Modern enthusiasm for space predicts a future resembling the best ideas in science fiction. Inevitably they say, we’ll have bases on the moon, space prospectors, and entire neighborhoods orbiting Mars. “The Future of Space Travel” is an in-depth virtual reality journey through humanity’s future after Earth.
I outlined my contributions below, but huge thanks to my amazing co-workers at CNN Motion. This project was an extended relay race of talent and hard work from a whole lot of people listed here:
My first task on the project was to finalize the rocket that takes off during the title sequence. We sourced a model of both the Dragon capsule and Falcon boosters but the need to put our astronauts in such close quarters lead to a backslide of geometry modifications to the interior. I modified windows and merged the separate interior & exterior models. After pushing some polys around the astronauts had enough room to begin animating.
I had seen C4D’s Motion Clip system used in a SIGGRAPH presentation but I had no experience working with it myself until now. Loading different animations from Mixamo and blending them together was surprisingly fun and easy once I got the hang of it. Each astronaut starts out with different sitting animations to give them unique personalities. As the rocket travels into space, I blended a second animation with some underwater swimming animations to create the appearance of zero gravity.
Time to simulate a rocket launch. With the astronauts animated, I could change focus from the interior to the exterior. Using X-Particles 4 and the new Explosia toolset, simulating a convincing rocket takeoff wasn’t too hard. The difficultly lie in the scale. This rocket needed to travel alot of distance very quickly so the size of the solver box was massive. Getting enough resolution on the simulation without spending hours on each simulation was the biggest headache, but ultimately I found a happy medium that still looked convincing.
The space colony was probably the most ambitious shot of the whole piece. Looking at several ringworlds for inspiration, we came up with a design that was supposed to feel epic yet inviting. I really started feeling the design once we decided to start out underground. In VR it proved necessary to have elements closer to the camera to give a sense of scale, as otherwise everything in the scene felt too distant to immerse the viewer. The subterranean section, surrounded by a nest of elevator shafts and pedestrians, allowed us to reveal the main vista with dramatic effect.
With the design figured out, I animated as many elements as possible and worked in conjunction with Melody Shih to create textures for the rural ground section and the buildings that flanked it. From the animated silhouettes around the basement to the transport rails darting above ground, there were a ton of small details that brought the area to life. Lighting and texturing then proceeded until every element felt cohesive.