Return to Arrakis for a closer look at our Oscar®-nominated work on ‘Dune: Part Two’!
Learn how our DNEG crew helped bring Denis Villeneuve's visionary sequel 'Dune: Part Two' to life.
Following our Oscar-winning work on 'Dune: Part One', Denis Villeneuve came back to us once again to help bring his ambitious vision to life for the most hotly-anticipated sequel of 2024!
We were so proud to return to Arrakis once again as lead VFX partner on Dune: Part Two, helping to bring to life the film’s most breathtaking moments. Our work spanned the entire film, including large 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!
Not only did we receive an Oscar nomination for ‘Best Visual Effects’ for our work on this visionary sequel, our talented Dune: Part Two crew also scored a BAFTA nomination for ‘Special Visual Effects’ and 6 VES nominations in the following categories:
- Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature
- Outstanding Environment in a Photoreal Feature
- Outstanding CG Cinematography
- Outstanding Model in a Photoreal or Animated Project
- Outstanding Effects Simulations in a Photoreal Feature
- Outstanding Compositing & Lighting in a Feature
Our work on Dune: Part Two is also nominated for both Critics Choice and Saturn Awards, and has already won the Hollywood Creative Alliance Astra Award for ‘Best Visual Effects’ and has been honoured at American Cinematheque’s ‘Tribute to the Crafts’ in the visual effects category!
In a series of recent interviews, Production VFX Supervisor Paul Lambert and DNEG VFX Supervisors Stephen James and Rhys Salcombe have been sharing detailed behind-the-scenes insights into the work our incredible global crews delivered for this very special film.
Read on for a closer look at our work!
Sandworm Riding
One of the film’s most breathtaking moments is when Paul first rides a sandworm, a scene brought to life through a beautiful collaboration between practical effects and our team’s VFX!
The first challenge of this sequence was accurately communicating the immense scale and speed of the sandworm, which was partially done through the wakes left behind by the worm. Stephen James explained, “To create these worm-wakes, we used incredibly complex sand simulations that were hundreds of metres long. The crew came up with what we called the ‘ball pit render’, which we used to conduct simulations with larger sized sand particles first, allowing us to create faster iterations to find the best look for the effect as efficiently as possible.”
Production VFX Supervisor Paul Lambert shared with befores & afters, “DNEG came up with a great way in which they could visualize it and show myself and Denis as to what they were thinking by basically using particles the size of beach balls first as a quick and cheap render to be able to show what this is going to do,” says Lambert. “I then talked Denis through how the beach balls then became tennis balls and then became little grains of sand. It was a great way to have the director involved.”
After working out how the sandworms moved through the dunes, the next challenge was to show how Paul actually gets on the sandworm. This scene starts with the character running along the top of the dune, before it collapses with the worm going through underneath. The team used photography from the set as a base, allowing them to precisely match the crest of the real dune from the shoot. From the plates, our compositing team would paint back the footfalls and dust kick-ups, then the effects crew could precisely match these foot kickups and the collapse, extending them into the wider simulation. Stephen told befores & afters, “There was a lot of really challenging work, from effects to lighting to comp, to really precisely hit those blends, because it was so important that we did keep that magic that was in those plates. There is that energy that is in a lot of these plates that we just had to keep or we would lose something that was just too important.”
The shots of Paul standing on the worm were built from plates filmed on-set, which were captured using motion bases and several tons of sand and dust. Stephen shared with befores & afters, “I think that was probably the most challenging portion because we had a lot of dust and sand on set being blown across the surface of the worm, that we had to make sense of at a much larger scale. So if there was sand blowing on the surface on set, maybe that’s sand that we would add on top of our CG worm that was from previous sections where it was under the sand and that would be cascading through down the back of the worm.”
The wormskin Paul stands on was mostly replaced by our CG worm, with the first film’s asset used as the starting point and enhanced for these closer shots. Rhys Salcombe shared, “The CG sandworm was newly built to extremely high fidelity wherever riders cling to its surface. Each ‘scab’ was meticulously sculpted to match practical on-set scabs, ensuring they could withstand close scrutiny from surface-level cameras.”
Attack at the Harkonnen Harvester
Our team also brought to life the Harkonnen Harvester attack scene, which follows Paul, Chani and a small group of Fremen as they ambush a Harkonnen spice mining operation. To represent the Harvester while shooting, dark grey screens and SFX leg tips on excavators provided real light and shadow.
