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."

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GSCube Clearup...

[ijx]

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.

Re:I saw a preview...

[technos]

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.

Re:How's This For Real Looking?

[iso]

...And this site has Aki porn! (bottom of the page)

Ah, the future is going to be great...

- j

A few things

[donglekey]

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.

amazing CGI

[BiggestPOS]

At this rate, actors like myself will be out of work right about the time I decide to retire, I hope :) 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.

I saw it on Monday

[el_munkie]

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

How's This For Real Looking?

[Alexius]

Here's a neat swimsuit pic of Aki, and for the ladies, here's one of Gray.

At first I thought it was the models for the characters, but it's the CGI.

Taken from Sci-Fi News.
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