“From the ground up: building a machine city for Matrix: Revolutions” by Rose

The development and production of The Matrix Revolutions’ machine city sequences were challenging on most every front. From the beginning, the machine city had been described as a huge living fractal / coral reef, twice the size of the greater LA basin, alive in every aspect: building itself on the fly, swarming with inhabitants, alive with lighting, electrostatic events, and atmospherics. Even the massive towers were alive in their slow purposeful movements as they tracked events within the city. How were we to design, layout, build, and render such a city, without a map?