VFX Art Scene - Palantir

So I watched the whole LotR trilogy yesterday and thought it'd be a good exercise to try and make a Palantir in Unity. Ended up with this.

+/- 6h of work.

This is simply a refractive sphere with some billboards inside, and a stencil to make sure they don't go outside the palantir.

First sphere test: just some refraction, spec and a few panning masks.

Improved the shader a bit for the sphere and added some light shafts on the camera.

Added the first billboards inside the sphere.

Improved the shader and inside effect a bit. Looks very close to the actual Palantir, but I wanted it to feel a bit different.

Final result. Eye can now move inside the sphere (translation), thanks to a stencil that makes sure it never goes out.