Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince opens with a stunning VFX sequence of the destruction of London’s famour Millennium Bridge. The sequence was done by London-based VFX house Double Negative, and talks about it to Popular Mechanics.
In addition to taking high-dynamic-range-image (HDRI) photography of the bridge and the area along the Thames River, Double Negative worked with the architects of the bridge. “They were given plans and CAD files that were used to recreate it as accurately as possible, down to every nut and bolt,” Burke says. A team of five to 20 people spent several months building, texturing and rigging the bridge in 3D animating program Maya, using the HDRI photography to create the right texture and detail.
