25 greatest CGI movie moments

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3D visual effects in the movies have come on leaps and bounds since their introduction in the 1980s. The art of creating realistic looking environments, monsters, creatures and buildings continues to impress, with many movies now relying on the creative talent at special effects companies like ILM and Weta to enhance movies with stunning CGI. Did your favourite movie moments make it to the top of our list of the best CGI scenes?

Don't forget to check out our run down of the 20 best 3D movies

25. Pearl Harbour (2001)

Why watch it?

With a laboured script, leaden acting, turgid pace, and insensitive factual inaccuracies... the only reason Pearl Harbour is worth seeing is for the recreation of the infamous 1941 attack. Unbelievably, there are only four shots that are totally CG in the movie, including the two shots of the USS Arizona exploding, with the wide camera angle taking four months of constant effects work to perfect.

ILM used a combination of software for the attack sequence, including AliasStudio, Maya, and Softimage for basic modelling, and employed its proprietary software, Zeno, for the many rigid body simulations. To comply with environmental rules, VFX supervisor Eric Brevig also had to write a new piece of software to create the amount of smoke plumes needed. So while it’s a dreadful film, we can’t help but applaud the truly brilliant CG effects.

Killer sequence

A detailed recreation of the chillingly effective surprise attack by the Japanese on a US naval base.

Director: Michael Bay
VFX: ILM

24. Cloverfield (2008)

Why watch it?

This may be a spin-off of Godzilla, as mysterious and severely peeved creatures attack New York, but what a spin-off it is. Cloverfield is an amazing example of how to mix hand-held live-action with quality CG effects.

The most terrifying sequence happens early on, when the Statue of Liberty’s head is catapulted down the road by an unknown and unseen force. Visible for several seconds in full frame, the head itself had to be built as an extremely detailed 3D model with precise texturing.

Production used 4 and 5K stills of the head that were placed online following the landmark’s cleaning a few years ago. These detailed the head’s panelwork and areas of grime that could be used as reference when texturing the model. The genius of JJ Abrams combined with great effects is clearly a recipe for success.

Killer sequence

The Statue of Liberty’s scratched-up head comes sailing down a New York Street, hinting at the dangers to come.

Director: Matt Reeves
VFX: Double Negative

23. Terminator Salvation (2009)

Why watch it?

You’ve got to feel sorry for John Connor: his mum was a bit mental and his only real friend was a machine that once tried to kill him and is now dead. To his credit, though, he is very determined and returns in the fourth Terminator instalment, ready to kick more shiny metal ass. Among its 1,500 VFX shots, T4 features an impressive 60ft, headless, biped robot - the aptly named Harvester - on a rampage.

The huge cyborg has one of the film’s most intricate rigs. ILM used techniques originally developed for Transformers to provide animators with extra flexibility when choosing which parts to control. ILM also integrated an energy-conserving shader set in RenderMan to achieve more accurate lighting and cope with the extreme contrasts of desert conditions. The ensuing segment with the truck, Moto-terminators and a giant Transporter isn’t bad either.

Killer sequence

The headless Harvester robot smashes up a gas station in its hunt for humans.

Director: McG
VFX: ILM, Asylum, Rising Sun Pictures and Matte World Digital

22. 10,000 BC (2008)

Why watch it?

If you can ignore the script, the acting, the historical inaccuracies and the bizarre pseudo sci-fi ending, 10,000 BC is a pretty cool film, with some excellent FX work from MPC and Double Negative. The sweeping vistas over the Giza site are largely models built at 1:24 scale by Joachim Grueninger, constructed near the actual film set in Namibia, but they’re enhanced with digital doubles, dust, and props.

The best sequence, however, is the stampede, where a pack of mammoths is unleashed to wreak havoc among a building site with 50,000 digital slaves. Fully CG sets integrate seamlessly with live-action and model shots and, all in all, it’s a suitably epic climax for a fantastically overblown movie.

Killer sequence

A frightened pack of 50 captive mammoths is set loose in order to bring a pyramid building site to a grinding halt.

Director: Roland Emmerich
VFX: Double Negative (wide shots) MPC (medium and close-up shots)

21. The Perfect Storm (2000)

Why watch it?

