How V-Ray helped BBC Studios render the moon landing

Senior Motion Designer & Art Director, Carlos Gálvez, details the V-Ray for Cinema 4D tricks that helped him render a celebratory moon landing for the BBC. 

The “Moon Landing” animation was produced for BBC Studios to celebrate the 50th anniversary of a giant leap for mankind. By revisiting the moon virtually, half a century later, the promotional spot was designed to be nostalgic while also a celebration of the many ways in which that first small step on the moon inspired an entire world. 

The initial version of the concept called on references including David Bowie, Pink Floyd’s ”The Dark Side of the Moon” album cover, as well as various other visuals from popular culture. But by simplifying the references down and focusing on a visual disruption of the original sepia-toned photos, the animation transports viewers from a memorable scene into a colorful dust explosion, as an astronaut dances on the surface of the moon. 

For the colorful explosions featured in the animated promo, we looked at the opposite end of the spectrum: Holi Festival images and similar references. We wanted to have two different worlds collide — one being almost monochrome and the other filled with color.

Reimagining the moon landing

At first, I tried to replicate the retro feel of the original photographs, which were taken with a Hasselblad 500EL camera, and had dust, scratches, light leaks and fiducial markers, as seen above. 

However, the creative lead wanted the piece to feel more like a new moon landing — as if we’d gone back there today and shot it with modern camera equipment. Once I removed all of the camera effects, including film borders, the approach was much cleaner.

Tools of the trade

Cinema 4D was our main tool for this project. The Creative Director wanted us to use the exact same spacesuit from 1969. Luckily, we found a model on Turbosquid that was an exact replica. I rigged it in Cinema 4D and used Mixamo motion-capture data for some of the animations, which really helped me bring the model to life easily. 

V-Ray ended up being the fastest tool for rendering the specific setup we needed with the lighting for hard shadows and rough surfaces.

There are also some X-Particles in the final version, but the biggest parts are stock footage. I basically did all of the simulations in X-Particles and rendered the animatic for timing purposes. But then render times became critical, so we isolated and rendered them, and then mixed them with stock footage of powder explosions during compositing. 

I found this combination really did the trick — and I also enjoy it when people ponder: “How was that done? Is that footage? Is that X-Particles?”