Press Release: Cinesite Sets the Scene For X-Men: Days of Future Past
Visual effects in the prologue sequence of X-Men: Days of Future Past, were created by Cinesite.
Our main shot was an epic twenty second aerial fly-through of a dark 
and moody, apocalyptic New York, with the camera moving out of the clouds, through a hole in the Empire State Building to a mutant internment camp in the Central Park area.
Initially, our team rendered a few detailed frames from the long shot in order to gain concept approval and work out which areas needed most work in terms of modeling, texturing and layout. The full 500 frame version, completed in just three months, includes 58 separate building models and a mass of environmental detail. The city was rendered using vRay, with volumetrics like fog, mist, smoke and haze added using Renderman.
