Slashdot Mirror
The Tech behind Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
green pizza writes "In prepairing for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (the FF movie), I found the following articles on the technology behind the picture. Very impressive stuff, I like how they developed their own modeler plugins and render shaders to get even closer to photorealistic humans. What did amaze me, though, was their heavy use of Silicon Graphics systems, as I was under the impression that the movie was developed on Sony GSCube machines. Turns out the movie was modeled and composited on SGI systems and rendered on a huge Linux cluster. SGI's press room has information, as well as fan movie sites, aplenty."
Imagine what they could have done if they had used W2K clusters instead of some silly Linux clusters...
In that case, they still wouldn't be finished.
Try http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert1/cst-ftr-rog1 1.html
No, no, no. GSCube is for VISUALIZATION only at this point. Plus it has been essentially cancelled. Also, the idea that it's "cheaper" that several machines is crap. It requires an SGI Onyx 3 host, which, coupled with the INSANELY HIGH price of the box itself makes the total price of a single node simply stratospheric. Software rendering (non-real-time stuff) is one of the most easily parallelizable compute intensivce processes currently undertaken. The huge amount of work in rendering final output for film and such arrises because there are a huge number of frames to process, each which take a reasonably long time. There is essentially no significant frame-to-frame data dependency, and nearly no intra-frame dependency, so you get perfect linear speedup by rendering single frames on each of groups of machines, and near-linear speedup by tiling frames into sub-frames which are then distributed to separate machines. The GSCube is NOT designed for anything but real-time graphics. In fact, it would generally SUCK at rendering with the generality and extreme filtering and oversampling necessary for a good film renderer (there is a REASON software rendering is universally used for such final output -- it is infinitely flexible and allows infinite sampling levels, only constrained by performance issues with the render host). If you can get very decent per-frame performance today on a 1.4ghz Athlon with a gig of DDR, which costs perhaps $1200 to build including an expensive small rack case, WHY would you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single Onyx 3/GSCube pair when you could get, perhaps, 384 Athlon nodes for the same price? You wouldn't. We don't. No on in the film industry does. Plus, GSCube could not do software-style rendering worth a damn. It's hard enough to get it to do the visualization stuff it's designed for (its own designer admits that their architecture for parallelization is so abnormal that it nearly makes his own team cry just trying to get marginal use of it). Architecturally, it simply WOULDN'T BE GOOD at film-style rendering, even if it weren't mind bogglingly expensive and extremely hard to program to.
$140M and 4 years is what I've heard for the complete project. Most of that time and money can't have gone to hardware or rendering time, can it? Anyone have a breakdown on costs?
I ask because the non-technical costs are likely to still be the big hurdles films like FF in the future. Until they can automate the labor-intensive tasks, it's not likely to get that much cheaper of faster.
Judging by their location, the budget for floor space alone must be significant. 2+ floors(?) of prime Honolulu office space for machinery! Is there a reason the machine farm couldn't be located in BFE?
On the fan site, they have some interesting film credits:
The talent is as follows:
Alec Baldwin
Ming Na Wen (ER and "Chun-Li" in Streetfighter)
James Woods (John Carpenter's Vampires)
Donald Sutherland (Outbreak)
Peri Gilpen ("Ros Doyle" on Frasier)
Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible 1 and 2)
Steve Buscemi (Armageddon)
Oooooooh, that James Woods! And the Donald Sutherland from Outbreak! I also heard Ving Rhames and Steve Buscemi might have done a few other films as well....
It reminded me of the South Park 'Cripple Fight' episode WRT Steven Spielberg credits:
The rally has also caught the attention of old scouts members, like Steven Spielberg director of such films as 'Always' and '1941'.
Yes, people tryed to register the name and abuse it so it had to be protected some how :)
---
Actually, it was "Sid" in this movie, for some odd reason.
And in fact, Cid was in FF1... he's the guy that tells you something like "If I had a floater, I could make anything fly" or whatever. (I believe a few other characters in that particular town point you in his direction, and the graphic used is nearly identical to the graphic used in FF3... and I mean the real FF3, NES version, not FF6, for the snes.)
Anyway, just an odd tidbit.
Actually the presence of Cid has always been neat, one of the defining factors of a Final Fantasy, IMO. In fact, it's my theory that all of the Final Fantasies are merely dreams of someone "real", who appears in the role of Cid. But that's just my crazy speculation. ;-)
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Perhaps you should read some Roman history. Stragner things than the plot of Gladiator happened in the Empire's history.
If you were the (probably male) artist, wouldn't it be much for interesting to work on an anatomically correct model than one that's not? At least in the game industry, every 3D game I've worked on has had anatomically correct models at one point or another.
-- Too lazy to get a lower UID.
I can certainly see why they made it. They were trying to create as realistic a human as possible. But since we live in such a sexually repressed country (US), people will of course get out of control over things like this. Owell. Someday we'll learn to lighten up.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I think that Pixar's animation is as good or better than what I've seen from FF in commercials and previews, but Pixar isn't trying for reality or photorealist...Toy Story and Bug's Life were done stylisticly different because that was the feeling they were going for.
You can't really call Final Fantasy a "video game based" movie, since the storyline of this movie was created _for_ this movie - it doesn't really share anything with the Final Fantasy games other than some basic premises about general story arc. No common characters, locales, or anything else of the sort.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Oh come on... The Wizard is a classic!
Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)
Do not anger the worm.
Yes, he was forced to trademark it a while back because the publisher to some linux books tried to trademark it and then sue all the distribution makers for usage rights. Linus proved prior usage and trademarked it (with explicit permission given to anyone for free use) to keep someone else from doing that.
It should be obvious that the cg can, in theory, look just as good as real images at 24fps.
The incredible frame rates being done by game hardware is attempting to make up for the lack of motion blur. The fact that we are able to tolerate 24fps indicates that 80fps (or whatever is standard now) is totally unnecessary, if other work was done to improve the images.
I attribute the slowness to some inexperienced character animators. Possibly also they previewed stuff at 30fps on video (but that sounds like a really stupid mistake for such an expensive production). They certainly had motion blur.
This means that they did not use Linux just to save money. It also explains why they are willing to spend money on SGI equipment that was already dated when they got it, and quite expensive compared to home machines.
Grain is also a huge help, though it is not clear why. Originally it was done to make the images match the live action, but it is added to all-cg like FF and Toy Story. Apparently your eye filters out the grain and the fact that this filter is "turned on" causes your brain to also filter out lots of other CGI artifacts and make everything look more solid.
Live action has also had to live with the depth of focus problem for a long time. In fact in live action you cannot make all the distances be in focus at once. I think the trick is to get you to look at the object that is in focus, if your eye wanders to the out-of-focus background then the director is not doing their job.
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
the girl looks very fake. The guy looks very real.
;-)
There is less on the girl, why the hell does she look like she was painted?
Was the artist a woman
tomb raider....At least I hope and pray to God that it can't :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Now, instead of being cute, a good actor needs to have good acting skills, and an in-depth knowledge of the tools. Actors and animators will merge into one profession, where you are cast to render and animate a particular character that you specialize in.
That's what people thought would happen with radio, but it only happened in the lower end of the profession.
On the high end, the best voice talents work with top engineers, and each is a specialist in his piece of the pie.
I think that's more likely to be the model that will come of this; a voice actor will become associated with an animator, and they'll work together.
-
Your box can do it now; it's just that you probably don't have the artistic talent (no offense), and it'd take your box a hundred years to render it all.
But get a few dozen more like yours, and some artists who can cut the mustard, and you too can produce those kind of fantastic graphics. All that hardware and talent will cost you as much as it cost them, of course.
-
I was under the impression the GSCube is fairly new. If I remember right, the movie was initiallty started back on the rendering process back in 1997, at some really slow rate of a few frames a day. From there they added newer and more machine to help speed up the process to get a shorter render time.
--- This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine. ---
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
If they could only write scripts half as good
as they can do the CGI, then we might get somewhere.
This was a hollow story, as are most video game based movies.
So did they ever take a break and play Tetra Master? Maybe ride around on Chocobos?
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I bet that's the first time a woman with a Doctorate has been on their cover :)
I though some of the other images of her I've seen were more realistic looking, though. Maybe more skin leads to more chances to notice that it's not real?
