The Wandering Earth has been in the news for being a huge moneymaker at the Chinese box office and being one of the first science fiction films from that country to be considered a blockbuster. Its story’s origins and thematic elements may be unique to its culture, but the effects behind the quest to save Earth from its dying sun come from somewhere that should be quite familiar for genre fans.
Pixomondo, the same visual effects house that does the dragons for HBO’s Game of Thrones, handled the CG for The Wandering Earth — and now they’ve released a breakdown so fans can see just how much of the film was effects work, and how some of that work is put together.
Check it out:
That’s a lot of snow.
The company’s team worked on over 200 shots for the space-traveling film, 50 of which were entirely computer generated. They made a giant ice wall (hello, Game of Thrones fans), sure, but also vehicles, drones, and the canyon they explore.
With 185 assets and a CG Shanghai City that uses aerial footage of the real Shanghai to effectively adhere to the structure and layout of reality, Pixomondo’s contributions to the film are intense. Even more so thanks to the video’s layer-wiping style that shows off what each stage of creation looks like before getting to the finished footage.
The Wandering Earth is headed to Netflix in the near future after taking China by storm, so be on the lookout for all this snowy CG to be on the small screen soon.
