This is absolutely stunning.
Even more amazing is that there is no CGI or 3D work happening here. Just hundreds of thousands of digital 2D photographs from various space missions that have been stitched together to give you the experience of flying through our universe.
Here are the details of this project from the In Saturn’s Rings YouTube page:
First official teaser for “In Saturn’s Rings”, a giant screen space film for IMAX®, giant screen and fulldome theaters distributed by BIG & Digital, coming spring 2014.
To watch in 4K, choose “original” under quality settings (you need a fast computer and a 4K monitor to view it full rez).
The film is 100% created using only flat 2D photographs (often hundreds or thousands per frame) stitched together for massive hundred megapixel+ resolutions that are scaled and zoomed using techniques developed by the filmmaker, based on Ken Burns and 2.5D photo animation processes.
A computer is actually not even required to do this – it could all be done exactly using photoanimation techniques from 100 years ago.
No 3D models, texture mapping, 3D CGI, camera projection, cloning or painting or any other VFX techniques are used – every pixel is what was captured in the photograph. The photographs are processed as minimally as possible – much less than your average Instagram photo.
