'Guardians of the Galaxy' movie's Rocket Raccoon to be mix of CGI and 'rotomation'

Credit: Marvel Entertainment

Just in case you were wondering, "Guardians of the Galaxy" teammate Rocket Raccoon won't be played by a man in a suit in Marvel's upcoming film.

In a recent interview with Cinema Blend, Marvel EVP of Visual Effects Victoria Alonso opened up about the studio's interstellar superhero flick, telling the outlet that the team's furriest member will be created using a blend of CGI and "rotomation," essentially a cross between "rotoscoping" (see: Richard Linklater's "Waking Life" and "A Scanner Darkly") and traditional animation.

"You can?t do any motion capture with a raccoon ? they won?t let you put the suit on," laughed Alonso. "But we will do rotomation, probably, for some of the behavior. Rocket will have his own personality, of course, and clearly we can?t do mocap on a tree, per say, but we definitely will have performers to emulate what James Gunn will lead to be the behavior and the performance. He?s very clear on where he wants to take the characters."

"Mocap," of course, is "a process by which a device can be used to capture patterns of live movement; the data is then transmitted to a computer, where simulation software displays it applied to a virtual actor." (Credit: Google)

Also concerning "Guardians," which recently snagged "Parks and Recreation" thesp Chris Pratt for the role of Star-Lord, Alonso confirmed that principal photography is slated to kick off in June, though work for director James Gunn begins much, much sooner.

"Our director travels next week and it?s going, baby!" she said. "It?s a fast train to a beautiful place."

"Guardians of the Galaxy" is slated for release on August 1, 2014.

Source: http://www.hitfix.com/articles/guardians-of-the-galaxys-rocket-raccoon-to-be-mix-of-cgi-and-rotomation

nicklas backstrom discovery shuttle allure jane goodall saturday night fever glamping forgetting sarah marshall