Along with Director Ash Thorp, Michael Rigley created this amazing promotional piece for the film – The Martian.

The promotional piece was based around a fictional episode of StarTalk hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. The episode set in the future talks about the impending Ares 3 mission to Mars.

Rigley headed up the design and animation of all the stunning hologram and UI elements. CINEMA 4D and X-Particles were the main tools used in the project. X-Particles was particularly useful in generating point clouds on the mesh and generating the particles that follow the orbital path of the planets.

The main challenge for the project according to Rigley was “to balance the visual style of the holograms with legibility of the actors’ faces.”

You can get more details on the project and check out all his other great work at michaelrigley.com.

CREDITS

Directed by: Chris Eyerman and Ash Thorp
Story / Writing: Will Melton and Chris Eyerman
Lead Actor: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Producer: Ash Thorp
Producer: Josh Porter
Producer, ALT Creative: Monica Thorp
Producer, Juice: Natalia Lasota
Director of Photography: Tony Wolberg
Art Director, Juice: Michal Misinski
Music Director: Marcy Bulkeley
Score: Danny Cocke
Editor: Joe Bellino
Associate Producer: Tom Moran
President, 3AM: Alison Temple
President, RSA: Jules Daly
Social Strategy: David Sarkissian
Post Producer: Mike Goble
Smoke Producer, The Mill: Kiana Bicoy
Mars Opening VFX: MPC
Hermes VFX: Framestore and Juice
Nebula VFX:Juice
VFX/CG Supervisor, Juice: Jakub Knapik
Onsite VFX Supervisor: Anthony Scott Burns
Concept Designer: AshThorp
Concept Designer, Juice: Michal Misinski
Lead Designer/Animator: Michael Rigley
Compositing, Juice: Jakub Knapik, Arkadiusz Leszko, Seweryn Czarnecki, Michal Misinski, Tomasz Przydatek, Sylwester Lipinski
Lighting & Shading, Juice: Artur Szymczak, Seweryn Czarnecki, Tomasz Przydatek, Andrzej Przydatek, Jakub Wrzalik, Jakub Knapik, Tomasz Dyrdula
Matte Painting, Juice: Michal Misinski, Daniel Niszczota, Tomas Muller
FX, Juice: Piotr Suchodolski, Seweryn Czarnecki, Rigel Bowen
Modeling, Juice: Slawomir Ostrowski, Jakub Wrzalik, Andrzej Przydatek, Seweryn Czarnecki, Sebastian Oska, Michal Gosciniak
Layout & Animation, Juice: Jakub Wrzalik, Lukasz Dziedzinski, Tomasz Przydatek, Jakub Knapik, Tomasz Dyrdula
Colorist, The Mill: Adam Scott
IT, Juice: Tomasz Kruszona