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Shrek 2 How-To
mblase writes "Animation World Magazine has an article online about some of the technical hurdles Dreamworks Animation had to overcome in making "Shrek 2". With November's "The Incredibles" being Pixar's first movie to feature an all-human (er, superhuman) cast of characters, it's interesting to watch how these two studios push each other to the limits of computer animation."
Google Cache of the article
If you can read this sig - the bitch fell off.
There are several CGI movies comming out of France that look to blow away anything done in the US to date.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
For a similar story about Pixars The Impossibles, check out the june edition if Wired, they should also have it on thier site, www.Wired.com
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
PDI has been around since the early 80s, when commercial software was not really an option. Over time, we've amassed both a core of pretty cool technology and an r&d group to put it together. Face it, any project the size of Shrek will require lots of ad hoc software, and having total control over it is definitely an advantage.
j
Shouldn't it be "the making of"?
Or will reading it teach me enough to create a comparable movie?
I've never heard an entire audience simultaneously sigh "Awwwww" because of a cartoon before
Nice capture for those who are wondering what Ace is talking about (and nice wallpaper for those who do):
Puss in Boots
I'll have something intelligent to add one of these days...
Well it should be noted it's PDI/Dreamworks. Dreamworks is just the parent company (movie studio) which actually has 2 animation divisions: Dreamworks Animation (which did the 2D stuff like Spirit, Sinbad and the Prince of Egypt), and PDI (or Pacific Data Images) which was an independent studio, then Dreamwork acquired part of it until it got a controling stake and now owns it and is doing all the 3D animated films. Since Sinbad did poorly I think Dreamworks Animation might be shut down (don't remember the news but it should be easy to find).
Sketches list appears in June (if we are lucky). But there's the SIGGRAPH 2004 course on Shrek 2, a paper on GI for animated films, a piece accepted at the prestigious Electronic Theatre and of course a VES Festival presentation on the film as well, so it's definately the creme de la creme (sp?):
Visual Effects Society Festival schedule
Shrek 2 course at SIGGRAPH 2004
SIGGRAPH 2004 Electronic Theatre list
An Approximate Global Illumination System for Computer-Generated Films
ILM did half of the effects on Pirates of the Caribbean, including the skeleton pirates, miniature ship and water tank effects and a good deal of matte paintings, supervised by John Knoll. Charlie Gibson supervised about half the other VFX work done by about half a dozen other facilities.
These days, Bird, like the rest of us, is a Pixar convert (and that footage is soon-to-be bonus material on an upcoming DVD). Outspoken and high-spirited, Bird calls himself "the first virus let into this climate-controlled atmosphere." His Pixar debut, The Incredibles - an action comedy about a family of superheroes roused to action after having hung up their spandex - screens later this year. It's the company's first foray into animated human protagonists, withall that implies: beard stubble, bulging midsections, difficult-to-manage hair, and flappy clothing. But for the outfit that invented computer-generated animated films, finding the humanity in teraflops of rendered code is business as usual.
Still, Bird is asking a lot. "The knees of Pixar are trembling under the weight of my ignorance," he says, sitting in a lawn chair on Pixar's rolling, 16-acre grounds in Emeryville, California. "If you were to list the 20 hardest things to do in CG, I ordered double portions of all of them: hair, hair underwater, fire, explosions, humans, human clothing, clothing falling through the air," he says. "I was told by some that what I wanted was impossible, that it would cost 10 gazillion dollars and take 10 years. Fortunately there was another group that said: Bring it on."
Sound like they pushed the limits to me.. this is the director speaking... but I don't think he's kidding, likely there's man-hours he can point to.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.