Using motion-capture performances to successfully portray real-life movements in a video game is finicky, and when done badly can result in lifeless and unrealistic NPCs. For theeighth installment of theResident Evilfranchise,Resident Evil: Village,the motion capture team used a unique stand-in to align actors' eye line with the proper height of Lady Dimitrescu.
Using props and dummies in motion capture endeavors is a common practice for creatures too complex to capture andfor characters like Dimitrescu, who are too tall to find a suitable human actor. It is important for motion capture actors to have the correct stature and eye line in successfully imitating real-life interactions, which leads studios to find alternative solutions when putting a suit on somebody just won’t cut it.
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Instead of finding a nine-foot-six-inch tall woman to portrayResident Evil: Village’s infamous Lady Dimitrescu, the team used what appears to be a blue cylindrical dummy on a long wooden pole with a face depicted in tape. As part of a series of behind-the-scenes posts on Twitter, voice actress Maggie Robinson pointed out that the dummy was used to imitate both Lady Dimitrescu’s enormous size and the alignment of her facial expressions.
ForAvengers: Endgame, Mark Ruffalo, the actor who portrayed the Hulk throughout the franchise, wore a gigantic breastplate motion capture suit so the team could accurately map his face onto the Hulk’s enormous torso. The motion capture team forMonster Hunter: Worldused various items ranging from bottles to foam to imitate the strange proportions of the game’s monsters.
Themain antagonist ofResident Evil: Villagehas piqued the interest of both fans of theResident Evilfranchise and people who have never touched the franchise. She’s the first major female antagonist in aResident Evilgame, save for the sporadic minor villain, and her impressive height sets her apart from the rest. When initially revealed as the next major antagonist, Lady Dimitrescu was so instantly iconic that she was the subject of many memes beforeResident Evil: Villageeven released.
Unfortunately for some fans, though, the nine-foot-six-inch tall villainous Vampiress ofResident Evil: Villagedoesn’t exist in real life– and the closest thing the motion capture team could get was a grumpy-faced blue cylinder on top of a wooden pole. Acting scared and intimidated by a slightly annoyed stickman face is no small task, and perhaps that’s a testament to the performances of the game’s actors.
Resident Evil: Villageis out now for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
