The Orphanage, Digital Dimension and a host of other vfx houses bring Live Free or Die Hard's big action sequences to the silver screen. All images © & &trade 2007 Twentieth Century Fox. Photo credit: The Orphanage.

Live Free or Die Hard (opening June 27 from Twentieth Century Fox) is the fourth installment of the popular Die Hard franchise. In this new adventure, Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) confronts a group of cyber terrorists attempting to destroy the computer infrastructure of the U.S. When director Len Wiseman (Underworld) started working on the project, he decided to emphasize practical stunts and special effects, and to maintain a low profile on the visual effects. In a summer season filled with CG extravaganzas, he thought that a realistic approach would pay off, just like it did for Casino Royale, which jumpstarted the James Bond franchise with record box office success. And, like the latest 007 installment, he still ended up with several hundred visual effects shots in his final cut.

Overall visual effects supervisor Pat McClung coordinated the effort, dispatching shots and sequences between several facilities, including lead vendors The Orphanage and Digital Dimension, additional vendors R!ot, Pixel Magic, Amalgamated Pixels and miniature effects facilities Cinema Production Services and New Deal Studios.

At The Orphanage, vfx supervisor Matthew Hendershot and vfx producer Joel Mendias faced the tightest schedule of their careers. "We worked on two key sequences: the fight in the elevator shaft, and the climactic battle between McClane and a F-35 fighter jet," Hendershot explains. "The end sequence was completely revamped very late in production. We actually received the plates in late March and early April for a May delivery! Not only did we get the plates much later than expected, but also the new ending required much more ambitious visual effects, including full 3D environments. So, we had to do a lot more within a shorter deadline..."

F-35 jet plays assassin in Live Free or Die Hard. Photo credit: The Orphanage.

Hovering Jet
The end sequence involves a F-35 jet trying to take down a semi-truck driven by McClane on a freeeway. The airplane was built as a CG model, a nine-foot practical miniature, and a full size prop mounted on a motion base. At The Orphanage, CG artists started building the model in November 2006, but ongoing design changes on the full-size prop kept the modeling team busy until February 2007. The digital F-35 was built, rigged and animated in Maya. Textures were derived from photographic references, and global illumination was used to obtain highly realistic renders in mental ray. A combination of bump and displacement maps was employed to create surface irregularities.