A look back at brick maps and radiance caches.
Category: Retro
‘Die Hard 2’: the story behind that famous final matte painting pullback
An iconic effect by ILM and an iconic effect in VFX history.
Six ‘Perfect Storm’ SFX stories
“After the second take, somebody gave me a baton.”
Retro RenderMan: The hair and fur of ‘Ratatouille’
The star of the film had 1,150,070 hairs (and it wasn’t Linguini).
The ‘Apollo 13’ effects you might not know about
Including the time VFX supe Rob Legato used an Evian spray bottle for outer-space particles.
Here’s what it took back in ’95 to make a digital stunt double of Sylvester Stallone
How mocap and motion blur were critical for these early digi-doubles.
‘The Great Escape with chickens’: Aardman’s Peter Lord reflects on ‘Chicken Run’
The stop-motion film is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
You could have bought this ‘Batman Forever’ miniature RC Batmobile for £20,000…
The film turns 25 this week.
A visual history of 3ds Max
Do you remember which version you first tried?
‘That will not work, Houston, we got bridges every few 100 yards’
Looking back at Rising Sun Pictures’ wild space shuttle crash-landing for ‘The Core’.
The failed motion capture that still resulted in one of ‘Total Recall’s’ best scenes
The film’s X-ray sequence seemed perfect for mocap…
The ‘real-time’ hand-drawn animatics process that made ‘Casper’ possible
And it was done on an…Amiga.
‘Mission: Impossible II’ – a virtual production game-changer
All about Manex’s approach to image-based rendering on the film, from a member of the team back then.
Dino-cam! All about ‘Dinosaur’s’ computerized cable camera system
Getting that dino point of view.
The CG side of ‘Crimson Tide’
VFX supe Pete Travers reflects on the early days of Dynamation.
The story behind ‘Cloverfield’s’ classic Statue of Liberty shot
…and why it was different in the teaser trailer.
Some VFX nostalgia: ‘Harry Potter’ quidditch and the creature shop
Effects videos from the ‘Harry Potter’ series.
The true story behind ‘Gladiator’s’ prosthetic tiger
How the practical effect formed part of the film’s classic Colosseum scene.
‘Empire Strikes Back’ at 40: How the iconic Slave 1 matte painting was done
Harrison Ellenshaw breaks down the planning, painting and compositing of the classic shot.
‘RoboCop 2’: The crazy story of how Cain got his CG puppeteered head
When real-time digital puppeteering and stop-motion combined.
‘Splosions! and ‘The X-Files Movie’
How that miniature Fed building was built…and destroyed.
The oral history of the Dinosaur Input Device
Key contributors to ‘Jurassic Park’s’ Dinosaur Input Device share their memories of working on the landmark film.
The way the opening tauntaun shot was done in ‘Empire Strikes Back’ still makes me flip
Phil Tippett explains how Dennis Muren and ILM made it happen…just.
Morphing through the ages in ‘Mission to Mars’
Looking back at ILM’s evolution sequence for the film.
Particles, ILM and ‘The Hunt For Red October’
A deep, er, dive on the early ILM particle system tool, psys.