Probe zooming toward the Earth before crash 

Complete alien probe AO render and textured version

An idea of the probes that will be composited into after effects sequence

Motion test for the probe leg movement and engine flare

Modelled, rigged and animation done in 3DS Max and engine flare added using After Effects

Bridge asset modelled using Houdini

Bridge asset that would have broken destroyed by alien probe crash in the later part of the opening scene.
All three bridges are the same asset because it was modelled in Houdini with procedural modelling the input values can be changed and a wide range of versions made very quickly using this technique.

Followed a great 3dbuzz.com tutorial from start to finish to get this asset complete and to learn a great many tools and workflow practices as a result.

First pre-vis render for the impact scene

Low resolution video of pre-vis probe lauching towards Earth

Alien Energy test image, particle system made using Thinking Particles, shot is a cut before the probe launch

Opening shot not sure if the Earth appears too far away at this point or if this looks better for the first frame...

Working with Cebas Thinking Particles I thought I'd retest the column breaking that I had done earlier using RayFire to compare the results. Although Thinking Particles has a much wider range of uses, the fracturing tools appear to work better using RayFire.

In the process of testing environment scene, this has been made using Vue it compares to Terregen 2 but appears to be a better software package it renders faster and can cope with a much higher resolution of terrain mesh. The nest test will be setting up the fly through and rendering that and then seeing how well the scene can can exported so that the particle vfx can be added ready for the composition. 

Still from probe launch animation sequence - The Earth with a cloud layer

Render of the Earth, setting up for the mothership approach scene  

Low resolution render of large scale smoke column test that would be added into the composition of the probes impact, same large scale but better opacity and with debris and backgrounds added. 

Low resolution render of the column collapsing 

Part of a series of images doing a fracture test in 3DS Max using Rayfire. May use this instead of using Houdini for the coffee cup fracture. Will post the full video simulation once it is ready

Test using particle system Krakatoa and 3DS Max, this is a simple sand before full testing for snow storms and blizzard effects.

Trying to get the night settings for render correct and the snow to look as if it has fallen onto the mountains naturally

Testing shaders to get a realistic looking snowy terrain

Render test for the Antarctic scenes - made using Terragen 2 

Another test image, the settings have been changed and tested to improve the render result. The sequence is 500 frames long and each frame take around 90-120 seconds to render.

Just one image from an animated sequence as a test for the probes impact into the snow. This was made using 3DS Max and a fume fx plugin

Work In Progress Image
Modelling of a snow-mobile to go into the outdoor scene of the Arctic research base

Mother ship Modelling

This is the basic design for the Mother Ship that will come into the deploy the probe. The ship opens to launch the probe as seen in the second image