George Clooney may be a looker, but his character in this film isn’t very smart. He plays Billy Tyne, a fishing boat captain who ignores weather warnings, in a tale that’s based on the true story of the Andrea Gail from 1991. The end sequence is a CGI stonker, featuring a huge 100ft wave that finally capsizes the ship. In total, the film featured 90 completely CG shots, all of which include water elements.

A further 220 shots required CG seas to be composited with live-action footage shot on a huge, moveable fishing boat set. A custom fluid dynamics system was developed to create a realistic ocean and more than 30 plug-ins were written for Maya to achieve the intricate effects.

In addition to this, standalone applications for shaders and particle systems were also written in-house. In what is otherwise a slightly disappointing film, the mammoth VFX are what leave the longest-lasting impression.

Killer sequence

A fishing boat and its crew run into a spot of bother on stormy seas.

Director: Wolfgang Peterson
VFX: ILM

20. Labyrinth (1986)

Why watch it?

Although it may not be the most impressive effect today, back in 1986 this digital owl made quite a stir among cinema goers. It was the very first attempt at creating a realistic looking CGI animal and we think the teams at ILM and Optical Film Effects did a mighty fine job. Although Jim Henson is more widely known for his puppetry skills (which were put to good use in the film), he managed to help create the computer-generated characters that would eventually replace them.

Bill Kroyer was responsible for the award-winning design; he animated and technical directed the flying owl which was also produced by Alan Peach. It's safe to say that being the very first fully computer animated animal, this opening sequence would go on to have a lasting impression on the world of CGI movie history.

Killer sequence

The opening credits sees David Bowie's character Jareth the Goblin King as an owl... naturally.

Director: Jim Henson
VFX: ILM and Optical Film Effects

19. i, Robot (2004)

Why watch it?

While the huge robot punch-up at the top of the US Robotics building provides a suitably action-packed climax to proceedings, we think it's the film's other huge robot punch-up that's the more memorable. Hurtling along a suspiciously empty tunnel in his product-placed Audi RSQ sport coupe, two ominous (and beautifully designed) container vehicles glide alongside Spooner and eject their cargo of angry androids over his car.

It's a brilliantly dynamic scene, featuring 90 shots and tons of destruction. Constructing the scene entirely in CG, including a digital Will Smith borrowed from Digital Domain, Weta used Maya for modelling, RenderMan for output and Shake for compositing and some lighting effects.

Killer sequence

Chicago Police Detective Del Spooner is enjoying a quiet drive home in his Audi until murderous robots attack.

Director: Alex Proyas
VFX: Weta

18. The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Why watch it?

There's an abundance of VFX sequences in this disaster movie, but none beat the brilliant super-sized tsunami that hits Manhattan. Only responsible for five shots in the entire film, Tweak Films pulled out all the stops on the water simulation for the sequence.

The small studio used its proprietary water system - a unified dynamics platform that includes rigid body dynamics, fluid dynamics and particle simulation - to create the ultra-realistic flood. LIDAR models and textures were used to build the city itself, meaning final shots were completely digital, and the resulting composition was a masterful mix of dozens of layers.

Killer sequence

The massive storm causes a huge tsunami to hit Manhattan.

Director: Roland Emmerich
VFX: Tweak Films

17. Hollow Man (2000)

Why watch it?

The film boasts some 400 effects, ranging from simple tracking and bluescreen shots when Bacon's latex mask is seen to be empty, through to sophisticated effects where the invisible man's body is highlighted only by water or smoke.

That standout VFX sequence, where Bacon becomes invisible, is a marvel too. Sony's custom volume rendering system enabled the VFX crew to replicate an entire human body in detail, where all the veins and organs move and react properly to the movement of the character. Overall, Hollow Man's not Verhoeven's best effort, but the effects are great.

Killer sequence

Invisibility test subject Sebastian Caine's gradual transformation to transparency, as layers of skin, organs and bone disappear.

Director: Paul Verhoeven
VFX: Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI)

16. Star Wars - Episode 1 (1999)

Why watch it?

The Phantom Menace was, at the time, the biggest visual effects project ever undertaken. The film required 35,000 storyboards and 95 per cent of the frames have digital elements in them.

To visualise the sequence, ILM spent a year on R&D, working on physics systems for the destruction of the podracers plus an Adaptive Terrain Generator, which employed a level-of-detail system just so that its computers could hold the mesh data in memory. Despite the film's (many) flaws, the thrilling 320-shot podrace remains an undoubted highlight of the Star Wars canon and is well worth savouring.

