(electronic piano music)

(dramatic bass music)

Chappie must fight!

(explosions)

Hi, I'm Mike Seymour from fxguide.com for Wired.

In the new film, Chappie,

the world's first true AI robot

never actually, of course, acts on set.

He's a fully digital character.

While we were at a workshop,

made some really great reference and props,

every shot of Chappie interacting on screen

is a full digital replacement.

The image agent did about a thousand shots

of Chappie alone,

which means the CGI Chappie is seen

on screen for about 60 or 70 minutes of screen time.

And while, at least in the film,

Chappie is a one-of-a-kind,

behind the scenes one Chappie did not fit all.

You see,

on set the police robots or scouts

were played by actors in grey suits.

Chappie was actually played by actor, Sharlto Copley.

While Sharlto or the other actors were not motion-captured

they were in fact animated by hand -

each actor did perform with a small GoPro camera.

And the camera footage was then turned directly

into the footage of the vision that the robot sees.

These GoPros are, of course, set and forget

so the production ended up with hundreds of hours

of robot vision to work with.

For any given shot that the FX team had to remove Sharlto,

then create a clean plate,

and then animate in Chappie and, of course,

all the interactions that he has with the scene.

Chris Harvey, who was in charge of the VFX work

encouraged as much contact and interaction

in the scenes with Chappie

as Director Neill Blomkamp saw it.

And even when this made life a little difficult

for the animators,

they thought it really added to the scenes' authenticity.

Chappie is made of multiple digital assets in the film,

but as the film progresses,

our hero gets shot,

firebombed,

loses an arm,

and pimped out,

and every one of these actions requires meticulous tracking.

So, in addition to the kind of normal software

that we use to manage the animation production,

the team actually needed to run a special database

to make sure that all of the continuity

of various dirt, damages, and replacement arms,

even bling, was correctly tracked.

In fact, as it becomes very important in the film,

the exact level of Chappie's battery

had to be adjusted shot to shot

to make sure the character's timeline played out correctly.

Of course, the team also had

to make a digital version of the MOOSE.

And thanks to some pretty serious MOOSE attitude issues,

clean up a lot of stunt and wire/rig removal

from all those extensive explosions and gun fighting.

In the end, by the time Chappie grabs that grenade belt,

you would have actually seen 17 Chappies in Chappie.

Don't forget to subscribe for more behind-the-scenes action.

I'm Mike Seymour for Wired.

(machine gun firing)

(bullets ricochet)

I am consciousness.

I am alive.

I am Chappie.

(dramatic music)