The article tells some of the great behind the scenes stories of how ILM went from models to some of the most realistic CGI ever created. Below is their history in photos. You can read the entire article here.
Darth Vader’s helmet from Star Wars: Episode IVArk of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)Dragonslayer (1981)
Muren: We had a miniature dragon Phil Tippett had made, and we programmed it at slow speed instead of having an animator moving one frame at a time. We got a Technical Achievement Award for that. We called it “go motion.” A lot of people still think it’s the best dragon that’s been done.
A model of the Death Star II from the production of Return of the Jedi (1983)Prototype anamatronic head/performance helmet for Slimer from Ghostbusters IITerminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)Jurassic Park (1993)
Spielberg: The fluidity of the running cycles was such that there was no comparison—even with go-motion. I just said, “Well, stop-motion as a process is extinct.”
Casper (1995)
Aaron McBride (art director): I didn’t think much of Casper at the time, but it had the first digital star character of a feature-length film.
Pearl Harbor (2001)
Spielberg: I always thought that if ILM had run the space agency we’d have colonized Mars by now.
