See full gallery on TechnoBuffaloRemember early in the development of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams went out of his way to let fans know visual effects would be used sparingly for the new movie? Who can blame him? The prequel trilogy’s overuse of CGI was one of the weakest parts of the movies. It turns out, he was mostly referring to bad CGI, because The Force Awakens still used extensive visual effects work from Industrial Light & Magic.
ILM is known for crafting some of the best visual effects work in Hollywood (Avengers, Jurassic World), and it delivered another masterpiece with The Force Awakens. The discussion of whether CGI is bad for movies can be spared for another time; what’s obvious right now is that the latest Star Wars used a lot of it and nobody noticed—or cared.
Some of the scenes broken down by ILM’s latest video include how 3D rendering was done for Maz Kanata, Star Destroyers and BB-8. As a viewer, you don’t really notice just how many elements go into crafting a stationary Star Destroyer in the middle of a desert, yet it takes hours and probably thousands of visual cues to make it look realistic. The video also shows just how much detail went into mapping a 3D blueprint of a Star Destroyer, which creates a visual aesthetic that fits with our perspective of space.
The whole video is a fantastic behind the scenes look into the visual effects work of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Check out the complete video below.
Source: Industrial Light & Magic