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Wired's LOTR III Tech Breakdown

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i'll-take-2-to-go dept.

rjjm writes "Interesting little logistics piece in Wired about the technology WETA used for for The Return of the King." Ya know, now that the Matrix hype vanished into nowhere, I'm glad the LotR hype is gearing up. I think this one will earn it.

3 of 419 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Nitpick by Red+Pointy+Tail · · Score: 4, Informative
    Look at the next line:

    Temperature of equipment rooms: 76 degrees
    Fahrenheit Weight of air conditioners needed to maintain that temperature: 1/2 ton


    The Fahrenheit went there.

  2. WETA Supercomputes! by patheticloser · · Score: 4, Informative
    From The top500.org supercomputer list
    Number 44 - WETA Digital New Zealand/2003 BladeCenter Cluster Xeon 2.8 GHz, Gig-Ethernet / 1176 IBM
  3. Re:Nothing New Here by IWannaBeAnAC · · Score: 4, Informative
    Acutally, technology used in filming has changed quite a lot recently. Motion control of the camera enables quite a lot of new tricks.

    Forced perspective with a moving camera depends on moving parts of the scenery in sync with the camera. The scene with Gandalf and Frodo at the table in Bag End is a good example of this - no post production tricks at all.

    Also, tricks where you film one person on a blue-screen, record the camera moves, replay the same camera move somewhere else (possibly with a scale transform) and combine the images. The post-production combining is completely trivial, but the technique is enabled by being able to track exactly where the camera is during the shot and replaying the same moves later.