Animatics: The Moving Storyboards of Episode I

While 2D approximations work for many applications, David's spacecraft flying overhead will have to be modeled and animated, since they race dynamically through the shot. They are lit by the same light source developed for the Battle Tank, and they fly through the same virtual set, tracked by the virtual camera pan. For the ships, we use a design which will not appear in Episode I.

One of these is quickly modeled by animatics team member Evan Pontoriero, and then placed by David into a trajectory using key frames. David specifies start point, end point, and key points along the way, and the computer interpolates the rest. David meanwhile specifies how much motion blur he wants on the ships, which contributes to the photo-realism of the ships.