Uploaded October 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
I started experimenting with Octane at the beginning of this project, but never had time to return to learning it well enough to commit to using it for this shot. So I stuck with rendering in Lightwave 2018. Drastic changes were made late in the schedule, and we began running out of time to complete render at 4k in Lightwave. I also had trouble getting rid of reflection noise in Lightwave, without renders taking way too long. So Pixel Magic hired an experienced Lightwave/Octane artist, Billy Brooks to render the Space Station much faster with Octane GPU rendering.
So the Lightwave version is shown first, that I comped in Fusion, followed by the final version as it appears in the movie, comped by Brad Moylan, who also created the Earth in ORB for After Effects.
I don't know who modeled the mother ship, which was provided to us. Chase Champagne added much more modeling detail to the ship, and to the ISS window area for closeup. I textured the ship and space station, and did lighting. I started animation, but had to move on to other shots, so Juan Vargas did final animation, and added the gore-hole in the astronaut.
The CG shot had to smoothly transition into the practical footage inside the window, where the live camera corkscrews thru the window, and whirls around to see a CG exterior outside the window. It was tricky getting the camera to fly smoothly thru the head-hole, and the center of the window on the model which is rotating on all axis, and to line up with the moving plate inside the window, while also having control to make variations for the client. I came up with a pseudo dynamic parenting workaround, and Juan wound up doing a different trick that is hard to explain. But this is where I needed to be able to envelope dynamic parenting. Or, I needed to use a spline for the camera motion, and have a few control points parented to the station at one end. But I could find no tool for that task.
So I cloned the nulls that control the ISS motion, and parented the camera to those. That gave me control to effectively enable dynamic parenting with an envelope over time, easing into the ISS motion as the camera gets close to the window, while leaving the camera free to move independently before that.
The Space Station (ISS) and astronaut were stock models. The station had over 900 surfaces. Patrick Trahan used Substance Painter to detail the astronaut, and I did final texturing, and shattered the visor.
When the camera is inside, looking out the window, I had to manually track that part, which was difficult with the semi-handheld camera, and a background that is mostly out of focus and partly obscured by the actor moving around.
I started experimenting with Octane at the beginning of this project, but never had time to return to learning it well enough to commit to using it for this shot. So I stuck with rendering in Lightwave 2018. Drastic changes were made late in the schedule, and we began running out of time to complete render at 4k in Lightwave. I also had trouble getting rid of reflection noise in Lightwave, without renders taking way too long. So Pixel Magic hired an experienced Lightwave/Octane artist, Billy Brooks to render the Space Station much faster with Octane GPU rendering.
So the Lightwave version is shown first, that I comped in Fusion, followed by the final version as it appears in the movie, comped by Brad Moylan, who also created the Earth in ORB for After Effects.
I don't know who modeled the mother ship, which was provided to us. Chase Champagne added much more modeling detail to the ship, and to the ISS window area for closeup. I textured the ship and space station, and did lighting. I started animation, but had to move on to other shots, so Juan Vargas did final animation, and added the gore-hole in the astronaut.
The CG shot had to smoothly transition into the practical footage inside the window, where the live camera corkscrews thru the window, and whirls around to see a CG exterior outside the window. It was tricky getting the camera to fly smoothly thru the head-hole, and the center of the window on the model which is rotating on all axis, and to line up with the moving plate inside the window, while also having control to make variations for the client. I came up with a pseudo dynamic parenting workaround, and Juan wound up doing a different trick that is hard to explain. But this is where I needed to be able to envelope dynamic parenting. Or, I needed to use a spline for the camera motion, and have a few control points parented to the station at one end. But I could find no tool for that task.
So I cloned the nulls that control the ISS motion, and parented the camera to those. That gave me control to effectively enable dynamic parenting with an envelope over time, easing into the ISS motion as the camera gets close to the window, while leaving the camera free to move independently before that.
The Space Station (ISS) and astronaut were stock models. The station had over 900 surfaces. Patrick Trahan used Substance Painter to detail the astronaut, and I did final texturing, and shattered the visor.
When the camera is inside, looking out the window, I had to manually track that part, which was difficult with the semi-handheld camera, and a background that is mostly out of focus and partly obscured by the actor moving around.