Killer sequence

A slave boy infested with Midi-chlorians races against aliens in an 800kph hovercraft to win his freedom.

Director: George Lucas
VFX: ILM

15. Avengers Assemble (2012)

 

Why watch it?

The visual effects for Avengers Assemble were never going to let us down - from the opening credits to the epic battle scenes, this film is truly a feast for the eyes. However, it was the particular scene of a falling Iron Man suiting up in the all new Mark VII as he descended that we found most impressive.

ILM and Weta combined their talents to recreate Iron Man and this incredible sequence. ILM provided the Iron Man models, whilst Weta was responsible for creating clothes and hair for the digidoubles with their own shaders and textures. Weta used plenty of motion capture techniques, whilst the animators were responsible for the flying scenes. You can read more about the Avengers Assemble effects in 3D world issue 157.

Killer sequence

Iron Man jumps from Stark Tower unsuited, only for his Iron Man suit to follow and dress him with centimetres to spare.

Director: Joss Whedon
VFX: Weta Digital and ILM

14. District 9 (2009)

Why watch it?

With a modest budget of $30million, District 9 still manages to make it onto an array of top CGI movie lists thanks to the hard work of Weta Workshop. It takes a great design team to come up with a ship design that will stick and the mothership featured in the film pleased many a sci-fi fan. Image Engine completed 311 visual effects shots for District 9 and whilst these shots were predominantly of digital aliens, the studio also developed the mothership.

In the cases where shots required both a background ship and foreground character animation or other visual effects, Weta would pre-comp the ship and provide the completed comp to the relevant facility. You can read more about the special effects used in the film in 'The Art of District 9'.

Killer sequence

The mothership of the 'prawns' is revealed and hovers about Johannesburg, South Africa for 3 months.

Director: Neill Blomkamp
VFX: Weta Workshop & Image Engine

13. Gladiator (2000)

Why watch it?

Rome wasn't built in a day and neither were the academy award nominated special effects created for this epic Ridley Scott Roman tale. Visual effects supervisor John Nelson quoted that "it was always our concept to treat the Colosseum like it was the Super Bowl, in that you're going out on the field with the players and you have 40,000 people screaming for your head".

A model of the colosseum was about one storey high and didn't even complete the full circle. To recreate the 3D colosseum, Nelson and his team used the blueprints from designer Arthur Max and added a further two storeys, a roof, the outside wall, the back end of the colosseum and of course, the crowds. They photographed the textures, the patina and stucco used on the actual colosseum and then added those textures to the CGI movie version. The 540 degree camera shot in the film really shows off their skill.

Killer sequence

Maximus Meridius (Russell Crowe) fights to the death in a re-imagined colosseum.

Director: Ridley Scott
VFX: Mill Film Ltd

12. Spiderman 3 (2007)

Why watch it?

The movie is packed full of knock-out effects - many of which include its other two villains, Venom and the new Green Goblin - but the 2,700-frame, three-minute 'birth of Sandman' sequence manages to top them all. The Sony Pictures Imageworks team spent a year in R&D working on the tools that would enable them to fully achieve the complicated effect for Flint Marko's new form.

To visualise Sandman's varying states, they used a mixture of particle and fluid/gas simulations, plus SphereSim - a custom simulation engine that helped generate natural-looking sand piles. This technology, combined with Houdini and RenderMan plug-ins, makes the VFX sequence one of the most emotional and impressive moments of the entire trilogy.

Killer sequence

'Unlucky' Flint Marko stumbles across the world's only experimental particle physics site, turning him into the invincible Sandman.

Director: Sam Raimi
VFX: SPI

11. Inception (2010)

Why watch it?

Inception is a surreal story about dreams within dreams that keeps the audience awake with its truly masterful VFX. When architect Ariadne starts to "mess with the physics of it all" within her own dreamscape, she casually folds up Paris in one of the film's most complicated and impressive sequences.

To achieve the intricate effect, the Double Negative team spent two weeks taking thousands of stills and working from millimetre-accurate scans provided by LIDAR services to replicate a photorealistic model of four Parisian apartment blocks. Digital cars and people were also added to the upended cityscape and the Ptex mapping technique used to avoid the burden of UVs. The team also had to devise a series of cheats to fully achieve the shots needed, including hiding intersecting buildings behind other geometry and a set of careful camera moves.