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Later,
Shadow Knight
Supreme Lord High Commander of the Interstellar Task Force for the Eradication of Stupidity
Just for the record, I write these things so that in ten years, we won't have to have that "Oh, that wasn't obvious at all!"-disussion. (just kidding)
In the future actors will live on for ever, as they can be digitally recreated. That isn't a new thought of course. At first this may require special 'recording' sessions to capture their motion and such things, but I forsee a future where for instance the voice of anyone can be modelled with such accuracy that 80% or more of the population cannot discern original from copy. So instead of "You copied my movie!" it will be "You copied my voice!".
Next thing we know, there'll be copyrights on voice and speech-patterns, trademarked ways to utter certain syllables, etc. There'll be courtbattles over who owns $famous_actor's voice-patterns after he/she's long dead. Corporations will rush in to try and grab exclusive rights to classic actors. There'll be "voice rape"-laws, and a whole lot of retro-things there in the beginning of the revolution.
...Then maybe we'll all go up in a big bang. That'd be neat.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
I seriously doubt that any future versions of Windows NT will ever run on MIPS again. NT development originally began on Intel i860. NT 3.51 runs on x86, Alpha, MIPS, and Power PC. NT4 runs on only x86 and Alpha. Win2K runs on only x86 (though 64-bit Win2K might still run on Alpha).
I worked at Microsoft for a few years on Windows NT5. All internal development was on x86 and Alpha, but eventually support for Alpha was officially dropped. I don't see why Microsoft would decide that MIPS is suddenly such an important market.
cpeterso
It must open Saturday Morning, that's when they begin showing cartoons, right?
BilldaCat
No, but then, each game dosen't have anything to do with the next game. Having played the first through to seven (including most non-US imported versions), each is pretty much just an epic tale. Certain names recur (Cid appears in the movie, for instace, as a scientist who flys support above the main characters during the final scenes... he is normally a pilot who flys support), and there are some recurring characters (like the chocobos, who *don't* appear in the movie, nor moogles).
But the recurring motifs in the FF series are there - a small group of people working to save the world. The concept of Gaia is there, and appears to be the same as the Lifestream in 7, and not-Mako energy powers all the devices. The plot has similar ups and downs and the world is at risk. Since this is a science fiction movie, and was possibly scripted around the same time as FF7, it's not surprising to see the resemblance (most FF games are set in pure fantasy settings).
At times (especially when there is good lighting - some of the scenes are dark), the characters and backgrounds look real. And I don't mean "squint your eyes, and it looks real", I mean they look like they were shooting real actors on location. At other times, especially when they talk, or medium range shots, they are clearly CG. But damn fine CG.
Oh, and we decided that the movie stars are Ben Affleck and a Real Doll. It pulls *serious* inspiration from Alien and Aliens, but then, so does quite a bit of Japanese cinema. The main bad guy wears Seifer's jacket (FF8). And Biggs and Wedge don't seem to be in it, nor the prelude (the "harp" music in the games).
All in all, if you like SF or Fantasy or CG or action films, see it. It's worth watching in the theater. It has nothing to do with the games, nor did it ever claim to. FF9 and FF7 and FF1 have nothing to do with each other either. But it's a good flick, and as a bonus, the trailer for Lord of the Rings is on it - which will probably be the next movie you'll have to wait for that is as good as this.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
this has to be the first time that the linux renderring cluster wasn't the focus of the entire article! The reference is almost offhand, it's spooky.
I WAS hoping for a Chocobo cameo, but I was disappointed. Guess they didn't think us round-eyes were ready for photorealistic big-screen chocobo racing. Too bad. : )
Seeing it on an IMAX screen with God's own sound system was, to say the least, a moving experience. I do wish that they had a 70mm print available. Then we could REALLY pick nits about the textures! : )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Thematically, yes. Interconnectedness of life, cooperation overcoming conflict, collecting objects from around the world to Save The Universe...your big Final Fantasy themes are there.
Me, I loved all the FF games I've played. The movie was phenomenal, too, but I liked it for different reasons.
On another front, the vehicle design in FF was the best I've seen since the original Star Wars. Some really really neat stuff indeed. Hope Bandai makes cool, toddler-choking toys with lots of missiles that shoot off for poking eyes out.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
You're right, the render might not be high enough resolution to look good on cinematic 70mm.
Yup, I'm clear on how IMAX's format is quite different from the 5 perf 70mm. However, anymore it's hard to find big screens that don't have IMAX projectors in 'em. The good news is that the sound systems in those theatres are usually pretty phenomenal...that's the real reason I went to that theater.
It was funny to watch a movie on the screen in "letterbox" mode, though. : )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Still is amazing..
albeit the DC isn't as good as the movie, but this whole animation style is sweet and i can't wait to see how future console incorporate CGI into gaming.
It's all cgi?!? cgi-perl, or some proprietary interface?
;)
If it ain't a Model M, it's a piece of crap.
Hmmm, must be cold in that part of cyberspace.
skribe
Blog
The group doesn't "resemble their own" and that makes it more entertaining and an escape from reality.
-Shrek: the current cornerstone of CG animation. Critics have applauded the film largely because of its excellent writing.
I just saw this yesterday, and although the animation was very good, I found the storyline overly predictable, the script seemed to have fallen into the hands of the scriptwriters of _Married: With Children_ (all that gutter humour), and the rock music completely off-putting. Not a patch on the Pixar films.
In what way can the writing possibly be described as 'excellent'?
deus does not exist but if he does
Actors and animators will merge into one profession
That's already been happening since the beginning of the animated motion picture. Maybe you should pick up the book Acting for Animators by Ed Hooks. He's an actor who trains animators how to act. He's done it in PDI for Antz and a bunch of other companies.
Also, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston (2 of the original "Nine Old Men of Disney") speak about this in their book The Illusion of Life:
"Basically, the animator is the actor in animated films. He is many other things as well; however, in his efforts to communicate his ideas, acting becomes his most important device." - The Illusion of Life
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Direct link to the aki_nude.jpg doesn't work. That picture is at the bottom of the page at the first link.
--
--
E_NOSIG
I finally saw Gladiator on DVD recently. I thought it was o-kay. Not great.
There were other movies that could/should have been nominated in its place.
I'm not saying Gladiator was a bad movie, it just wasn't all that special, closer to mediocre personally.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
According to the press release, we're talking about 40 Octanes and 4 Origin 200s. That's interesting, but it's not a very large number; I doubt that it makes Square the "world's largest consumer of SGI machines" as one of the fan sites claims. If so, then perhaps that explains why, as I write this, SGI's stock price is at 53 cents.
I thought this movie was pretty good. I don't know what bad plot everyone was talking about. I thought the plot was quite nicely laid out and played out. Somewhat typical perhaps -- one person to save the earth, bad guy trying to ruin everything, etc. etc. What amazed me was how drawn in to the characters and story I was. I really wanted Aki to save the earth and felt genuinely moved when some of the characters died. Although it was amazingly lifelike, it did still seem like a CGI movie, but it drew me in more than any other CGI movie I've seen so far. Even if they don't look real upon close examination, the characters sure did seem real because of the depth of character development and the plot.a tion/declaration.html
http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/declar
http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/declaration/d
http://www.nara.gov/exhall/char
>>Margins were really great,
:(
and therin lies the problem. SGI's customers were tired of getting royally FUCKED buying overpriced hardware, memory, hard disks, etc etc etc. The performance margins that used to still make SGI attractive are almost eliminated, and all the software that used to be SGI only is now on NT and Linux. (That, and you had to use IRIX. Barf. "Oh we're sorry, our latest patch screwed up X11|NFS|OtherCriticalThing. Please wait till we get our act together").
Don't get me wrong, an Octane2 is a kickass piece of hardware (and HEAVY! Damn - my back!) but for the same price you can buy a dozen x86 boxes. Hard to justify. SGI killed themselves. And the shares I own are only $0.53 today
And you -trust- that magazine? Try reading it fully sometime, and you'll see how much ... crap ... is really in it... *shrug*
Actually you can call it Linux, you just can't sue anyone else who uses the name. That is why it is trademarked. There really is no other reason.
Why use GSCube's for rendering ? Why will they be better than a cluster of PCs ? Just off hand I would have thought that the limited memory and
odd architecture of the PS2 would have made things difficult.
