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WETA Digital Operations Mgr. Talks Special Effects

Posted by timothy on from the and-a-one-and-a-two-and-a dept.

Xoanon (from TheOneRing.net) writes "I was recently privileged enough to view a lecture by Milton Ngan. As far as IT stuff goes, Milton has a pretty good job. You see, he is the Digital Operations Manager at Weta Digital. He is basically the architect for all the technical side of things at Weta. Last night he came and gave a 1 hour lecture at Victoria University outlining the hurdles and obstacles that needed to be overcome to produce the stunning 3D graphics lying in each of the Lord of the Rings movies. The lecture itself was full of lots of facts about Weta, the IT side of things and it also included some very cool behind the scenes shots of The Two Towers. The following is a detailed report from the event, where Ngan gave us an amazing behind-the-scenes look at WETAs infrastructure, their mainframes and various workstations. There is also a TON of info in regards to the special effects process, and news about MASSIVE. Take a look."

11 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Someone please explain to me how by tarquin_fim_bim · · Score: 1, Funny

    this works:
    It consists of 192 Dual Pentium 1 GHz and 448 Dual 2.2 GHz processors. A total of 1280 processors running at approximately 2,355 GHz.... Mmmmm.....

    Is it just really cold in NZ or is it something to do with the water going down the plug hole the wrong way?

  2. Poor conflicted orcs... by aiken_d · · Score: 4, Funny

    When Massive was first tested two armies were pitted against each other to fight it out. Once the scene was rendered, a bug in the program was found. Agents were actually seen running away from the battle field! This simple bug was resolved by adding the rule "If you can't see an enemy, turn around".

    Oh no! I'm going to be killed! Run away! Oh no, no enemy in sight! Turn around! Oh no! I'm going to be killed! Run away! Oh no...

    Cheers
    -b

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    If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
    1. Re:Poor conflicted orcs... by NixterAg · · Score: 4, Funny

      Must have been originally coded by a Frenchman.

  3. MASSIVE to the rescue! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maybe we could use MASSIVE to render Shrub's next Gulf War. Show it to him, tell him we won, and then we can move on!

  4. From Viewers Like You?? by Kaz+Riprock · · Score: 2, Funny


    No wonder they keep having auctions and pledge drives...with the hardware it would take to handle this kind of special effects.

    PS - Before you moderate...know that it's a joke.

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    Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
  5. Re:Summary of the article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Didnt you know slashdot's policy of offering free advertising to companies that have installed a copy of linux somewhere?

  6. Gollum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    A blooper that was shown was Gollum playing an electric guitar. Also a few shots were shown with Kermit the frog instead of Gollum. Even after the motion capture is done.

    They should sneak these into the movie for the April 1 showings. The Fellowship meets the Rainbow Connection - now I'd pay extra for that one...

  7. Bah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    1280 processors and your rig can barely manage 24fps. Lamers

  8. Re:I wonder if they know by spongman · · Score: 5, Funny
    We're not fooled, it looks really fake
    Yeah, I agree. It doesn't look like any other magic lantern light I've ever seen.

    wtf?

  9. Re:WETA != Weta by frankthechicken · · Score: 2, Funny

    A weta is a giant honkin' bug, indigenous to New Zealand. It looks like this.

    So what the bloody hell is that Weta holding in its hand then?

  10. Re:WETA != Weta by DChristensen · · Score: 2, Funny

    It appears to be an entomologist.

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    Mac OS X--Unix without the assholes^Whassles.