Dune: Part Two

Following our Oscar-winning work on ‘Dune: Part One’, Denis Villeneuve came to us again to help bring his ambitious vision to life for the most hotly-anticipated sequel of the year. And we couldn’t wait to jump on our Sandworms and return to Arrakis!

‘Dune: Part Two’ sees Paul Atreides unite with Chani and the Fremen to seek revenge on the conspirators that destroyed his family. Faced with the choice between the love of his life and the fate of the universe, Paul must try to prevent the terrible future that only he can foresee.

DNEG was proud to build on the success of our Academy Award-winning VFX work as the lead VFX partner for ‘Dune: Part Two’. Our global teams delivered close to 1,000 VFX shots across the film, including big FX sequences with complex sand and pyro sims, large-scale CG environments, massive crowds, and detailed creature animation - from the giant Sandworms down to the tiny desert mice.

The world of Arrakis is expanded for the sequel, and we were tasked with creating multiple new, fully CG environments including the new Arrakeen city, the Emperor's encampment, the huge Giedi Prime gladiator arena, the Spice Depot, and various desert dunescapes.

The iconic Sandworm also got a makeover for ‘Part Two’ with reworked topology to be more optimised for animation. Our teams designed, built and animated multiple worm variants, with each one being reconfigured and recolored to be subtly distinct from each other. For the famous worm-riding sequences we also created the worm-wakes using incredibly complex sand simulations that were hundreds of metres long.

For the historic final battle sequence, we delivered multiple intricate FX simulations for the explosion, including pyro, debris, layers of smoke and sand, a ground shockwave, an air burst, and a compression wave into the sandstorm behind the mountains. Multiple Sandworms with their own individual sand FX wakes were also animated to plough through structures, vehicles and armies, with crowds on their backs and surrounded by explosions, missiles, swirling sand, and a multi-kilometre high oncoming sandstorm. Finally, we created a high resolution Chani digi-double for our minute-long, fully CG, oner during the final battle as Chani fights her way into the front lines of the Sardaukar army.

As well as these key elements, our VFX team also delivered a plethora of creature animation work and CG assets including Muad’dib the desert mouse, two new Ornithopter variants, and the Harkonnen Harvester.

‘Dune: Part Two’ expands on the first film in all ways - bigger, bolder, and with much more action! We were thrilled to return to the franchise, and to partner once again with Denis Villeneuve to push the creative and technical boundaries of VFX and bring this incredible story to the big screen.

The Saga Continues

'Dune: Part Two' | Trailer

"May thy knife chip and shatter"

Return

to Arrakis

We all made 
it happen

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