Slashdot Mirror
Article about The Lord of the Rings MASSIVE Crowd
TheOneRing.net has posted an article going indepth about LotR CGI, and specifically the rendering of extremely large crowds being done byWETA Digital. With the special edition due out soon, and TTT coming out in december, well let's just leave it at "Yay".
Nice to see CGI graphics being pushed to the next level.
LOTR is exciting, uses lots of CGI and the geek factor is high. I really can't wait untill the twin towers. When Hollywood makes great movies like this the whole MPAA trying to take away our rights thing doesn't sound so bad...
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
Are they allowed to be scanning pages from the magazine and just posting them online? Seems like Popular Science is losing magazine sales from this. Isn't this copyright infringement?
(I'm glad to see the article but I can't help but ask if they can legally put this up)
Purchase some of the servers used to render the CGI in the first LOTR movie here.
Own a geeky piece of history!
Slightly OT but I wonder if they could CGI the Dumbledore character into future Harry Potter movies?
:) :)
(The cool old British guy that played him died a couple weeks ago.)
.
.
.
Moderators - you should mod the first half of this comment Insightful and mod the last half Off Topic.
But then of course they cancel each other out! I.e. don't waste your mod points...
Unless of course this middle bit tips the balance towards funny...?
.
.
.
Hey, karma whores, I'm too lazy right now to provide links to the relevant articles re old guy, death and Dumbledore. Here's your chance to provide links to relevant articles and score!
The article mentions that in order to support such a complicated undertaking -- each character has anywhere from 100 to 8000 behavioral logic nodes to govern its behavior -- the creators of Massive used fuzzy logic to make their creations act.
As far as I understand, fuzzy logic -- using probabilities instead of binary values -- has been given the shaft in most of the computing world. People can't wrap their heads around a concept that's termed 'fuzzy', no matter how solid the mathematics behind it are. Maybe this sort of accomplishment will open new doors for research involving fuzzy logic in computing systems.
On the topic of CGI, does anyone know if there exists a poster-sized rendering of the scene with Gandalf facing the balrog in FotR? Am I the only one that thinks this would be the coolest poster ever?
- Smiley =)
"Never put off for tomorrow what can be avoided altogether"
It did leave a good bit out, but you can't expect anyone but true fanatics to sit through 6 hours per movie to ensure every bit was included. The additions/adaptations for Arwen's character are understandable. I don't really miss Tom Bombadil, though. He was a fun character, but he didn't have anything to do with the story. Ultimately, he was a sidetrack, a lead-in to a book that was never written.
I know I'll catch a lot of flak for this, but here goes:
I really enjoyed the books, and would not even begin to compare a movie to them for the wholeness and the granularity of the story. Even so, the book offers unfair advantages. Tolkien can say "his eyes flashed" and you make it happen, which is why turning a popular work into a movie is so difficult. Peter James does a great job with the material. I particularly can't wait to see the Ents, as I would like to see a tree that wasn't a tree.
Moving into the dangerous ground, Tolkien wrote some great work, but his books require great imagination to fill in the holes. Tolkien's time scale was never very concise(on the mountain, turn around, in the mine...) and the spaces in his book sometimes leave you wanting for some accounting (Frodo suddently ages twenty-seven years without any significant events?)
Don't get me wrong; I love the books, and the story. So don't shoot me.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
The first thing that pooped into my mind when reading the article was that this could put a whole new spin on games like Myth. I mean if you could use a somewhat simplified version of the control nodes and behaviors to generate an army-- and your opponent (or the computer) did the same-- you could create some awesome battles. Even in the case of individual battles, the idea of better ai for each character is pretty compelling ;-) Oh, and for more fun, throw in some genetic/adaptive algorithms and watch as your characters get better and better...
$15K, though. Avid uses the Macho Pricing Model: if it's expensive, it must be Professional. Avid really bought Softimage from Microsoft because Softimage was coming out with Digital Studio, a compositing package which threatened Avid's overpriced compositing systems. Avid never really seemed to want the 3D business. There was a big exodus from Softimage when Microsoft sold them off. Softimage XSI came out years late, and meanwhile, the industry mostly switched to Maya, which is $2K for the base package (and free for a version that stamps giant logos on everything).
Actually, the first really good crowd behavior engine used in a major motion picture drove the baby 'zillas in Godzilla. Unfortunately, the company that did that job went under shortly thereafter.
1. It's too fast! They left out too much stuff!
True, *Real_Tolkien_Fanatics* require 6 movies, at least 3 hours long. The extended DVD should help, but not enough. I am continually amazed at Peter Jackson's triage ability to determine the important points and find a way to cram them in the film.
