ILM: Behind the Magic of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens

We are pleased to share a sample of the visual effects work created for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The history of ILM leads all the way back to 1975 and origins of Star Wars and The Force Awakens gave us the opportunity to once again push the boundaries of what is possible in character animation and visual effects while combining cutting edge practical effects and physical sets. ILM studios in San Francisco, Singapore, Vancouver and London each contributed to the film effects as did our partners Hybride, Base FX and Virtuos.

We hope you enjoy the reel.

[rebeccapierson]

I am so impressed with how far special effects have come since Star Wars came out in 1977.

[Trisska.ClubNationRenaissance]

It's quite amazing to see how much detail goes into constructing each starship, only to then be blurred out or undergo heavy shading to mesh well with a particular shot. The crashed Star Destroyer 0:37 and the Star Killer trench scene 3:03 are good examples of that. Those artists are under appreciated!

[miked]

Say what you like about the movie as a whole (and God knows, a lot of people have), but it has the most glorious Millennium Falcon footage ever. In particular, the Jakku chase sequence with the TIE fighters is just brilliantly done - they showed off the Falcon's agility, but still managed to make it feel like a hulking beast of a craft - and all of it done entirely digitally.

[lothean]

The best scene in the force awakens is when the millennium falcon flew through that star destroyer. That scene won me over and over. Thank you Ilm.

[AndrewConway]

I would love to see how the Render Farm of Computers compiles all the assets

[NSWSteamFan]

Industrial Light and Magic, you rule the VFX industry (the American one).

[riaanshaigh]

I wish I was a part of your team. Unbelievable the amount of work to bring a story to life. Just awesome

[davidnavarrorodriguez]

Nobody:

Human building speed in Lego ads: 0:40

[DeepEye]

...Weren't people saying that this movie was a big comeback for practical effects?

They couldn't even make a miniature castle or destroyed Star Destroyer ruins on the desert? They arguably used more digital than George was accused of for the Prequels.

[rayperez]

The subD modeled FOSD is very impressive incredible work by the 3d modeling team and texture team at ILM.

[grahpayy]

The Star Wars Sequels have some of the best visual flare in the franchise

[kilroy]

"Make a demo reel of the special effects." "How much detail would you-" "Yes."

[scootdixon]

There's stuff here that I assumed had been built physically. Amazing how far SFX / CGI has come nowadays.

[joedejesus]

I'm no expert on this, but I'm certain that a lot of work goes into developing these scenes.

[Malleus_]

Didn’t Simon Pegg play the guy that gives out the food portions on jaku?

[isaacmartinDArtist]

Awesome! Light and Magic (Light in the brain and Magic to render all this) XD Impressive.

[ShojoBakunyu]

As much as people bitched about the CGI in the prequels, I'm fairly certain they had more practical effects than the sequel trilogy. 🙄

[channelkaranos]

One day we’ll have that in real-time vr

[MikevomMars]

Curious to know why they used massive geometry instead of normal- or hight maps, even for the smallest details.

[NonymAn]

This was so impressive that i forgot to eat my food while watching