisk went through a very long evolution of development. The conceptual work for the Kalisk started long before my time on the show and some work had been done even before our Art Department here at Weta FX engaged with the filmmakers. There were a lot of design ideas, and we explored aspects that serviced very different functionalities and features for the Kalisk. She didn’t always feature the extensive set of tendrils and earlier versions of her were a lot slicker. At some stage we discussed the ability to deploy some type of armour – akin to what you briefly see on Bud (hint). When I joined the show, we just came out of what was meant to be the final round of design work. But as we started seeing her in shots that reveal the Kalisk for the first time, there was something not quite right about her appearance. She didn’t quite have the impact we all had hoped for from the last round of design work. So, it was time for one last deep dive – but this time grounded in shot context. We made adjustments to her eyes, removed a handful of tendrils from areas that were distracting, introduced some additional grooms and really dialled down some of her shading and material properties. While it felt like a mad rush to change this large number of attributes on short notice, all of a sudden, the pieces fell into place, and she came to life.
What were the main animation challenges in bringing the Kalisk to life, given its tendril-covered body and cat-like ferocity?
Karl // It was intimidating at first in trying to approach animating the Kalisk. It had to be a unique creature with fantastic abilities but grounded in real life analogues. The Animation team studied bear and big cat behaviour to find the right physical performance. The tendrils were split between specific tendrils on the face which were keyframe-driven for specific emotional beats, but the majority were simulated by our Creatures department which had to find the right balance of bonelike weight and overlap without making them feel flimsy.
Can you talk about the animation reference used for the Kalisk — how did big cats and bears influence its movement and behaviour?
Karl // The reference of big cats and bears was really important to give us an animal base to start working with. For example, when the Kalisk pushes down on the Super Power Loader to get at Tessa inside, this was heavily based on the behaviour of bears trying to break into rubbish bins. But also, the quieter moments, the Kalisk had to show a softer side as it begins to accept Dek, so the animation team had to show curiosity and concern in a face that was built to look quite fearsome.
The third-act showdown between Dek, Tessa, and the Kalisk is spectacular. How did the previs created by Weta FX help guide the filming of that sequence?
Karl // My first meeting with Dan was in Auckland and he pitched his vision of the third act battle between Dek, the Kalisk, and the Super Power Loader. We had about 5 weeks to previs this with a few rounds of iteration and notes from Dan. We were on a ticking clock as Dan was already filming and this sequence was about to be shot next. This sequence evolved over the course of post-production but the essential core and edit stayed quite similar to the previs. The Kalisk and the Super Power Loader had a lot of different abilities and with the Kalisk being able to regenerate, we had to find a way that the Super Power Loader could go toe-to-toe with it. The Super Power Loader is essentially a piece of dock loading equipment that has been repurposed for fighting so it had to move in a certain way. Luckily it had a huge saw blade attachment that it could fight with too! Trying to keep the fight short and punchy while still allowing all of our combatants to have their moment to shine was a great challenge but I’m really pleased with the end result.
What were the key VFX elements involved in the final battle — such as the Power Loader exoskeleton, laser weapon FX, and destruction simulations?
Sheldon // There was no shortage of FX work required in the sequence featuring the fight between Dek, the Super Power Loader and the Kalisk. As for anything on this movie, we needed to find the right solution for every aspect. With the Super Power Loader being of hard surface nature, we decided to service a lot of the stages of destruction with a pre-build model that we could rig and animate before passing to our FX team. Ground interaction and destruction work that was affecting props, and the environment was mostly handled by our FX team. The Kalisk was a different beast quite literarily. Because it was a living breathing creature with a lot of body and muscle dynamics which also could re-generate, we decided to go down the route of using Vellum for a proper soft body destruction. The level of complexity was amplified by having to deal with hundreds of individual tendrils that were typically separate shapes from the base body. To finish things off we sprinkled in meat chunks, blood and spray. We ultimately discarded the notion of blood … because “if it bleeds, we can kill it” (credit: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Predator 1987).
Could you explain how you built the digital environments — particularly the Kalisk Den and the Weyland-Yutani Synth base — to enhance the sense of scale and danger?
