3D World

The orville: practical meets cg

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On the pilot for season one of The Orville, director Jon Favreau raised the idea of shooting a practical model of the eponymous vessel, and VFX supervisor Luke Mcdonald couldn’t have been more enthusiast­ic.

“I’ve worked with both Jon and his VFX supervisor Rob Legato many times,” he explains. “And Rob had done all of the Next

Generation model shots for the Enterprise. So when they suggested building a model of the Orville, I was ecstatic, because it’s something that’s just unheard of these days. If you suggest something like that in a production meeting, you might get laughed out of the office!”

The model, which was built by Glenn Derry, was five feet long. “It was also 100 per cent lit with LEDS in the interior,” adds Mcdonald. “We used it to pump out around 24 shots over a five-day motion control shoot at one of Fox’s sound stages.” Since then, he says, the VFX artists have used the motion control model as much as possible. “The biggest challenge we had was making our CG assets at least live in the same world as the motion control model,” he says. “I think we’ve achieved a pretty good match.”

A subtly updated design was needed for season 2. “We’ve done things like add an additional window because we now have a classroom, so we needed to accommodat­e that,” he explains. “The average viewer will never notice the ship has changed though, we’ve done it in a way that’s very subtle. We’ve also put in hallways inside the CG model and you can look inside the bridge. If we end up doing a third season I’d expect you’ll see a version-three Orville. It will keep getting more refined and believable.”

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