Killer sequence

Ariadne gains confidence in her dreamscape and folds Paris into a cube, naturally.

Director: Chris Nolan
VFX: Double Negative

10. Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Why watch it?

OK, OK we know the third film in the Transformers franchise isn't going to win any Oscars for plot or acting abilities but there's no way that you can ignore the hugely impressive special effects that grace the screen for much of the running time. ILM were already responsible for the previous two films but the character of The Driller was going to test their abilities.

The robot was almost three times as big as the Transformers and it's well known among special effects teams that tentacles are one of the harder aspects to get right. Seeing as Driller was a tentacle with tentacles (with 70,051 parts!) , this was a big ask. It took a staggering 288 hours per frame to render the Driller along with the photoreal CG building that includes all those reflections in its glass. ILM calculates that that added up to more than 200,000 rendering hours per day -- or the equivalent of 22.8 years of render time in a 24-hour period.

Killer sequence

Driller goes on a rampage through Marina city, causing a fair bit of damage.

Director: Michael Bay
VFX: ILM

09. King Kong (2005)

Why watch it?

We're not sure why one, let alone three, V-Rex would be interested in eating Naomi Watts: she'd hardly make a filling meal. Nevertheless, Kong has to stop his new size-8 friend from becoming dinosaur fodder in this thrilling, 10-minute-long, CG-heavy sequence.

Weta doubled its capacity in terms of render farm and disc space, and took on roughly 25 per cent more people to create King Kong. The team used a Maya, RenderMan and Shake pipeline, and created custom software for the ape's fur. Since Ann gets thrown about, Weta also had to use a digital double for Naomi Watts in these scenes. Ultimately, this remake of the 1933 classic proves that good things also come in big packages.

Killer sequence

The mighty ape takes on three mighty V-Rex in order to protect Ann.

Director: Peter Jackson
VFX: Weta

08. The Abyss (1989)

Why watch it?

This was the very first use of digitally animated water, which means it was a mile stone in CGI movie history. The aquatic aliens were the first creatures on film made entirely from water and back in 1989, this visual effect was jaw-dropping. The 75 second sequence was divided up between seven special effects companies but it was ILM that created the program which would simulate the watery creature with incredible realism.

The combination of live action and CG effects were levelled up, as actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio comes into contact with the creature - although we wouldn't recommend tasting an alien. This was a special effects milestone that helped advance the use of CGI in film for years to come.

Killer sequence

The civilian diving team come face to face with an alien aquatic species.

Director: James Cameron
VFX: Steve Johnson's XFX, Inc.

07. The Matrix (1999)

Why watch it?

Not only is this film one of the greatest sci-fi creations, this particular scene has become renowned for its use of special effects within the entire film industry. The 'bullet-time' special effect is a time rendered simulation that creates variable speed to show objects such as flying bullets in slow motion.

The method used for creating this effect involved a technically expanded version of an old art photography technique known as time-slice photography, in which a large number of cameras are placed around an object and triggered nearly simultaneously. When the sequence of shots is viewed, the viewer sees what are in effect two-dimensional 'slices' of a three-dimensional moment. It's no wonder then, that the team went on to win an Academy award for their efforts.

Killer sequence

Neo (Keanu Reeves) dodges bullets from The Agents.

Director: Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski
VFX: Manex Visual Effects

06. Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King (2003)

Why watch it?

Widely appreciated as one of the best battle scenes of all time, the battle of Pelannor Fields in the final Lord of the Rings film is jaw-droppingly impressive. Over 1,500 effects shots were used in the third film (more than the first two films combined) with the team at Weta relying on the model team and photography of the landscape to get the battle looking as realistic as possible.

Although the charging Mmakil were initially created using real life elements, Weta decided to compile them entirely digitally due to a last minute request from Peter Jackson. The elephant-like creatures were created entirely from keyframing and the team at Weta went on to win their third Oscar in three years. Not bad at all.

Killer sequence

The final battle of the Pelennor Fields.

Director: Peter Jackson
VFX: Weta

05. Tron (1982)

Why watch it?

Although the original Tron didn't do particularly well at the box office thanks to competition from Blade Runner and ET, there's no denying the film was a turning point in the use of visual effects and CGI movie history. It may not have aged well but the production of Tron marked the first time that computer-generated imagery had been extensively used in a feature film.