Sheldon // Our environments came with a varying set of challenges. The Kalisk Den sequence was filmed on location, and we were fortunate enough to capture the right mood of a slightly overcast and hazy environment. While this was visually the right tone, it also made it tricky to augment. Vast and complex set structure needed significant augmentation to impose the stringy and organic den structure created by the Kalisk. We spent a good amount of time exploring the right design but were also challenged integrating it seamlessly into very complex plate photography. The question often became where should you add to it, or when is it easier to replace portions with digital assets. Dealing with such a diffuse and overcast environment also proved to be tricky when it comes to material properties. Everything quickly looks flat and dull, something we wanted to avoid as best as we can. Keith Herft, VFX Supervisor for our Melbourne team, did a fantastic job finding the right balance.
The Weyland-Yutani Camp Site was a little different. While based on practical photography, it was only a partial set. We needed to extend the camp into a much larger and more significant setting. With a handful of wide establisher shots required, we needed to construct the camp in its entirety for an all-CG use case. Since we spent a lot of time in this location across multiple scenes, our Layout team put a great effort into ensuring sequence continuity. Arguably something that the common audience doesn’t always pick up on. With the camp being built to high level of detail, we had the benefit of being able to use it for various shots as an all-CG environment. Particular shots featuring the Super Power Loader required us to disregard the practical plate photography in favour or more dynamic camera work. Ground interaction and destruction of various set pieces ended up digitally.
Bud, Dek’s small creature companion, offers a softer emotional contrast. How did Weta FX’s Art Department and animation team approach her design and evolution?
Karl // For the animation of Bud, we started looking at a lot of monkey reference in order to give ourselves a real-world base for the body and the face. The physical performance was very specific, and we had stunt performers on our mocap stage acting out a lot of the bipedal motion. There were additional keyframes on top of this to add specific posing to Bud and adjusting the performance to our shot cameras. Bud had to be a ‘cuddly psychopath’ so again, there was a lot of range that Bud had to show, from rage to concern to joy.
Sheldon // Bud was one of the few characters that remained almost unchanged from the original concept design provided to us. It really came down to Karl and his team to find the tone for her personality.
Finally, the film closes on Dek’s return to Yautja Prime. What visual or emotional goals guided the look and atmosphere of this sequence?
Karl // This sequence grew a lot during post production. Initially it was a very short epilogue but as the film developed, it become clear to Dan that the showdown with Dek’s father had to be larger in scope. There was additional stuntvis and mocap scheduled to capture this. With additional previs required to give the sense of an epic confrontation. This involved creating sweeping wide angles for scope and fleshing out visual gags such as Dek using the ships thrusters to create a sandstorm to reveal his father through his cloak.
Sheldon // As per Karl, the scope of this scene grew a fair bit. Since this development took place way past principal photography had wrapped, it meant that we needed to come up with an environment that could be used as an all-CG setting, but still honour part of the photography that was shot for it originally. We started off by building our environment on the back of the plates we had, ensuring we would meet the level of detail and finish as seen on set. This certainly grounded our CG assets in some realism. As the mood and lighting for this scene got established, our environment evolved further, and we ended up replacing most of our plate photography with an all-CG setting. The sandstorm featured in this scene was a bit of a headscratcher at first, being mindful that it would be under great creative scrutiny, we were originally planning to execute it with a backend heavy approach of pre-generated VDBs and particles being placed in comp. I had used similar approaches in the past and knew that this would at least allow for a certain flexibility to address notes late in the game. But as we started the work, our FX team did some prototyping for custom, per-shot simulation. These tests looked absolutely amazing and brought a lot of energy, so we decided to change course and approach the shots one by one through FX and lighting. The result we got from this was so much more compelling since everything was rendered physically accurate and together. The attenuation of light and shadow you see on the characters was all accurately triggered by the large-scale FX caches you see in each of the shots. I admired Dan’s bold choice to send us down a path where we really made things moody and gritty. The goal was always to suggest that we are right in the sandstorm with Dek and his Father.
How long have you worked on this show?
Karl // About 16 months.
Sheldon // A swift 7-8 months.
What’s the VFX shots count?
We delivered 558 shots in total for the movie.
A big thanks for your time.
// TRAILERS
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Weta FX: Dedicated page about Predator: Badlands on Weta FX website.
Olivier Dumont: Here’s my interview of Production VFX Supervisor Olivier Dumont.
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2026
