The Wandering Earth Visual Effects Breakdowns

VFX Online February 24, 2019, 5:44 am 1.8k Views

The Wandering Earth Visual Effects Breakdowns

The Wandering Earth (Chinese: 流浪地球) is a 2019 Chinese science fiction film directed by Frant Gwo, loosely based on the 2000 novella of the same name by multi-award-winning author Liu Cixin. It stars Qu Chuxiao, Li Guangjie, Ng Man-tat, Zhao Jinmai, Wu Jing and Qu Jingjing. Set in the far future, The Wandering Earth follows a group of astronauts and rescue workers guiding the Earth away from an expanding Sun, while attempting to prevent a collision with Jupiter. The film was theatrically released in China on 5 February 2019 (Chinese New Year’s Day), by China Film Group Corporation, followed by North America and Australia on 8 February 2019.

The film grossed[when?] $700 million worldwide. It is China’s third highest-grossing film of all time and the third highest-grossing non-English film to date. It has received generally positive reviews from critics, with The Hollywood Reporter describing it as “China’s first full-scale interstellar spectacular.” Netflix has acquired the film’s global streaming rights. The film was available to stream by Netflix in various countries outside of China on 30 April 2019.

The Wandering Earth – VFX Breakdown Reel by Pixomondo

PIXOMONDO completed 216 shots, including over 50 full CG shots. The work ranges from full CG environments to heavy effects simulations with collapsing ice and collapsing frozen buildings. 185 assets were produced by PXO, including the whole of the Shanghai City environment, the frozen Canyon, the Ice Wall, hero vehicles, the Rescue Bubble, Cargo plane, the Drone etc.

The CG Ice Wall is over 400 meters in height, and the total environment covers a 45km radius. With an environment so large PXO had to build an entirely new scene management pipeline and tools to handle the workload for this project. The Ice Canyon and The Ice Wall was made up of over 20 modules that were put together according to the needs of the environment. The layout, structure, height and distances within the Shanghai City are all true and authentic – to realize this, the PXO team did a field aerial shooting in Shanghai.

Bottleship VFX’s work on The Wandering Earth

Bottleship VFX, In one of the highest grossing box office films in Chinese history, we built the sequence with characters escaping a frozen tower in an ice buried Shanghai. The collapse is seen from both inside and out, shimmering glass and mangled metal crushing down among billowing snow clouds and glittery diamond dust.