Yeah, OK. I see the point. But this thing is going to be at least $20K, if it actually comes out. But, think that in about a year when it comes out $20K should buy you 8-10 dual P4 or Athlons with 512MB each. These would presumably also be much easier to handle. Also, you can get software to actually render renderman files. I dunno, I can't help thinking that the GSCube may be a bit of a white elephant. But it would be cool for rides and stuff, then again - with WireGL around and graphics rendering farms based on VRJuggler is this even worth it ?
My favorite line from the NYT review:
"Final Fantasy" is the first film with human leads played by nonactors, if you don't count "Pearl Harbor."
Couldn't help laughing at that one.
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
up to 40% faster !!!
... hi bingo
You mean like this?
So, you got to the trouble to link to the nude image, but can't figure out why it was made...
Hell, it could be fake, but it's not hard to figure out why the animators would make that...
I found it amuding to see in the hype for the Tomb Raider movie that one of the before-the-show slodes said something like I had to yell out "And over 50% of them are pornographic!" which got a laugh out of most of the theater...
+++ ATH0 +++
Why does the Doctor is FF look so much more real than the heroine? Because he has textures of age and living life that cover up the fact that his skin looks plastic-like.
True - good call. But take the fact that they could make that image of the Doctor so incredibly realistic - sure, they have more to do yet, but how much more, really?
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
But the CG in this movie looks absolutely AMAZING. I dont think I have ever seen people rendered so realistically.
:( )
Go check out the "Virtual You" article at the Discover Magazine web site for a still image that is truly photorealistic quality. I've showed the print magazine to people who have had trouble believing that the picture is computer generated, and not a real person. (I submitted the article here, but it was turned down
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
The big issue here is that CG rendering techniques are mostly geared to producing footage the viewer expects to see - that is, footage captured by a camera and printed to video/film.
Camera and rendering models are all about simulating a camera. Since all camera exhibit motion blur - their shutters stay open for a finite amount of time, during which an object may conceivably move, it is necessary to 'fake' this to properly simulate a camera.
Same with depth-of-field. All cameras with conventional lenses have a finite range in which they can capture images with high precision. Simulating this effect is key to the idea of simulating a camera.
As soon as you move away from the idea of simulating a camera, youre stuck with the vexing question of 'what am i simulating?' Whose viewpoint is your computer model applied to?
The big problem with images lacking depth of field is that your eyes can focus on the entire image, since it is presented at a single 'depth' - a flat plane perpendicular to your line of sight. you can happily focus on every element in the image without adjusting your eyes, and so the illusion of depth - typically as it relates to the subject of the image, is lost.
Images are not presented for their own sake - an image is a composite presentation containing as many visual cues as necessary to draw your attention to the subject of the image. You can surely imagine numerous devices to alter the composition of an image, but in order to successfully convey a message, the viewer must be able to pick up on and use these devices to decipher your message.
These devices are defined not by any hard-and-fast physical model, but by convention - collectively, we have seen so much film that it seems natural that an image projected with grain looks 'real', and an image projected without it does not look 'real'.
However, many realtime computer games are good examples of what can be achieved without motion blur and depth-of-field effects. High framerates all but eliminate 'strobing' - traditionally dealt with by motion blur, and everything is in stark focus, regardless of it's distance. This is 'useful', allowing you to aim accurately at objects a great distance away, but sacrifices 'realism' and 'atmosphere' - you won't be winning any awards for cinematography with a Quake demo.
It may be interesting to read some case studies of people who have received head injuries etc. which have effected the way they see things - some see only objects in motion, others can only see objects in primarily horizontal or vertical configurations. These people see the world using a fundamentally different model than the majority.
It would be interesting to work on producing images that would only be fully appreciated by people who did not, or could not view the image as it would appear to 'normal' individuals.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I strongly agree with p3bf on the DLP issue. I drove 20 miles from Dallas to Plano to watch it tonight at the Cinemark Legacy. The quality was just astonishing. The large print he mentions tho kinda looks anti-aliased and 'neat'. It looks as if you are watching the render output right there in the theater!
Oh, the same Oscar that 'Titanic' won over 'L.A. Confidential' and 'As Good as it Gets?'? :)
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Myth #1: GSCube Machines are currently available.
Nope. Sorry. Not until the end of the year, if they're on schedule.
Myth #2: GSCubes are meant as development workstations.
Again, no. The first generation of commercially available GSCube machines are meant as dedicated render machines for SGI Servers. GSCubes aren't meant for the animators, but for the end products. Soon, they'll be staples in big render farms. A generation or two after that, they're slated for real-time fun that previously could only have been accomplished with an SGI Reality2.
Looking at Square's work with PlayStation games has always been a pleasure -- they really go out of their way to push graphics to the next level. I'm not surprised they turned to Silicon Graphics machines, which have always been solid performers in graphics development.
Anyone have any idea if they had to cut any corners on the movie? I heard that it was over budget and behind schedule somewhere, but those may have just been rumors.
I also havn't seen him give a new release less than 2 stars in a few weeks (I check his reviews every week). Maybe he's just seen a lot of good movies recently.
Or maybe Disney has finally perfected Ebertbot1.0.
Without actually refuting your point, can I just chuckle a bit over that comment? Thanks. *Chuckles*. Ah. Now, I have no idea about the price/performance ratio of the GSCube, and the (required, AFAIK) SGI Origin server needed to actually feed it data probably isn't cheap, but... Could you not find it in your heart to consider a machine with 2 GB of RAM + 512 MB of VRAM as being up to the task? Also, if Sony are cool enough to create rendering software that actually uses the graphics hardware of the GSCube, something that is almost a requirement to beat PCs, then maybe those 1.2 billion polygons per second can make a difference, too? ;^)
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
I'll respond to this. You can't. And even if you could have, it would be silly.
1. Win2K is not suitable for 'classic' clustering. (No, wussy ass fail-over clusters do not count). However this was a Renderman cluster, so see point 2.
2. The desired software was Renderman. While it does run on NT (and could be made to work, albeit unsupported on 2K) as of the newest rev, its only 73% as fast.. So, in order to do the same work, you'd need 36% more machines, plus the cost of each machine doubles (Renderman runs in half the memory spec as compared to the NT version. Not to mention the fact that they just blew another $300 on a 2K license, or in order to get a supported config, $310 to buy Win2K Professional and downgrade to NT4.).
That was why it was silly. This is why it was impossible.
3. W2K didn't exist. Remember, they've been doing this movie since 1997.
4. Even if Win2K did exist, Renderman only ran on Real Machines, AKA *nixes, at that point.
5. Did you see a mention of x86? I sure didn't. All I saw was SGI. SGI systems can run Linux. SGI systems cannot run 2K.
.sig: Now legally binding!
they can never compete in terms of 'realness.' You can't get much realer than a real thing.
So you've established the goals of CGI development. A real thing is indeed as real as it gets since it is a real thing (what a useless statement). Computer generated animation becomes more realistic as it develops, and eventually WILL be indistinguishable from a real actor. As computer power increases and price decreases, a CGI actor will become less expensive than a real actor. The price of a computer system and its operators can generate hundreds of CGI actors, and this will eventually cost less than hiring hundreds of real actors.
Another field this will really open up is indy films! As Moore's law progresses, rendering a host of CGI actors will be a lot less cheaper and EASIER than hiring a host of real actors. This will allow independent films to explore infinitely more possibilities, especially since good actors are hard to find, but voice actors are much cheaper and easier to come by.
I look forward to a day when CGI movies will be plentiful and be able to show things never before possible with camera-and-film methods.
----
Yes, I was thinking of mentioning synthesized audio as well. And, if you look at some movies, they might as well have been written by computers. Just another formula movie, generated in seconds on your desktop! Custom movies generated while you wait for your popcorn to pop!
----
grey has now replaced my kaneda fantasy! way to go square pictures... i was truly blown away by the film.
Someone should put a CG film review generator together, the template can be; "[film x] is a technological masterpiece, however..."
...karma whore here...
How is shrinking the image/a bad scan going to make it look less realistic ? If anything, it should make it MORE realistic by obscuring any flaws.
Because realism is made or broken in the small details. The more small details you lose, the less realistic it will look. You don't realize that the details make the realism until they're gone.
Realism is achieved by the presence of flaws, not perfection. Computers do perfection easily - it's the flaws that have to be worked at.
I don't think 70mm would be necessary. I've looked all over, and I can't seem to find any source that actually mentions what resolution the FF movie was rendered at, but I would guess it was approximately 2000 pixels across the width of the frame (the de-facto standard "2K" resolution used for most feature film CG these days). Given the extremely high resolution of film, I'd bet you're already seeing pretty much every last pixel of the images just by watching it on a 35mm print with good focus and brightness. (Although it really does depend on how good a job they did transferring the movie to film, and how good the projection equipment was at the theater you went to.)