MAGI used a SynthaVision process to create the computer graphics for the film; this process utilized basic geometric shapes that the computer recognized as solid objects with density. By varying the size and quantity of these shapes, MAGI could construct a limited variety of three-dimensional designs and animate them easily.

Interestingly, Tron was disqualified from competition for 1982's Visual Effects Oscar because computer aided effects were considered cheating.

Killer sequence

The first glimpse of the light bikes.

Director: Steven Lisberger
VFX: MAGI

04. Terminator 2 (1991)

Why watch it?

The effects used in Terminator 2 were the most ambitious since the 1982 release of Tron. Although the CGI scenes only take up a total of 5 minutes of the film, it took a team of 35 animators, technicians and artists ten months to create. In order to make a computer model of the face of the T-1000, ILM used laser scanning technology called Cyberscan. They projected a laser beam across the face of Robert Patrick and used video cameras to build the 3D database.

Robert's distinctive walk and run were also recorded and studied vigorously to make the T-1000 as realistic as possible. Unsurprisingly, the team went on to win the Oscar for Best Visual Effects in 1992.

Killer sequence

T-1000 emerges from an explosion, revealing his liquid metal structure.

Director: James Cameron
VFX: ILM

03. Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers (2002)

Why watch it?

The creation of J.R.R. Tolkien's vision of Gollum took over 1000 drawings to get right and was the very first time an actor's performance and digital animation were combined to make one lifelike CGI movie character. The Gollum head model consisted of just over 2,600 polygons, which were mostly quads. Raitt also created tools that exposed 64 control points to animation artists, who then animated Gollum into the film's scenes.

Initally, actor Andy Serkis was only supposed to voice the character but after witnessing his extreme facial expressions, the team at Weta decided to scrap their first model and instead, film Andy and capture the movements that way. It was a monumental moment in CG history and Andy has gone on to work with the same methods as Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Killer sequence

The full realisation of Gollum

Director: Peter Jackson
VFX: Weta

02. Avatar (2009)

Why watch it?

Because it's probably the most complex visual effects sequence created to date. So complex, in fact, that it needed the combined power of the planet's most accomplished FX houses to complete, with ILM brought on board to handle the gunships, Dragon assault vessel and Valkyrie shuttle.

Apart from some bluescreen shots of live-action actors in cockpits, it's all CG: gunships, missiles, smoke trails, water, fire, an army of photorealistic virtual characters and a giant tree made of 20 million polygons with 1.2 million leaves. The detailed explosions are entirely CG too, a technique ILM pioneered with a customised version of its fluid dynamics engine. Oh, and it's all in stereoscopic 3D to boot. But despite being the product of two teams working 6,500 miles apart and on different scenes, the action intercuts between them seamlessly. Whatever you think of Cameron's magnum opus, the 200-plus shots of the hometree destruction make for a jaw-dropping sequence and a new benchmark for VFX

Killer sequence

The Omaticaya clan's deciduous condo gets a drastic makeover, courtesy of the evil Resources Development Administration.

Director: James Cameron
VFX: ILM and Weta

01. Jurassic Park (1993)

Why watch it?

Because it's potentially the biggest, most eagerly awaited reveal shot in cinematic history. To tackle the task of creating dinosaurs, ILM scanned in chunks of a model brachiosaurus to create patch meshes, then used custom program SOCK (Surface Original with Continuous sKin), developed for Terminator 2, to create an overall mesh.

A new app called Envelope was also created, enabling the underlying points to be manipulated - either by hand or driven by other geometry - thus recreating the effect of muscles beneath the skin. Both Alias PowerAnimator and Softimage Creative Environment 2.0 take credit for the animation in the movie, the latter employed because of Chain, the first commercially available IK system.

Finally, a Dinosaur Input Device (DID) was developed by Craig Hayes of Tippett Studio. Built just like a stop-motion armature, this rig translated movement into keyframes, enabling the stop-motion artists to transfer their well-honed skills into the digital realm.

Killer sequence

We finally get to see a living, breathing dinosaur - and Spielberg wrings every last second from the moment.

Director: Steven Spielberg
VFX: ILM

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So, did your favourite make the list? If not, let us know! Some of the extracts used were originally published in 3D World magazine issue 146. Check them out at 3D world for more in-depth 3D goodness.