THE APPROACH - THE
DESTRUCTION - AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT - THE FINAL ATTACK
DOWNLOAD THE INDEPENDENCE DAY MONTAGE - ID4 HOME PAGE
THE APPROACH - THE
DESTRUCTION - AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT - THE FINAL ATTACK
DOWNLOAD THE INDEPENDENCE DAY MONTAGE - ID4 HOME PAGE
The humans develop an elaborate attack plan, with its focus on Captain Hiller (Will Smith) and David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) piloting a downed Attacker ship into the Mothership and uploading a destructive computer virus. The moment of diversion will disable Destroyers' shields and allow aircraft to fire upon the immense ships.The immense size of the Mothership presented its own unique problems for the visual effects unit. The 600 mile wide Mothership was created as a 12' miniature. Proper lighting of the model was cruicial to help propel the idea of its enormous size. As the Attacker enters the massive ship, it encounters huge pillars and columns, created in miniature as 14' tall foam sculptures and various 2D cutouts. The digital team also added more columns, as well as the foggy atmosphere and other aircraft.
Hiller and Levinson upload the virus, and fire a nuclear missile into the center of the ship. The destruction of the Mothership was handled by VisionArt, who succeeded in creating a distinctive sequence. There are many classic explosion scenes in recent film history--the Death Star exploding in STAR WARS, the Nostromo in ALIEN, or Krypton in SUPERMAN. ID4's explosion in most like ALIEN's, with its own twist. A digital model of the mothership was created, and was animated by hand, and with "Sparky" to break apart in many pieces.
VisionArt contributed many shots including computer generated F-18's. The top shot
is from the counter-offensive, and the bottom shot is from the final attack.
VisionArt's approach to these shots was to hand-animate the hero foreground
elements to ensure accurate movements, while the background planes were
animated with VisionArt's proprietary "Sparky" behavioral animation system.
The talented group of animators at VisionArt also created the explosion
of the massive Mothership. The CG ship begins to explode...
...and erupts in a wave of light. Carl Hooper, Rob Bredow and Daniel Kramer
are primarily responsible for the animation of the Attacker and the
approaching debris chunks.
Bredow and Kramer created this side shot of the debris overtaking the Attacker.Back on Earth, the massive aerial attack finishes as Russell Casse (Randy Quaid) flies his F-18 directly into the Destroyer's schism, causing a chain reaction of explosions. The destruction of the schism firing mechanism was actually a recycled element from earlier New York destruction sequence. The Empire State Building's massive firey destruction was rotoscoped, flipped vertically, and composited over the schism footage.
Attackers pounce upon the Area 51
base, as the final attack takes place.
Hiller and Levinson use the downed
Attacker to infiltrate the Mothership in this
shot provided by Matte World Digital.
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THE APPROACH - THE DESTRUCTION - AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT - THE FINAL ATTACK
DOWNLOAD THE INDEPENDENCE DAY MONTAGE - ID4 HOME PAGE