By the way -- you are aware of the difference between 70mm and IMAX, right? It's true that IMAX uses 70mm film, but it's a very specialized format that runs the film horizontally at 15 perforations per frame (with a TV-like aspect ratio of about 1.4:1). Usually, when someone says "70mm", they are referring to 5-perf vertical 70mm (aspect ratio 2.20:1).
I really miss the days of 5-perf 70mm. With its 6-channel sound, it was a near-perfect audio-visual system, even if by the time by it died almost all material shown in it was blown-up from 35mm negatives. I'm worried about the future, too. People are really hyped about DLP, but they don't seem concerned about resolution. If someone doesn't come along soon and give TI some competition, we'll be stuck watching 1280x1024 for the next 20-30 years. That's less than HDTV resolution!
Free Hans!
Okay, sorry I doubted you. It's only been a few years since 5-perf 70mm saw widespread use, but as they say "out of sight, out of mind". I've actually had people say to me "70mm? You mean IMAX?" Gah!
It was funny to watch a movie on the screen in "letterbox" mode, though. : )
Yeah, I know what you mean. But on the other hand, it's nice not to have to worry about having part of the image cropped by the masking; some theaters are really bad about lining that up.
Did they try to fill the whole width of the screen? Some of the 35mm-on-IMAX-screen presentations I've seen have been a little dark because they tried to blow it up too big -- and those were 2.39:1 format. I'd hate to see a 1.85:1 film projected at 70 feet wide. 35mm can only go up to about 7000 watts before causing heat damage to the film, and that won't really fill a screen the size of most IMAX iinstallations without getting really dim.
Recently I've heard about some "enhanced" prints being run off with the intention of being shown on an IMAX screen. The "enhanced" part of it being that they're just like drive-in prints -- printed a couple of stops lighter than usual in order to make up for lower light levels. That might help, but if they really cared about quality they'd run off some 70mm prints.
Free Hans!
The reason for this is that anime copied the early disney characters, the ones with huge eyes and baby faces.
Unlike western animation which abandoned the concept, anime built upon it...thus the huge eyes, young characters. The reason for the hair style is so that the characters are easily distinguished.
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
Too bad Roger Ebert is a big fat moron. Try looking up some of your favorite movies on rottentomatoes.com, and compare his reviews to most reviewers'. Almost without fail, if everyone else loves it, Roger hates it. For instance, he totally thrashed Gladiator, saying it was horrid, etc, then it wins Oscar for best picture. And I personally love it :) I really hope FF bucks this trend though.
Actually, I'm expecting this kind of tech to increase the opportunities for the right kind of actors - when the technology becomes such that they can link motion capture to these virtual "puppets", then actors & actresses will no longer be constrained by their bodies to play certain parts - they will be allowed to play whatever part they can adapt their speech & body language to.
:-)
Not only that, but they should be able to play those parts remotely, and in virtual environments, so people can be actors/actresses w/o ever leaving their basement, and they don't have to worry about the "casting couch" situations
the girl looks very fake.
So you're saying that she looks like every other Hollywood actress?
- j
...And this site has Aki porn! (bottom of the page)
Ah, the future is going to be great...
- j
The SGI press release says that they used Maya for animation and Renderman for rendering. How about lighting and texture design? Does anyone know what packages they used there?
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
I'm going to see it tonight. I'm hoping that this is the first great video game movie ever. After the mega flops of the likes of Wing Commander (how did they fuck that up with a movie script plot already written?) and Tomb Raider (how could they not have copied Indy?) I'm really thinking this could be the one. CG or not doesn't matter, so much as that someone gets the idea of a game as a story, and the story as a movie, rather than the idea of movie as garbage.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Mod this up!
That's a joke by the way...
Yes, but on a rendering machine, you only need a console. It's not the machine that will be doing the graphics display, it's the machine that will be doing the number crunching. You don't need (or even want) fancy graphics for that.
I agree, but I guess my point was that linux isn't running on anything from the IRIX line except older machines. And I doubt they used a bunch of Indigo2's to render their stuff. Thus, the only current line they offer that runs linux is the x86 line, which also can be had with Windows NT or Windows 2000. Again, I may be wrong about the systems linux runs on, but I'm fairly sure they're not running Octane2 or Origin with linux (yet).
BAM!
I think you'll find linux does run on SGI servers. I doubt graphic card support is much of an issue with a cluster either. As I remember, they also released the 230 workstation last year(?) supplied with Linux and the drivers required to run the graphic hardware. Bit overpriced though...
You'll notice I limited the idea of high-end to IRIX/MIPS machines, of which the 1450 and the 230 aren't a part of. I'm also sure the display subsystem of the 230 and other x86 machines is also endlessly more simple than say, Octace SSI or Indigo2 Impact machines. You'll also notice that linux runs on pretty much all of their x86-based offering. So the choices available for rendering in linux, on SGI machines, is limited to a few (current) x86 products, or a few (much older) IRIX/MIPS systems.
BAM!
5. Did you see a mention of x86? I sure didn't. All I saw was SGI. SGI systems can run Linux. SGI systems cannot run 2K.
Well, some SGI systems run Windows 2000. And as far as I know, Linux doesn't run on much of the high-end (IRIX) machines SGI offers. It runs with limited framebuffer support on older Indy machines (and probably Challenge series stuff), and Indigo2 machines with serial console support only. Check here for the info. The page is over a year old, but owning an SGI myself, I haven't heard any different.
BAM!
It's obviously a fake! They slapped Aki's head onto someone else's body. Aki would *never* pose nude!
Here's something that's been annoying me slightly recently. No matter how much Ben Affleck charges for a planes-and-boats flick, the average actor isn't as expensive as one generated by teams of monkeys on octanes.
ALso, they can never compete in terms of 'realness.' You can't get much realer than a real thing.
SO there's no good reason to 'replace actors' the way so many people seem to think. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Every animator would love to be able to build the perfect human, but it's simply not cost effective, and it's just not the same.
toeslikefingers.com - because
Well... just because it is technically possible, doesn't necessarily mean that it is more economical (dollars and time) than sticking people in front of a camera, or that there are more skilled animators than there are skilled actors, or that celebrity of Real Live Humans(TM) doesn't have tremendous benefits.
This is very cool, and this sort of thing has a strong future, but using it to replace actors is like solving a problem that doesn't exist...
sig fault
Well, it would be interesting if background "extras" and even small-part characters were CGI. Very hard to say how the economics will turn out, but I still think a talented animator would be paid way more than an average actor. Until AI advances to a point where an average (or, potentially, nonexistent) animator can create a life-like character, I don't know if it will be much more than a novelty. I could be wrong, but if I am there will be WAY cooler applications of such a system than movie-making.
sig fault
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.
The scary part is that technology is all anyone ever talks about with respect to this movie. It's all about how great the effects are and how realistic the humans look, but the story line (IMHO) is crap.
This reminds me of Lionhead's Black & White: a ton of very talented people get together, create some awesome technology for technology's sake, endlesslu talk about how great the technology is, and when you view the final product it turns out that they've apparently worked very hard to leech every ounce of fun out of it. Expect this film to absolutely tank after the first week.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
The characters in Shrek moved just a tad too fluidly for humans. (Or maybe it was the BBQ rat I had earlier?) I'll be really excited about Final Fantasy if they have incorporated that. Less fluidity, not rat.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
A couple of my friends got to see previews, and wrote reviews. One saw it at the Squaresoft employee viewing, and the other caught it a couple days ago:
Review #1
Review #2
So far, this is sounding like a far cooler movie than Tomb Raider, and that went over $100 million. So hopefully this does as well.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
Well for one thing PDI uses almost propietary in house built software. They did use Maya for modeling some of the stuff and certain fire FXbut as far as rendering, animating, etc. they used their own stuff. CGW did a report on Shrek. What they have done is that they have po0rted most of their software to Linux. Daniel Wexler, the guru behind their renderer has posted very interesting statistics on their rendering and Linux use. Last years SIGGRAPH had a Sketches section devoted to it and this year there will be a course. VES 2001 also had a talk about some of their technology used. And the current issue of Cinefex, THE magazine of the FX industry covers Final Fantasy in detail:
Cinefex FInal Fantasy coverageShrek at CGW
PDI rendering info
SIGGRAPH 2001 Shrek Course
SIGGRAPH 2001 FX R&D Course
SIGGRAPH 2000 Shrek Sketch
VES 2001 Shrek panel
So it isn't exactly like no info was out before.
