"Rogue One", visual effects by ILM.
Visual effects supervisors John Knoll and Nigel Sumner, animation supervisor @halhickel, Computer graphics supervisor @vickschutz.
Lighting by Sam Wirch and David Meny, compositing by Todd Vaziri.
ilm.com/vfx/rogue-one-…
Visual effects supervisors John Knoll and Nigel Sumner, animation supervisor @halhickel, Computer graphics supervisor @vickschutz.
Lighting by Sam Wirch and David Meny, compositing by Todd Vaziri.
ilm.com/vfx/rogue-one-…
In this mini-sequence, we wanted to build a progression. In this first shot, the "starfield" behind the ship blends with the ship's lights in shadow, to create a sense of unease, as if the ship is appearing from nothingness. 
The "starfield" behind the Star Destroyer: we hand-painted the lights on the Death Star, to give us complete control over the visual balance between a believable, geometric Death Star light pattern and the suggestion that it could be an ordinary starfield in the background.
"Rogue One", visual effects by ILM. Visual effects supervisors John Knoll and Nigel Sumner, animation supervisor @halhickel, Computer graphics supervisor @vickschutz. Lighting by Sam Wirch, compositing by Robert Rossello and more.
Hal talked about how this shot was designed here:
More on how director Gareth Edwards designed visual effects shots for "Rogue One": slashfilm.com/rogue-one-virt…
More on how director Gareth Edwards designed visual effects shots for "Rogue One": slashfilm.com/rogue-one-virt…
It was really tricky getting the choreography *just right* on this shot to make it feel honest and believable; the moving shadow needed to motivate the camera pan. Again, we hand-painted the lights on the Death Star to feel both like space station lights *and* a starfield.
We also added a subtle exposure rack; the shadows at the head of the shot are super-rich and black, and by the end of the shot we opened up the iris to see detail in the shadows (and have the audience be able to see all that beautiful detail we built into the array).
Flashback to the very first "Rogue One" trailer. In the teaser-only version, we placed the Star Destroyer much closer to camera. This way, the camera pan is first motivated by the SD's movement, then later by the mysterious shadow.
The lighting here was designed and executed by @vickschutz, with compositing by @charmainesmchan and team. This was the result of our intense exploration of "how can we make the lighting of space sequences better than we have ever seen before".
Just like the movie-version of the shot, we hand painted the Death Star lights to bridge the gap between space station lights and a typical "Star Wars" starfield. Lots of careful key/fill exposure balancing of the sunlit and shadow areas to make the shot feel honest.
