Willow (1988)

Willow (1988)

Advanced photorealistic CGI morphing

Video (HD 1080p)

CGI making of video (1988)

Trivia:

1) Dennis Murren (film special effects artist from Industrial Light & Magic) found both stop motion and optical effects to be too technically challenging and decided that the transformation scene would be a perfect opportunity for ILM to create advances with digital morphing technology. He proposed filming each animal, and the actress doubling for Hayes, and then feeding the images into a computer program developed by Doug Smythe. The program would then create a smooth transition from one stage to another before outputting the result back onto film. Smythe began development of the necessary software in September 1987. By March 1988, the impressive result Muren and fellow designer David Allen achieved what would represent a breakthrough for computer-generated imagery.

2) First photorealistic morphing was in The Golden Child (1986).