Well when PRMan and the whole RenderMan standard came out circa 1989 the market was different. For starters most regular FX studios were still traditional. Most animation studios, like Pixar, PDI, Blue Shy Studios and Rhythm and Hues used (and continue to do so) in house software. The Pixar folk wanted RenderMan to become a standard in the CG industry, but most off the shelf manufacturers (like Alias and Softimage, etc) decided to go their own way. But eventually it became a de facto standard in the FX industry. Besides they are not really direct competitors to Pixar. Pixar makes animated movies, while places like ILM, Digital Domain, Tippett, Imageworks and others concentrate on FX for live action films. Remebner that Pixar was spun off in part because catmull and company wanted to make animated pictures but Lucas wanted to concentrate on photorealistic CG for film FX. They might be competitors if FX studios get into the animated CG film business, and even then, you are increasing the market, plus they still buy PRMan licenses.
As you sid all the strengths of PRMan had made it widely accepted in the FX industry. For a nice description why, read the first chapter of the Advanced RenderMan book by Larry Gritz and Tony Apodaca:
Advanced RenderManGreat link. Just to clarify it does mention about PDI and their Linux use. But also the main focus is on Dreamworks own animation facility (they did Road to El Dorado), which is separate from PDI's and they have also made a big change to Linux. Actually there is also a SIGGRAPH Sketch this year about Dreamworks Linux pipeline:
Fun for TDs SIGGRAPH 2001 SketchAs was mentioned earlier, batch rendering, like the one used for stuff like Shrek and anything done in PRMan doesn't require 3D OpenGL acceleration. As far as the HP machines it's no rumor, it's true, they use their own X server. I actually saw HP machines at last years SIGGRAPH with the FX cards running Houdini under Linux. And this year at the HP booth they'll demo Softimage XSI running also under Linux on their FX cards.
What made me laugh the most is that Alec Baldwin apparently has no acting credits.
--
dman123 forever!
--
dman123 forever!
Filtering out the -1s and 0s since 1999.
The plot of the movie was very similar to most of the games. Hero must save the world, most travel through time and/or space in order to do so, and there's a nice love story along the way. I felt that Gray's three troops were a nod to the Turks, of FF7. Aki picking the plant in Old New York City reminded me of the scene in FF7 where Aerith is selling flowers on the lowest platform of the city. If you took FF8's Seifer and dyed his hair black, you'd have General Hein. The good doctor was named "Sid," and characters by the name of "Cid" have made appearances in many FF games. We had the Gaea/Gaia theme once again. I thought the Zeus cannon might have been a reference to Odin, who has made a few appearances in FF games. The big black guy who travelled with Gray reminded me of Barret, from 7.
The only things seperating "Final Fantasy" and "Reboot" are money and rendering technology. Sure, rendering gets progressively cheaper, but the sheer manpower required to emulate reality has not decreased and will not for the near future, as far as I can tell. One animator may cost less than one human actor, but you need an army of animators just to create one realistic CGI actor.
You act as if indistinguishable CGI humans are just around the corner, waiting for technology to catch up. But that last bit of realism, the 1% difference between "Final Fantasy" and reality that the human eye catches instinctively, is the hardest part. You can throw all the technology you want at it, but you can't just tell a computer to make a human and expect it to come out well. They're tools. Someone has to operate them, and do it well.
With "Final Fantasy", we're seeing what animators can do with loads of money and nearly no restrictions on technology. But it's obviously not enough. "Virtually indistinguishable" Sun's press release calls it. Are those super-fast SGI machines really the stumbling block?
--
It is alot of work to make a character that detailed, and I am surprised that the artists would put so much work into something that isn't really going to be shown to very many people (maybe now it will be though). Although I guess that after the Maxim cover it wasn't that big of a stretch.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
I think you, and a lot of people that responded to you are forgetting, that many shots were motion captured, in which case, straight human character animatiors are out of the equation and mimes are in. Yep, mimes, as seen in Hideaway which was a movie to make early use of motion capture, and likewise mimes.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Non-realtime rendering typically makes no use of 3D acceleration. I say typically because sometimes non-realtime, high quality openGL previews are made. But for stuff like this, not a chance, I wouldn't be surprised if the computers they used didn't even have video cards in the first place, and did a boot-from-LAN type thing.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
First http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Server/9029 /images4.html is a link to a very large gallery of images from the movie. There is even one of the Aki naked, although I am not sure why it got made in the first place. http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Server/9029 /aki_nude.jpg is the direct link.
I am surprised there were no articles on Shrek and Linux because it was done not only using linux for the rendering but for some of the actual animating, modeling, etc. as well (what with Maya, Houdini, shake, Photorealistic Renderman, BMRT, and Mental Ray running on Linux and all). Pacific Data Images is a big linux convert (as read in Post magazine) and have been using Linux probably more than any other major studio.
I saw Final Fantasy last night at a theatre preview and I can attest that the story is cliche but everyone should go and see it for the animation, which is beautiful, and everything you could hope for. It was the most visually impressive movie I have ever seen.
Sony's new workstation is way too new to be able to get anything done with, that won't happen for a while, assuming anyone is going to end up using it at all.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
The overall feeling I get from the movie is that the framerate is just too low -- too low to handle the fast motion that would make the movie look much more realistic. As you watch the movie, you'll notice that the slow framerate necessitated all of the action to be just a little slower than would be natural.
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
They also have the NT/Win2k workstations for a while with the cobalt video. They also have the Intergraph Zx10 NT/Win2k workstations for a while now. These are pretty nice boxes with a Wildcat 4210 and Maya 3 on it. I still wouldn't use it for rendering so I think you are right about rendering with NT/Win2k.
You raise a good point. I'll try to answer it.
Film, as we're used to seeing it in theaters, is "temporally quantized" at (IIRC) 24 frames per second. This is a characteristic that's designed into the camera/film combination and reproduced in the projector.
In real life, objects exhibit continuous motion. Consider the case of a tiny LED being filmed as it moves from one side of the frame to the other across a black background. During part of the 1/24th-sec cycle, the camera's shutter is closed while the motorized claw is moving the film. Once the film stops moving, the shutter opens for some amount of time, it closes, and then the cycle repeats. If you look at one frame of the finished film, you see not a dot but a line with ends that ramp from full-dark to full-light, because the shutter cannot open and close instantaneously. If you look at the next frame, you will see a similar soft-ended line located off to the side of where the line is in the previous frame. The motion that took place while the film was being advanced and the shutter was closed did not get recorded
This process affects arbitrary objects in arbitrary motion as well. We are accustomed to seeing the result in theaters and it does not strike us as odd that moving things on the screen get smeared out and have part of their motion missing (in fact, the screeen is dark during that time). For one thing, our ocular system (brain/perception included) has its own "smear" effect and an inability to register separate events as separate at high rates. In CGI movies, if you don't have a blur, the effect is noticeably unnatural. You have probably seen the effect in music videos (use of strobe lights synchronized to the camera shutter) and in sports coverage (many CCD TV cameras have a very short "open shutter" mode that is sometimes made available even on consumer camcorders).
My guess is that in CGI rendering, blur algorithms are only applied when they matter; there is probably a minimum threshold apparent (i.e., cross-frame) velocity below which it is not applied at all, and the same probably goes for action in the frame that is not the focus of attention. For instance, if a dollying "camera" is tracking a walking character, his legs probably get blurred but the trees behind him probably do not. To me, this is a bit of a "cheat" because motion blur is universally present in "real-space" film as a mere function of apparent velocity.
As long as we have temporally-quantized media, blur or simulation thereof is nearly unavoidable in recording and is expected in playback.
As for your grain issue, as long as they're running film in theaters, you're going to have it. For "real space" film, however, you get more of it because there are multiple film steps. I don't know for sure, but I expect that when you or I go into a theater, we're seeing a positive print that's maybe three to four generations away from what was actually in the camera. For an all-CGI movie like A BUG'S LIFE, this might get cut down to two or three from what actually came from Pixar. I don't imagine that the economics support "printing" the theater print directly (anyone?).
