HYPERSPACE

Back in October, the third Star Wars trailer came out and included a shot of the Millennium Falcon entering hyperspace. 

Feeling inspired, I decided to make a little video of my own showing off this effect.

FIRST OFF: My initial animation playblast. I animated a fractal pattern in After Effects like I've done in other experiments for the vortex, and the model was an old, incomplete favor by my friend Cameron Ake (https://vimeo.com/45412817) that I touched up a little specifically for this video. 

The initial playblast.

Originally, I had planned to have the shot end mid-pan like it did in the trailer, which left me with this render (minus the opening star stretching, as I hadn't decided on a method yet): 

Hyperspace V1

After I had finished, I thought about my previously-made Earth model, and though it'd be fun to use it. So, I extended the sequence, having the ship exit hyperspace in front of the planet. 

Before I had time to render my own model with the lighting I wanted, I used an actual picture of the Earth as a placeholder:
 

Early hyperspace exit test with a proxy Earth.

Not long after, I successfully rendered out everything, and, using a slowed-down version of the music from the trailer, made a sound mix for the video. 

THE FINAL RESULT:

A fun little clip inspired by the hyperspace shot in the recent Star wars 7 trailer. The ship model (albeit currently a WIP), was modeled by Cameron Ake. Everything else was created by me, including the Earth model.

And the BREAKDOWN VID:  

Hyperspace layers: broken down.

There are definitely things that could be fixed, such as the abrupt Earth stopping motion (accidentally caused by forgetting to switch a keyframe from a "linear" tangent to "flat", and not feeling patient enough to re-render), and a couple of other small things. But I really didn't/don't feel that making those changes would be justified for a little experiment such as this, since I can't really use it on my reel anyway...given its (obvious) similarities to the actual movie. 

Funny thing is, about two weeks later...THIS shot was shown in a Disney behind-the-scenes video. It's a wonderful similarity. 

Mine on top (made without knowing or seeing the actual shot from the film).
The actual ILM shot on bottom. 

And for a few various frame captures: