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Adam Howard, the film's compositing supervisor, also mentioned that this was a favourite shot of his, "The miniature of the building was very good. The shot just became very complex due to all of the elements involved. The director wanted debris pouring off of the top as if still caught in the slipstream of the asteroid. To create some of the debris we eventually used 3D text elements that had been created from geometric shapes. Bob Wiatr and I even spelled our names in some of the debris created from this 3D text that is pouring off the building."

The award winning visual effects house Digital Domain also contributed to the New York destruction sequence, with the Grand Central Station interior destruction shot. "We only had 8 weeks to come up with the Grand Central Station shot." Erik Nash, Digital Domain's visual effects supervisor for Armageddon, "Our producer Cari Thomas pulled the entire production together with zero lead time. George Stevens and his terrific model crew did their usual stellar work. And for this show

The destruction of Grand Central Station in New York was handled by Digital Magic. The interior Grand Central Station sequnce was handled by Digital Domain. Digital Domain's Shanghai Harbor sequence. This shot is mostly miniatures with digital water elements. Images courtesy VFX HQ.

they did it on a ridiculously short schedule. Joe Viscozil handled the [miniatures for the] Grand Central Station sequence, and Matthew Butler was our CG Supervisor for all of the 3D work. Rick Dunn served [as lead compositor for the] Grand Central [sequence]. But the person who made it all possible was Rob Legato. He was constantly there offering suggestions, sharing his vast experience, and keeping me out of trouble. He is absolutely the best in the business."

Digital Domain was also handed the Shanghai Harbor sequence, where yet another asteroid fragment causes mass destruction. Again, the shot consisted mostly of miniatures, while the water was CG (created using Arete). "[One of the things] we were having trouble creating [was] the geyser in Shanghai Harbor that is created when the asteroid hits." Erik explained, "Finally we ended up using tiny glass beads. These beads were very small, like grains of sand but perfectly round and clear. We blew them out of a 10 inch air mortar and filmed it at high speed and it perfectly simulated a plume of water."

The next big visual effects scene is the shuttle launch sequence, where the Freedom and Independence are launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida. This was created by Editel and Computer Cafe. Don Lee, compositing Supervisor for Editel on Armageddon explained that, "Michael Bay, the Director, had gone down to Florida with a crew and actually filmed a shuttle launch. They shot this from about 14 different angles and we were then given this footage as our background elements. They then shot motion control greenscreen footage of the miniature shuttles which were, I believe, about two feet tall. After that we inserted the model footage into the launch footage."

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