While I don't think a "no-blur" approach is attractive, I think "no-grain" is; that is one thing that CGI can actually do to improve the experience. If you go see an IMAX film, you can get a feel for what can be accomplished with cameras, film, and projectors (I liken it to looking at a Kodachrome 25 slide, super-close-up, with both eyes!).
I thought the movie rocked!
The graphics are approaching realistic!
The hair was unbelievable. My hats off to the people that put it all together.
Spoiler Review:
Dr. Aki is infested with a contained Phantom. They are searching for 8 spirits. They have found 5 of them when the movie starts. They recover the 6th from a plant. Aki's lover is a Captain of the defense team and gets infested as well. She kills it in the brink of time in the test lab.
She keeps having the same dream over and over again and gets further and further through it each time.
In time they discover that the Phantoms are Ghosts of aliens that had their homeworld destroyed. They can see them when they're full of energy. And somehow the phantoms die from bullets, explosions, etc.
The bad guy is a General who looks very similar to Seifer from FF8. He wants to attack the Phantoms with a Zues weapon. The council keeps prolonging it as Aki and Dr. Cid (Her mentor) search for other solutions. He finally takes things into his own hands and lets the Phantoms penatrate their defenses. He underestimates them and they take over the place killing nearly everyone. He escapes to the Zues space station.
They find the 7th spirit in a backpack battery from a dead soldier and again nearly die trying to escape.
Aki goes to the surface to find the final spirit.
The General continously fires the laser causing the Phantom to get more and more powerful. The Captain dies and Aki completes the 8 spirits by letting one of the Phantoms find her.
The movie ends as a bird they saw earlier flies off into the distance.
I left a ton of stuff out, but that's some of what happened.
The music and graphics were awesome! Not the best plot when compared to the games, but it went well with the final fantasy style.
Later!
P.s. Has anyone else beaton Omega from FF5? I have! I have! (I'm very proud of that accomplishment.)
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Uhh, the Current Future isn't so bad...
The technology behind Aki is so advanced, she even made the cover of Maxim Online!check the link for the pinup (rated PG)
how's THAT for a final Fantasy :)
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
But it does have a good story.
I may not be an Oscar winning script, but it
is undoubtedly better than the standard summer
flick fare.
This movie is worthy of film school analysis just
to note the great pains taken by its creators to
cover what would otherwise have been seen as
plot holes later in the movie.
The story borrows a great deal from the standard
Final Fantasy plot ideas, and its rhythm is
based more on the Japanese storytelling styles.
What, me worry?
Here is the article. The CG is amazing.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Does anyone know if the movie was all CGI? There was this scene with an eagle flying that looked like it was stock footage from a National Geographic special, and neither my brother nor I could tell one way or another.
Its cool, no plot spoilers below, this is mostly what I think of the movie and the animation.
I was lucky enough to get into a sneak preview on Monday, and I must say that the graphics are impressive. They are still a little bit away from actually making you forget that you were looking at CGI because the characters do look too stiff, and the skin tones are a bit off, but overall it is damn good.
Animation-wise, they did a very good job on the clothes and the hair. Also, the characters use a 3D holographic interface when interacting with computers, and it looks really cool, especially the one on Aki's wrist in the beginning. However, I was a bit disappointed with the monsters, which were mostly vague outlines. At least as far as I can tell, there is a strong anime influence in the movie, especially in the monsters, which are done in the tentacle style of art.
Also, if you thought about it while watching the movie, you could see how it tied into a quest RPG style video game. Before characters could do stuff, they would have to collect objects or do things. I wouldn't say that the plot is outstanding, but it is defintly more than decent. Oh yeah, I was very much impressed with the soundtrack.
I would definitely say that it is worth 7 bucks to go see. It was fun to pick out all the little details (especially the clothes and hair) and be amazed at how much time a effort went into every little frame
At first I thought it was the models for the characters, but it's the CGI.
Taken from Sci-Fi News.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-|
`Lex - Find Me Here: Text Appeal
Please tell me: is there any cross dressing, breeding of giant golden chickens or riding of said chickens? I thought the games were pretty lame on account of that stuff.
Does the movie have ANYTHING to do with the games besides the name?
I don't know... those are pretty much the reasons why I *liked* the games. I mean, come on. Chocobos just rule.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Wow, that is incredibly Final Fantasy, the past three games at least have been based on such an idea (a living planet). But I wouldn't expect a AP writer to have actually played the games and realize that's just a tie-in with the games...
WOOHOO! But I think they meant, Dr. Cid. Another game tie-in, a character named Cid appears in every Final Fantasy except the first one (at least, I don't remeber a Cid in the first one).
Another Final Fantasy game tie-in, I guess... the Zeus xxx usually appears as some form of powerful item.
Good to know they haven't forsaken their video game fans... Although in all seriousness, most Final Fantasy plots seem to be lacking.
--
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Thanks, much appreciated.
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
I can't seem to find this article -- Is it in the current issue on magazine stands? They purposely keep the website one month behind to encourage subscriptions (smart, IMO).
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
I always thought it was interesting how most of Pixar's "competition" actually uses Pixar software in the process of rendering their movies.... though I can understand the popularity of Renderman, it's very tuned and highly extendable through a clean plugin/shader architecture.e rman/products/
http://www.pixar.com/products/rend
(That, and you had to use IRIX. Barf. "Oh we're sorry, our latest patch screwed up X11|NFS|OtherCriticalThing. Please wait till we get our act together").
IRIX patch dependancy hell in the past wasn't fun, in fact it was a complete pain in the ass. (Though about equal to my experiences with XFree86 in the months following the release of the nVidia TNT2 and geFORCE 256). However, SGI did rectify the situation in May 1998 with the release of IRIX 6.5. Among other things, 6.5 brough about a new update system, a quarterly 6.5.x overlay that updates any version of 6.5 to the latest version. Any problems needing immediate fixes between updates could be applied with a patch, but were overridden and replaced come the next quarterly update. 6.5.0 - 6.5.2 had some issues, but it's been smooth sailing since then. Most of my machines are running the latest, 6.5.12. All has been great. Simple updates every 3 months, no patches to worry about, and the guarantee of a stable update (SGI tends to stay about 5 months ahead of their customers by testing future releases on all of their internal machines first). The folks with a fetish for large version numbers don't like the fact that "SGI is still at 6.5" but the rest of us that like our machines to just work and realize that each new 6.5.x release contains updates and new features couldn't be more happy. SGI even updates http://freeware.sgi.com along the same timeline. Slick.
Of course there are always those that hate IRIX with a passion, but each to his own. GNOME and KDE are availalbe at the freeware site. CDE is available free for the asking (ask your SGI rep for the no-charge "CDE 5.0" CD). IRIX security is a bitch if you're not familar with the initial setup. Keep your SGIs behind a firewall or learn the steps to lock down an IRIX box (it takes 8 minutes).
Photo-realistic? Not quite, but close. For all the effort tha was put into his facial textures, his skin is still static. Real skin is wet, yet oily. Its this partially reflective/shiny, yet dull look that is still eluding photo-realistic people. Look at the female star of the movie. Now compare her face to the computer generated Rock in The Mummy Returns. What's wrong with both these people? Their face is too uniform. The Rock's forehead is practically blank and refective. Both lack the detail we expect. Why does the Doctor is FF look so much more real than the heroine? Because he has textures of age and living life that cover up the fact that his skin looks plastic-like.
Another related question; can CG be rendered with a faked focus field and still look believable? When I look out at a mountian and see trees in the foreground, my eyes can only focus on the back or foreground. With CG, the focus can be faked so I can see both clearly. Can this be done when the goal is photo-realism and still look believable to the audience? It won't have the same effect people are used to, but that's their problem.
I see film as an inhibitor to the future of movies. People are set in their expectations of what a movie should look like. CG has the opportunity to buck this trend and show people a vision not constrained by the camera, but by the imagination and budget of the creators.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
I never knew that....is that true?
In God we trust...all others please have two forms of ID
Please tell me: is there any cross dressing, breeding of giant golden chickens or riding of said chickens? I thought the games were pretty lame on account of that stuff.
Does the movie have ANYTHING to do with the games besides the name?
I haven't seen the film yet, but from all the footage I've garnered (highlights on TV, trailers, etc.) human rendering still has a long way to go. All I can see when I look at the movement of the characters are a bunch of mimes; all the motions are overdone, unrealistic and disjointed.