Speaking with AWN, Paul Lambert shared, “One of the main rules I had with Denis was, ‘To try to keep things believable I never want to change the lighting on a character.’ If we shoot in the daylight and I try to make Paul look as if he’s in shadow, it will look wrong. There’s nothing I can do to make that look correct.” Using the grey screens and an iPad with custom software provided by the DNEG team, the on-set team could visualize the spice harvester and set up the screens to cast accurate shadows, so that later, when our team added in the CG model, the lighting on the characters was natural.
When the Fremen attack, a mixture of in-camera and digi-double Fremen fight the Harkonnen ground troops, while a new Ornithopter variant – based on a real Blackhawk helicopter – attacks from above. Eventually, Chani shoots down the Ornithopter with a rocket launcher. “It took a lot of time to get that to feel right and to make sure it didn’t feel comedic,” Paul shared with VFX Voice. “Every explosion that you see is digital. The guys and girls at DNEG did a fantastic job creating the simulation.”
Rhys elaborated, “After Chani fires an RPG at its vulnerable point, we created a pyro simulation showing the Ornithopter exploding inside its shield before the explosion rapidly expands. The fiery remnants, including wings still beating, crash into the desert, creating a secondary impact explosion with fire, debris, and sand.”
The scene ends in another fiery explosion, as the 120 metre tall harvester finally succumbs to the laser-gun hits from the Fremen.
Geidi Prime
The Harkonnen homeworld of Giedi Prime is rendered in a stark monochrome palette, shot in infrared to create high contrast images in direct sunlight and an eerie ambience when overcast.
Our team brought to life the large CG arena environment for Feyd-Rautha’s fight scene, which tiers upward in a series of triangular terraces filled with tens of thousands of baying onlookers, adjusting shadows and exposures in post-production to maintain visual consistency with the on-set lighting. “It was challenging, as materials behave unpredictably in these conditions. Skin became pearlescent, and costumes differed in appearance,” Rhys explained. “The crowd’s reactions — ranging from excitement to synchronized motion during a haka — were based on motion capture, efficiently rendered using a point instance system.”
An exciting challenge of this world was transitioning from indoors to the stark outdoor lighting. Rhys elaborated, “It was as if Giedi Prime’s sun subtracts colour from light.” To achieve this effect, two cameras – one infrared and one RGB – were mounted on a stereo camera rig. With one camera placed vertically, the second shot horizontally through a mirror or across the mirror, allowing them to film the exact same image, with one in infrared and the other in RGB. “We then used these shots to create transitional blends from one look to the other as the characters move in and out of direct sunlight.”
The Battle of Arrakis
Another large sequence our team helped bring to life was the final battle, where the Fremen take on the Emperor’s military, called the Sardaukar. Stephen shared, “Digital cinematography captured this sequence as a documentary-style event, with careful lens choices and camera movements.”
This historic battle kicks off with a large explosion, as Paul launches atomic missiles over the basin. Rhys told us, “Villeneuve avoided a traditional mushroom cloud effect, opting for an over-scale gasoline type explosion.” This required multiple intricate FX simulations from our team, 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 also make an appearance during the battle, animated to plough through structures, vehicles and armies.
Harkonnen Ornithopters begin bombing the worms, and one of the Ornithopters is shot down, creating a dramatic explosion within the sandstorm. Rhys shared, “For this scene, background crowds were created through point-instance mocap and close-up crowds fully simulated for more detailed actions.”
A large challenge of this sequence was what the team called the ‘Chani-oner’, a 30-second one-take near-full-CG action shot that follows Chani fighting through the Sardaukar ranks. Rhys shared, “The choreography for this oner was performed on a massive mocap stage, mixing performances from Zendaya and stunt actors. This required extensive hand-animation to blend mocap actions, which were then adjusted with virtual camera work to create a handheld documentary feel.”
The action was then expanded by adding hero Sardaukar and large crowd simulations, including dust effects from flying Ornithopters. He added, “This sequence became one of the most challenging VFX shots in the film.”
The battle lasts into the night, where we see vast areas of Arrakis aflame, Ornithopters bombing battlefields, and the city in ruins.
The scene ends with Gurney Rabban on the steps of the residency. Stephen shared, “The exterior courtyard was built with practical fuel bars and a full-scale ornithopter body. Ornithopter debris and FX fires were scattered across the courtyard to suggest a previous crash, and we ensured that each CG element directly supported the on-set fire and smoke.”
Huge congratulations again to our talented global crews for their phenomenal work on 'Dune: Part Two'!