How the Thanos VFX team brought The Quarry’s characters to life (and then killed them)

digitaltrends.com:

Game developer Supermassive Games earned heaps of praise for its interactive, cinematic horror adventure Until Dawn, and followed it up with this year’s “spiritual successor” to that 2015 hit, The Quarry. The game puts players in control of a group of camp counselors who find themselves besieged by a variety of deadly threats — both human and supernatural — after getting stranded at the remote campground where they spent their summer.

Like Until Dawn, The Quarry features a cast of familiar actors portraying the game’s characters, with a blend of cutting-edge, performance-capture systems and Hollywood-level visual effects technology allowing the cast to bring their in-game counterparts to life and put those characters’ fates in the hands of players. In order to bring the actors’ work on a performance-capture set into the game’s terrifying world, Supermassive recruited Oscar-winning visual effects studio Digital Domain, best known for its work in turning Josh Brolin into Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.

Digital Trends previously spoke to Digital Domain’s team about the A.I.-driven Masquerade facial-tracking system they developed for Infinity War, which has received a significant upgrade since that 2018 film. It now returns to the spotlight in The Quarry, a game created using the studio’s improved Masquerade 2.0 system. Digital Domain’s Creative Director and VFX Supervisor on The Quarry, Aruna Inversin, and Senior Producer Paul “Pizza” Pianezza explained how a mix of groundbreaking technology, clever filmmaking techniques, and inspired performances from the game’s cast made Supermassive’s latest interactive adventure as exciting for its creative team as it is for players.

[Note: This interview will discuss plot points in