The human creature is not a simple hollow form; the characters they've rendered look like weightless shells moving underwater. Physics have to come into play before the movement will look more real, not just motion capture. Sure, the movement of this joint matches the movement of the real actors joint - but the kinetics, the subtleties of interconnectedness are loss.
They flex hollow muscles and have pretty well done hair - but even with good muscular tone humans are soft mushy things. There's an amount of "slosh", innertial forces excercising their effect on more than just the skeletal structure. Other features (the tightening of ligaments and tendonds, preset creases in skin, etc) will also have to be taken into account. They've come a long way, but they've still got a long way to go.
Still definitely going to see it though. ;)
Any spoon would be too big.
Gosh, I thought every individual is supposed to be distinct. But then, how come they all think the same way? Why can't someone who has watched it comes up some more interesting opinion?
And no, I'm not giving you ideas about how to write your opinions.
She meant the people...
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
on Monday. It was *great*. My wife still does not think that it was really all CGI. The story line was good solid action. Go see it support this and we can hope for more good stuff in the future.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Bingo Foo
---
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
One important thing you have to consider is that living actors often contribute to the film in ways that a CG model cannot. For instance the greatest comedies often have many adlib lines within the movies. CG movies will almost always be exact scripts.
:)
I would assume that most of the live action movies out there have many scenes in them that either weren't part of the original script, or have been modified greatly while filming by the actors and directors in concert. Heck, even a lighting tech may contribute something.
When dealing with animators and a script, I believe the animators are probably always going to be too involved in making the scene graphically perfect to suggest, "Hey, this might be funnier if the character were to do this instead".
Until CGI films can add the same spontenaety (sp?) I doubt very much that actors will be out of a job. However, there will be the added threat of, "Do the scene as it's scripted or we will replace you with a very small shell script".
- Sic transit Gloria Mundi
I was at the movies the other day, and to say the least, this movie has me captivated.
.... when can my boxen do that?!?!
Let me clarify, I am not, have not, and never will be a Final Fantasy game player/addict. It just isnt my kind of game. But the CG in this movie looks absolutely AMAZING. I dont think I have ever seen people rendered so realistically.
That said, I guess the question on all our minds is
---
Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
At least according to the NY Times. (I haven't seen it yet.)
sulli
RTFJ.
It's normal in CGI movies and modern games to spend the most computing power and time detailing the main characters. Lara Croft got at least twice as many polygons as any other character in the "Tomb Raider" games, for instance, and if you look at "Shrek" again you'll see that the characters with the "bit parts" are much stiffer and less detailed than the main characters. This is for two reasons: one, the main characters are required to perform more actions, express more expressions, and be seen close up far more often than anyone else; and two, they have a lot to do in as little time possible. Of course the computing power was there to make every stray character as detailed as the main ones, but the time wasn't. The computing power was no doubt awesome to anyone working on it, but even Sony has to face the limitations of physics.
With Hal Covert pushed out the door the day before yesterday and the stock price around fifty cents, the once-mighty SGI is putting out a flurry of press releases in a vain effort to avoid financial catastophe.
I'm not sure we can judge from SGI's press release alone how much their harware was used here.
"Never bullshit a bullshitter" All That Jazz
Do they have to edit the who thing into one sequence, or can they break it up into scenes and edit them together? I've always been curious as to the rendering time behind these types of movies (ie: Toy Story, Shrek, etc...)
What does it matter? You dont need 3D cards for off-line rendering (thats why noone in their right mind would consider using the GSCube to do a movie, only slashdot editors).
Yeah, they did go over budget, but the announcement that they weren't going to make another movie didn't really have much to do with that information. According to most sources, they simply produced this film to show off their tech, and will put forward any future film concepts (should the film do well enough to warrant any) to Sony/Columbia or other producers, and take on more of an oversight job
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
I have seen their cluster. Their office is just down the street from here (Honolulu), and they have a 960 node cluster spanning two floors of the Harbor Court tower. They have two other floors of the building for the rest of their toys. It is sweet to see too. The entire server area is dark with little flex lamps sticking out from the tops of the racks. All of those pretty blue LEDs . . . SWEET!!!
Deven Phillips, CISSP
Network Architect
Viata Online, Inc.
Wherever you go, there I am...
anything that's projected in 3d to begin with, like a hologram, is automatically only in focus for the part of it that your eye's are looking at. (Just like "real" 3D things are). Of course the problem with this is that if you want to show the grand canyon, you need a display the size of the grand canyon :]. On the other hand, HMDs can ALSO show everything level of focus, but I don't see why they would need to adjust at all as you suggest. the real world doesn't "adjust" what light shines through the square inch in front of my eyes when I refocus them, and in the same way, a head-mounted display doesn't need to adjust what it shines through. The problem is that the HMD can't shine things perpendicular to your field of vision -- it has to shine them as they would actually come, so that something in the center-right of your vision would shine from one angle at your right eye and a slightly smaller angle (small means close to your right ear) at your left eye. If you think about it, this allows your eye to focus on something (turn the eyes to meet the angle of something) at various distances. Look at your eyes when your nose is pressed against the mirror, and you'll see them converge. Look at something at ~infinite distance (the sun) and your eyes will diverge so they see paralell. In the same way, something 100% real can be simulated by having light coming from different angles, be that from a hologram which actually "produces" a real-live version of what it holds (and therefore needs a space as large as what it produces) or a HMD that somehow can generate light from different directions. I don't know now of how the HMD would do that. Current technology, it would seem, can only have a HMD do what you suggest - look at the eyes/cornea and calculate what image they should see relative to direction x, and then produce that image from a static direction x, as opposed to producing "all focuses" (foci) by producing light from all directions, slightly different for each eye (with the difference being different for each object, and based on its distance from the eye, and direction.)
~
Why is it that a genre created entirely by (and almost entirely for) the Japanese features characters that look so very un-Japanese ? I have never understood why every anime character seems to have HUGE saucer-like, blue eyes, even though they are usually identified as Japanese if they are so identified. I can't think of another group of people that seems to so enjoy viewing movies about a group that does not resemble their own.
...about how they did the motion capture and other things related to the film here
Interesting, no?
There is no spork.
I REALLY want to see the movie too, looks AWESOME :)
-Jeff
The world will be a worse place if what we can say with our mouths is restricted by copyright law. Hopefully Freenet will wipe all this out beforehand.
The current goal of CG and video technology is to convince the viewer that the image displayed is not video but actually real, happening right in front of them. Let's compare the current best with the absolute best.
1: motion. Above some frame rate, the eye perceives smooth motion and blurring, probably 60. The perception of blurring is a natural function of the eye, and if the goal is realism, it must be present. However, if the goal is something other than reality, such as clarity, then maybe blurring should be absent, and possible strobing allowed.
2: resolution. For perfect realism, the resolution of an image should be above the upper limit of the eye. I think film grain interferes with this goal.
3: color. Current film, CRTs, and LCDs reproduce only about 20% of the eye's color capacity. We could reproduce up to 80% with 5 lasers, spaced evenly between the wavelengths of 400nm and 700nm.
4: focus. The eyes focus on images themselves. To acheieve realism, a video system must let the eyes choose their own subjects, and alter the image accordingly. Some HMDs can do this by detecting the movement of the eyes and cornea. Rotating large mirror systems can do this even better because they don't need to adjust the image because they display 3D naturally. Flat monitor systems, such as red blue, or polarized color, can adjust focus for only one person at a time.
5: direction. A realistic system lets the user move his head and eyes any way he wants. Currently, only HMDs can accomidate this.
So 5-laser HMDs are the most realistic solution. Holodecks are better but we can't do them.
Finally, don't worry about what the mainstream feels. They do want the next big thing, it just has to be a major improvement, not an incremental improvement. Just create whatever you like.
I don't think I have ever prepaired ( which I assume is the same as prepared ) for a movie. Maybe that is why I am not good at watching them. Mental note: Do not stare at EXIT sign for more than an hour or I will miss most of the movie.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2001/ 7/10/3436/23896
In short, the story sucks but the anim is cool.
Nobox: Only simple products.
The article for SGI says that the characters in the movie are "virtually indistinguishable from live human beings." I know the movie looks awesome, and I'm going to see it ASAP, but isn't this just a little too unrealistic of a claim?
If it's supposed to move and doesn't, use WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape.
