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Computer Film Company handled an amazing shot where an astronaut is working in space. "The camera pulls out from the centre of a satellite to reveal astronauts and in the background, a beautiful revolving earth. Michael Bay wanted the earth to be visibly moving. He wanted it to be different than it has always been done in the past," explained Rob Hodgson, digital effects supervisor for Computer Film Company, "so we got actual NASA transparencies of the Earth and mapped them as bump maps on a sphere in Alias|Wavefront. Then we added haze and faded it out to this beautiful rich blue in 2D."

Then they did the compositing of the earth with all the other elements in Discreet Logic Inferno. "In this shot, the astronaut and the satellite were photographed in a studio against black - this was originally meant to just have stars in it and no earth," Rob explained. "When the brief changed, we then had to put in a brightly lit earth behind the action, and undertake highly complex and accurate rotoscoping around the figure to make the composite."

As well as smashing up the space shuttle, the asteroid fragments hit some of the world's major cities (Paris, New York, etc.). Digital Magic/POP Film, and Cinesite produced effects for the New York destruction shots. "We created the New York matte painting [and it] was probably the biggest challenge, simply because we were not given many elements to work with." Carlos Arguello, Cinesite's visual effects supervisor for Armageddon explained, "Your Bruckheimer fans might be interested to learn that we used bomb fires from the movie The Rock, in that scene."

Bob Wiatr was at Digital Magic during his time working on Armageddon, and now he's at POP Film, "We did a few [of the] New York scenes, as the asteroid fragments are crashing into buildings. We also did the pan shot, near the beginning of the movie, when the meteor blasts through 2 buildings and crashes

The descruction of the Chrysler building in New York. The debris elements are actually text, and the rest of the shot is mainly models and practical effects elements. Images courtesy VFX HQ.

into Grand Central Station. The shot most people remember is the one of the top of a building falling down toward the camera as it looks upward."

Bob went on to explain that the most memorable shot of the movie, in which the top of the Chrysler building is smashed off by a meteor fragment and falls down onto the camera, "was done mostly with practicles and miniatures. The building miniature was shot outside under natural sky. Then the miniature of the top of the building was laid on its side and shot with motion control. We used smoke, fire, explosion and debris elements from a library they created. We also added a few 3D elements. Mostly, they were practicle elements. We were often using 30 to 60 elements in a shot. I was working with up to 125 layers. In addition, many of the elements we used had been shot for other scenes. They were at the wrong angle for us to use, so we had to find a way to force them into the right perspective and make them seem natural."

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