At the Wizard World convention in Chicago, John Dykstra, visual effects supervisor for Sam Raimi's upcoming Spider-Man movie, told the convention audience that matching a computer generated Spidey with actors and stuntmen in costume proved to be quite a challenge, according to a report from the Comics2Film web site. "The toughest thing about this show is that we're going to make a character who is indistinguishable from a live character," Dykstra told fans at the Wizard World convention in Chicago.

Dykstra added, "The fact that we don't have a face to work with in order to create the emotional content for the character means that we have to use body language. So for everyone, for the actors who are involved with the scene, and the director of course, and the animators who have to subsequently animate the computer-generated version of this character, all have to have the same mindset. It's a tough thing to do. And to keep that personality of body motion throughout the picture is going to be the hardest thing."

There are about 400 effects shots for the movie, all being supervised by Dykstra. As for the Green Goblin, Dykstra said, "The costume exists, in reality, as a costume. He's complete. He's three-dimensional. He's there. At this point, he can walk around without any [computer] enhancements. When it comes to flying his glider, inasmuch as that technology doesn't really exist, when he flies, generally speaking, he's either a stuntman on a rig of some kind that supports the glider, or a CGI character."

And of course, with any talk about Spidey, Dykstra talks about Spidey's powers. "He has all the capabilities that he will have in the comics, and hopefully capabilities that would fall to a character who has the capabilities that you would know about," he said. "In other words, there's no limitation to what the character's going to be able to do with his webs. He'll sling them and use them in, hopefully, all the fashions you've seen before and maybe some innovative new ones."

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