I'm not surprised in the least they used SGI, after all CGI and special effects are a large part of what SGI does best. I can't really think of hearing about anything done lately that wasn't on SGI (haven't researched this, so I'll probably get a bunch of 'xxxxxx didn't use SGI you moron!' replies.)
Plus, most studios are in California, and we've got power issues for a little while. If you've got one box that can do the work of a couple PCs, you're saving power and money
D - M - C - A
If god had intended you to be naked, you would have been born that way.
This brings forth an interesting question. If CG actors evolve to the point where they're almost as good as the real thing, will they ever seriously replace the real thing? Will the average movie 20 years from now consist of 100% digital effects (as with Final Fantasy), or will the industry find that the "human touch" is irreplacable regardless of how photorealistic or inexpensive CG becomes?
It seems almost ironic that it's easier to simulate the visual representation of a character than the audio representation. Thirty years ago we thought that the exact opposite would be true.
Can't let this event go by without putting in my two cents
After following the movie production reports for a good three years, I find it quite impressive what they managed to accomplish in the time, considering they already went through one complete script re-write and the amount of computing power it took to just render what they did. Apparently the rendering of characters was detailed enough that each individual hair on the character's head was attached by itself. Now, that could explain the "not-so-hot" background character rendering, mostly since if they were to render each character in that way it would be 2002 before we see the movie.
As for the use of Linux for the rendering can only serve to strengthen the growing use of linux (etc) in the industry. Maybe someone can fill in the link, but I vaguely remember something about SGI moving to a MS-based platform. If that is the case, then this only serves to further the proof that you don't need Windows to do an exceptional job, (and I've seen very few, if no projects that look this good)
So in closing, If you have friends, neighbours, or just people on the street, drag them in to see this. I've very rarely known Square to disappoint either in story or visuals, so give it a chance, even if you aren't a game fan.
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
I just got back from the movie... I wouldn't call it awesome, but it was pretty damn good. Like everyone has said, the visuals were stunning. And the plot was decent. On the way out of the movie, I heard half the people say the liked it, and half seemed to hate it. I also think I heard one person snore during it. I dunno, I liked it. If your expecting it to make any references to the games, think again. But otherwise pretty good.
See my post here about how SquareSoft blew their budget on this movie. They may not make another. :-(
Why bother.
The movie is absolutely spectacular - and while SquareSoft will continue to develop their technology and techniques for games, they may not make another movie without support for this one. Personally, I'd like to see more FF movies. I hope it cleans up at the box office!
Why bother.
Your needless condescension is noted. Perhaps you should get some social skills.
Stragner things than the plot of Gladiator happened in the Empire's history.
While majoring in Western Classics, albeit many years ago, I did learn a thing or two about Roman history. However, none of it is relevant to the fact that Gladiator is an utterly mindless special effects vehicle and rather silly action movie.
It's curious that the rudest responses I receive to my posts on Slashdot are always from people upset that I don't like their favorite movie. Furthermore, the movie in question is almost always a ludicrous piece of eye candy. The psychology of this is fascinating. Why is it so important to these people to believe that their chosen piece of pop-trash is really the next Citizen Kane?
So basically you want groupthink from a movie reviewer.
For instance, he totally thrashed Gladiator, saying it was horrid, etc
I don't suppose you care the the plot is totally ridiculous?
then it wins Oscar for best picture
Here's a shocking piece of news for you: the Oscars are hardly more than a popularity contest. The movies nomimated for best picture are (more often than not) slickly produced but unremarkable. Once and a while something interesting wins, but most of the time not. Looking at the record of best pictures winners from many years ago reveals a few decent choices, lots of completely ignored classics, and a whole bunch of what-were-they-thinking-winners.
SGI is notorious for prohibiting the studios (especially ILM, thus the term "the Jedi clause") from mentioning systems other than SGI. I interviewed with Square (alas I didn't get the job) and I assure you they have Macs doing gruntwork too.
I saw the film in a preview showing on Monday. It was not as large as an attraction as A.I. was. I had arrived an hour early for this movie and they had not filled the seats.
At the A.I. preview there were more than 60 people not able to get seats half an hour before the film. The A.I. preview took place in a 500+ seat theatre, while the Final Fantasy preview took place in a 300 seat theatre.
Anyway, on to my review. The visuals in this film were absolutely the most amazing computer generated images that I can claim to have seen. Remember the first big full view of the Dinosaurs in the orginal Jurassic Park? These were almost identically awe inspiring.
The story itself was decent for a Final Fantasy game, although nowhere near as in depth. This I would attribute to the lesser amount of time the movie is, in comparison to the length of a Final Fantasy game.
A friend of mine commented on how the lips, while in synch with the voices, barely moved with the conversation. The expressions on the variuous characters faces were also rather awesome. There were a few parts when I would have expected some form of expression, but there wasn't.
I would recomend seeing the film as a matinee as the ending was really not as whiz-bang cool as I would have liked. The climax was nearly anti-climatic.
The very ending left quite a bit to be desired to me. Of course that is me and I expect a tremendous amount from the movies that I see.
--
.sig seperator
--
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Just think about it. The article talks about a Square developed plug-in for Maya to handle the animation of hair. Pixar has worked something out to make that big blue furry guy's fur wiggle when he moves. So which one works better?
As soon as they're both released on DVD, I'm gonna have a hey-day.Having seen Final Fantasy today, two showings in a row -- first "analog" then DLP ("digital"), I would strongly recommend you see this film in DLP mode.
While there were minor pixelation issues from the DLP projection (mostly in extra large fonts with diagonals), there was (to my eye) a dramatic difference in quality between the analog and the DLP projection, with DLP providing an astonishing level of extra detail and richness.
I saw Final Fantasy in Canada; If you don't have DLP where you live, I suggest you move. =P
Slashdot: Everything in Moderation, including Moderation itself.
There is a decent review at the NY times. From what I've seen and read, it seems like the renderer is there for creating photorealistic humans. That is just beyond cool. However, I get the feeling that the project was somewhat lacking in compute power. While some of the characters look amazing and almost make you think you are watching a real person, some of the shots of seen of more minor characters are weak by comparision. The detail just isn't there. Either the artists didn't take the time to do the model or there were limitations on compute power. Either way, the movie has some weakness, but displays some awesome technology.
I noticed that one of the computers in the Zeus station had a logo that said "Palm Powered" as in Palm PDAs. Did anybody else catch a glimpse of some sponsoring?
Movie Stars Fear Inroads by Upstart Digital Actors
They may look kind of cool, but the cast of ``Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within'' will never work in this town again.
'Final Fantasy' Changes Performer Role
Plus the one mentioned earlier. I haven't seen this much hype in a long time. Then again, did anyone not expect the story to suck in this one? It was intended, from the very begining to be an experiment in computer graphics. Not an experiment in good film making. They don't need to have a good story for this one.
---
I think Ebert has stated that the criteria he uses in deciding how many stars to give a movie is how well the filmmakers have achieved what they set out to do.
While he raves about the visuals, he also says
That doesn't encourage me, because the first 3-D movies are so bad they're unwatchable. I just want to know whether or not the story is so silly I'll have to turn off my brain (beer helps) to enjoy the movie. And if it is silly, I wonder how long we'll have to wait to see technology like this used in more intelligent movies.
1. The trailer mostly contains stuff in the first five minutes of the movie. It's just the tip of the iceberg. 2. The movie is 1 hour 40 minutes of eye candy. Every frame was a delight, and you'll have to see it twice to take it all in. 3. Forget the critics. It's better than all of the other F/X blockbusters in the theaters this summer (Mummy Returns, Tomb Raider, AI, Shrek). I wasted good money on those (except Shrek) and this one actually delivers. 4. Ok, my criticisms: Skin still looks a little plasticy in some scenes. Lip movements do appear awkward at times. Some of the emotional scenes didn't really tug at my heart when they were intended to. Some plot points got confusing and I wished they had more compassion for the bad guy (when he realized he made a mistake, he kept going forward instead of redeeming himself). 5. I'm going back tonight for the 7pm show and taking my fiancee. Can't wait for the DVD. I really hope this does well in the box office. I would love to see the 3D medium used for other genres (horror, action, drama). 6. I heard a rumour that Aki (Ming Na Wen) will appear as a character in an upcoming live action film. Can somebody confirm? thanks. -kn
You've completely missed the point. With such well-animated characters, do any opportunities for anal rape arise? I mean, you may enjoy masturbating furiously to such high-quality erotica, but where's the backdoor action?