Year: 2013
Software: Maya/mentalRay/Nuke
This shot was my assignment for project HELD, a german TV disaster/action[/tragicomedy] movie. Utilizing elevation data and sattelite imagery I recreated parts of the CERN campus and sourroundings. The hero building in the foreground is modelled off the “Phaeno Sience Center” by architect Zaha Hadid, which served as real-world location for the corresponding live-action scenes. After layouting the shot and modelling the hero-buildings I used SpeedTree to generate some vegetation local to the area and set up proxies to scatter. Add a bit of SOuP, some of Inigo Quilez ideas to generate non-repetetive grass textures and thats it. The traffic consists of proxy meshes as well, which I animated on motion paths with some rigging for the steering. To further populate the streets a crowd was generated by a co-worker.
The clusters of trees / buildings in the background were realized via Nuke’s particle system, putting it all together with some heat distortion, atmosphere, flaring and slight optical defects. Here’s a short breakdown illustrating the various stages of the shot.
Initially the mountain panorama would be plausible from this view too, but this was dropped last-minute in favour of a more artistic representation.
