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Massive Two Towers Battle
ShadowLight writes ""In December vast hordes of eager filmgoers will mob cineplexes across the land and witness, at the climax of The Two Towers, one of the most anticipated scenes in recent movie history: the great Battle of Helm's Deep." This article talks about the software, named Massive, used to create this 50,000 creature battle."
The way I heard that the AI for the battle scene was programmed was such that every one of the creatures had a slightly different set of paramaters, with the same goal of maximizing damage, while minimizing casualties.
On the first run, every single one of the thousands of little AIs decided that the best way to minimize casualties was to turn and run away.
Common sense is what tells you the world is flat.
And the coolest thing about it is that I did it 3 years ago when I actually read the book.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
This is sure to be a big box office draw, but 50,000 scantily-clad beach bimbo babes might do even better at the box office!
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
In Return of the King, the final film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the climactic battle--yes, the Battle of Helm's Deep is just a run-up--is rumored to employ more than 100,000 characters.
Oh Hell Yes.
I can't be the only geek with a hard-on here can I?
The "Two Towers." Now a software program called "Massive." No trend here.
My Vorpal Sword is bigger than yours.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Dan Koeppel, a film-school dropout, has written for Wired and The New York Times Magazine. Although a longtime Tolkien reader, he draws the line at The Silmarillion.
Wuss.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
The dead orc still looks up when steped on.
Who says he's dead? He's just disabled and bleeding to death.
The arrow counts are still way off.
If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, even the book says that Legolas picked up orc and goblin arrows along the way. Besides, if you sat through the movie counting the arrows, I think it's possible that you might have missed the point.
The size of the hobbits still keeps changing.
Yeah, and in episode 2F09, when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a (heh heh) magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
Of course it seems I'm a troll for even thinking that there could be anything wrong with these movies.
Hee hee. I get it! Lord of the Rings! Troll! Brilliant!
(-1, Hobbit)
I write in my journal
In a momentous surge of self-denial, Timothy was able to restrain himself for a full 20 days before posting a repeat story about The Two Towers. Slashdot readers, rejoice!
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
How about a new category? "Movie SPOILERS". That way, I can filter out articles on it, so I don't have to accidentally read about "the most anticipated scene" in a movie that's not out yet, just in case I've been working very hard to NOT see anything about the movie, so that I can fully enjoy it when it finally DOES come out?
Damnit.
Oh by the way:
It's a sled.
They drive off the cliff.
It's a guy.
Rose lives, Jack dies.
He's dead.
Education is the silver bullet.
This kind of reminds me of the middle-school "proms" we would have at graduation.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
RUNAWAY!!
<HUMOR>
We still need to get Jackson to rename the movie, because he's obviously trying to cash in on 9/11!
</HUMOR>
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
A 50,000 character particle system would run slower than Doom III!!!
This Massive stuff will be slow on the fastest next-generation movie theater accelerators even with tons of memory.
When the credits are rolling, the frame rates might be okay, but in the battle scene I bet they drop to around 24fps.
Who needs Star Wars, real geeks know what they love! And it's not Luca, let me tell you!
My name is Lucas.. I created Episode 4. I live upstairs from you. I think you worshipped me before.
Forget your piddly 100K of Orcs. I can't wait to see the CGI scene showing that horde charging the theatres!!
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
I found it rather amusing that one of the quotes from this story says, "...keep an eye out for a background character in The Two Towers who, in the middle of the battle, seems to take a call on his cellphone."
The real question is, Where's Waldo?
Girlfriend's a surgical resident. She brings home snapshots of her operations on the digital camera.
Sounds cozy. Do you watch them in front of an open fire drinking wine?
my friends,
This is my last post of slashdot. After seeing this, I have decided that life is not worth living. I loved Star Trek and Tolkien and then this happened.
Doing the real ctrl-alt-del,
nbfn
This is a real site...
not goat stuff
Don't people ever learn? How many more people have to die before we stop using our cell phones during battle?
Yeah, but by the time my turn comes around on the XDCC list and I finish receiving it at 1.05 kilobytes per second, the DVD will be out, ordered, delivered, and playing on my television.
Wouldn't that only be -1/2? :)
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Maybe in a few years when the Sims Online has run it's course, they can integrate the "Massive" program and have a huge battle at the end.
I would pay to see that.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
-
To avoid surprises, Massive programmers weeded out ineffective agents and duplicated ones that worked. About a dozen initial master characters formed the basic genetic blueprint for more than 50,000 digital creations, which were then individualized by adding random variables such as aggression or happiness. (A few update Tolkien; keep an eye out for a background character in The Two Towers who, in the middle of the battle, seems to take a call on his cellphone.)
At least they're not calling in an air strike, like Granada."It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I saw an entire tech company destroyed by that video. Someone mailed it around the office and reduced all the programmers to gibbering drooling idiots, incapable of ever writing another line of code.
The only one I knew who was wounded by enemy, rather than friendly, action was shot in the ass by an irate farmer, armed with a shotgun, who thought it 'them damn kids' after his livestock again.
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When Yoda was babbling on about fear, *this* is what he was talking about.
Do you watch them in front of an open fire drinking wine?
A nice chianti would seem appropriate...
Actually, it's a pretty catchy tune.
I might actually see Twin Towers now, just to hear that theme song again.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou