#EXOWORLDS 001 || Mining Ethereum: Off-World Planet Excavator (Realistic CGI VFX Breakdown)

(Pump up the sound and 1080p it!) MORE HERE: YEAR 2196: TIER II Mining and cargo delivery vessel Nostromo roars to life as it pulls up its digging bucket one last time before it departs to deliver the mined Ethereum to the colony of Niven, a nearby man made Ringworld visible in the horizon of its home planet, Kepler 452B. Niven is now entering its secondary phase of construction where another concentric ring would be added to accommodate the ever growing population. Mining Ethereum has been the new gold rush for a lot of these vessels as it becomes more scarce and its prices keep going higher. These mining ships also known as Planet Excavators are one of the biggest marvel of human engineering given their sheer scale. Kilometers long, these space ships could excavate entire mountains in one swoop, house population of little cities and have digging buckets big enough to send quakes every time they are pulled out. They might be looked down upon by society as dirty and third world vessels but its these giants on the shoulders of whom mankind envisions its dreams of inhabiting new worlds.. ____________________ This shot was my attempt of taking a concept art image to live action with realistic cgi that is convincing enough to sell the shot but not time consuming enough to take forever. I taught compositing at Seneca and the students had 7 weeks to go through the process of concept to final VFX shot and I decided to join them as a challenge. The concept art image that inspired me to do this shot was from the very talented Espen Olsen Sætervik: ætervik/ Original video by the awesome Ricardo Esquivel: @rickyrecap I loved that “silhouetted massive leviathan structure floating against a sunset“ feel in this artwork with little base stations under it. I loved how you could tell how huge the spaceship was as you could see it haze not only in depth but also have high atmospheric haze. As I was putting together the shot, the idea of the ship being a humongous excavator came to mind. What if excavators in the future are so big that their ’buckets’ are big enough to chomp on an entire mountain in one sweep. And then they take that material to outer space to create ringworld’s like the one you see on the right that was directly inspired from the concept image. 3D was done in Maya, rendered in Redshift and composited in Nuke. Final edit, logos and intro screen in AE. Music by the very talented Scott Buckley overlayed with ethnic ’Middle Eastern Vocals’ by Rast Sound that I tweaked to make it more eerie. As someone who already works full time, finding time to do this on the side meant countless 5am mornings but if you look back at your work and it brings a smile and a mini goosebump to you, know that it was all worth it! PS: Some hidden easter eggs in the opening intro! Follow me on : ► Artstation: ► LinkedIn: ► Instagram: Contact me on: indystryfilms@ #cgi #vfx #scifi #futuristic #ethereum