For the film version of the popular comic book series, Matte World Digital generated fully 3D environments for moving-camera shots and flyovers of New York City.

Stage photography for a dolly shot establishing an ultra-modern aircraft hanger inside Professor Xavier's underground headquarters. Since the majority of the shot would be composed of digital imagry, the actors were photographed on a large stage with a minimal set, shown here with a wireframe version of the hanger superimposed.

A 1/12 scale miniature of the Xjet was photographed with motion-control camera rig to match the original live-action stage photography, where the camera tracked around the stage as if it were revealing a large aircraft.

The hangar itself was created entirely in 3D, and again the original camera move is recreated, this time with a "virtual" camera. The actors from the set were rendered into the CG environment to reflect them properly in the floor.

Here we have the final composite at the end of the camera move.

MWD created a fully 3D environment for several shots of New York City harbor at night. Every element in the shot was digitally generated, including the city, Ellis Island, Statue of Liberty, water in New York Harbor, boats, and circling helicopters. Here you can see some of the wireframe geometry (blue) superimposed over the finished shot.

Here we see a closeup of wireframe geometry (blue) and texture maps in downtown Manhattan from a different angle.

Here's the finished shot, one of several flyovers MWD created using the same 3D model.  Additionally, the model was used to generate backgrounds for action shots photographed against greenscreens but set in various locations around the city.