2. Where's Tom Bombadil?
Tom Bombadil is an important part of Middle Earth, if not the story. Peter Jackson is right in always being willing to meddle with the story and not with Middle Earth. I think the reason Bombadil (and more specifically the Old Forest) could be left out is that the "Gandalf rides to Gondor" and the introduction already introduce us to first&second age Middle Earth.
3. Whats the deal with Arwen/Glorfindel?
The bigger change is putting the elf (either one) on the horse with Frodo. Also, the horse can easily outrun the Nazgul (this irritated all kinds of equestrian types, once the Nazgul where encased in armour there is no chance of them catching an elf mount). See more Arwen gripes below.
4. But the movie ends differently than the book does
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is unforgivable. Hopefully Peter Jackson will produce a DVD that gets it right. Tolkien was a vetran and knows Frodo will be shell shocked for life. Its very important that Frodo *does*not*live*happily*ever*after*. A better ending would be for Frodo to intentionally tackle Gollumn and throw both of them into the flames (note that I haven't been keeping up with the leaks). Note that to keep the "Gollumn falls alone in the lava" ending, Gandalf must spare Saruman's life (this is about as fundamental as things get in LOTR). Ignoring the other consequences of this is pretty foolish.
Since Jackson has already programed the scourging of the shire, I hope that this can be fixed.
5. But the change Saruman as well.
This is pretty stupid. There really is no reason to make Saruman admit to himself his enslavement to Mordor. It would only take a few seconds ("I've got a wonderful idea"), to show this.
The worse change is Aragon. The film variety is a complete wimp next to the book. Don't ask me how the "Aragon views the Peletar" will be done (probably cut due to the lack of Aunidille (not bothered to check the spelling).
Finally:
I am one of those who believe that all changes to the story=bad. I will admit that some make sense (Arwen's "all my grace to you, Frodo" scene justifies her on the horse (but not the slow horse). The direct flip/flop on wether Gandalf lights firecrackers for hobbit children shows Jackson ability to understand the book and show it on film. The end of the book is fundamental and Tolkien insisted that it was required from the events at the start of the book.
The total cost would hardly be much more than the present cost (I imagine that model creation for charecters and locations is the main cost for this film). Also judging by the money made and Hollywood greed for sequals, the 20 hour version may yet be made (the legal issues of CGI modification to make different actors look like the same charecters would be interesting).
An annoyed ent.
Ents are also annoyed that the they saved the day in the _Two_Towers_ but got less than a second in the trailer.
Gotta disagree with you on a bunch of these points... ;)
> Putting the elf on the horse with Frodo:
a) Equestrian types complaining about horses under the influence of thousand-year-old mystic spirits... should learn to suspend their disbelief; why wouldn't these horses be enchanted in special, performance-enhancing ways? Or is Mordor above the use of magic steroids?
b) putting someone else on the horse with Frodo
Actually, this works to enhance the tension regarding whether or not Frodo will take the ring at the Council. If he had already shown that degree of courage (at the river), then the moment of taking ont he burden of the ring would be less dramatic. It's all about visually-depicting drama, which is very different from verbally-depicted drama.
> the movie ends differently than the book does. NOOOOOOOO!!
I believe the prior comment referred to the FOTR movie, which took its ending from the beginning of TTT. We dont know exactly how ROTK (or TTT!) will end yet - because it's not out yet! sure, PJ said that the Scouring won't happen, but that doesn't eliminate Frodo going to the Havens (which to my mind is more important to the themes you mention than the Scouring).
> But the change Saruman as well. This is pretty stupid.
Actually, this simplifies the newbie audience's understanding of the villains in a very useful way; Saruman = a big henchman + Sauron is the biggest villain. Having them in opposition to one another would very confusing, esp. as Sauron's influence is only shown indirectly (through his minions) in the Third Age - he's never actually in the same scene! Whether this works can be disagreed with, but it's certainly not an unmotivated, useless change.
> The worse change is Aragon. The film variety is a complete wimp next to the book.
In the book we are able to learn a _lot_ of backstory on Aragorn via stories, _many_ dialogue asides, and also the appendices. For the movie, they moved this character arc (of taking on the role of king, which in the book was more or less determined at the Council of Elrond, with everything else filled in later via dialogue) into the story that they could show (movies that show = good movies; movies that tell = dull movies.). So... look for Aragorn to "grow" into his destined role as king.
> Ents are also annoyed that the they saved the day in the _Two_Towers_ but got less than a second in the trailer.
Hope you're being facetious with this one - the ents are going to be the big visual surprise for those who know about them, and a complete surprise for those who don't! That's why it's a trailer, vs. a "sampler".
arggh, should be getting work done...