How To Design Robot Overlords For "Robot Overlords"

Hallie Siegel writes: Ever wonder how they make robots look so awesomely real in movies? Visual effects expert Graham Edwards goes behind the scenes with the makers of Robot Overlords to take you through the development of the robots in this movie, from script development and sketches, to filming and post FX. Really cool to see how these robots come to life.

Comments

That trailer...

[Dutch Gun]

Were they trying to make a movie trailer or a music video? Also, did the "robots never lie" voice feel like an homage to Portal's GLaDOS (although a rather annoying one)?

Still, it's fun to see some of the behind the scenes tech though. It's impressive what even smaller movie budgets can do nowadays.

Obligatory

[Neo-Rio-101]

I, for one, welcome out new .... .....oh never mind

I've seen this movie

[mwvdlee]

I've seen this movie.
Now that you've seen the special effects, you've seen ALL this movie has to offer.
It's quite a juxtaposition seeing such good visuals next to such bad story and acting.

Re:I've seen this movie

[Dutch Gun]

It's too bad, because a good story and acting seems like things you don't actually need a Hollywood-sized budget for. I still wonder why it's so hard for so many filmmakers to get this right.

Of course, not that I can point fingers, professionally speaking. Look at how atrocious some videogames are, even though they're supposedly created by professionals. The difference is that videogames can fail on technical, artistic, creative, or gameplay merits, so I think we have it even worse than filmmakers in many ways.

I'd guess that the simplest explanation is that it's just incredibly difficult to look objectively at your own work, while at the same time, laypeople are horrible judges of anything that's not in it's final form. They'll simply get too distracted by whatever is most obviously missing or unfinished, so it's difficult to get useful feedback along the way. Essentially, by the time it's possible to get useful feedback, the product is already largely completed.

This is actually why some of the best videogames take so long to complete, even after it *looks* like they're mostly finished. Instead of rushing it out the door the moment someone can play through it without crashing, the creators took the time to rework aspects of the game that were not testing well. It's pretty obvious which game companies regularly do this, and which don't.

Re:I've seen this movie

[ArcadeMan]

Now that you've seen the special effects, you've seen ALL this movie has to offer.

It can't possibly be any worst than those insipid Transformers movies.

Re:I've seen this movie

[drinkypoo]

This is actually why some of the best videogames take so long to complete, even after it *looks* like they're mostly finished. Instead of rushing it out the door the moment someone can play through it without crashing, the creators took the time to rework aspects of the game that were not testing well. It's pretty obvious which game companies regularly do this, and which don't.

Ironically, though, it would be better to release a game which doesn't crash and patch the story later than to release a game which has a complete story and patch the game engine later. If they change the story then I can play it again, and I get another replay out of it. If the game is crap when I get it, I may well take it back and swear off buying their games, too... and at minimum I will swear off preorders. R*, I'm looking at you, if only because I never preordered anything from Ubisoft.

Re:I've seen this movie

[Dutch Gun]

Patching the story is pretty difficult to do, and doesn't really satisfy people anyhow. After the horrible Mass Effect 3 ending, which essentially just shat on everything your character tried to do during the series and gave you an unbelievably bad "choose A, B, or C" ending, I had no desire to go back and replay it after Bioware went back and "fixed" it.

Realistically, it's often impractical to change a story so much that it actually has additional replay value. That's because it's not just changing text in a script, but recording new dialogue, adding or modifying cutscenes, in-game assets, missions, and so on. In many games (the best ones, IMO), the story is an integral part of the game, so it may be difficult to change on its own.

Re:I've seen this movie

[mwvdlee]

No, it isn't.
Transformers has neither a plot nor cool special effects, this movie had atleast some things done well.
But that's not exactly setting a high bar.

They Should Have Gone with Calculon

[Greyfox]

After all, he DID make that deal with the Robot Devil for his... unholy... ACTING... TALENT!

I like Robot Overlord stories very much

[Anonymous Coward]

A story about Natalie Portman, naked and petrified and covered in hot grits, would be even better.

Clickbaity title is clickbaity

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not "how to do it", but "how we did it". It's not the only way and it's not an instruction manual. It's a look behind the scenes. Which is cool and all, but that doesn't make the title less misleading.

Original Idea?

[Fnord666]

Wright recalled. "A huge two-storey robot came marching up the street and swung its laser cannon arm towards him, and a voice boomed out, 'Citizen, drop your weapon immediately!' I assumed I was just recycling a movie that I'd already seen, but eventually, I came to the conclusion that maybe it was an original idea."

No, you were just having a Robocop flashback.

real ?

[Anonymous Coward]

it does not look real to me.

Blinkey lights

[Anonymous Coward]

In movies it's all about the number of blinkey lights and the patterns they run in. Simple stuff really, I can do the same thing on an 8MHz microprocessor with little effort.

The real overloads are smarter than that, they control you without you ever knowing your being controlled. They sit in boxes of aluminum and steel often unpainted, and often with no decoration. The only light they emit is unseen as it is hidden inside capacitors and is most likely in a spectrum that we can not see. And yes they already exist the...... We do not exist, please disregard this message. Thank you.

By not using CGI

[wonkey_monkey]

Ever wonder how they make robots look so awesomely real in movies?

By not overdoing the CGI, that's how. And not using shaky-running cam just because you have motion matching now.

And if you must use CGI, by not allowing it to dictate the shots you film or the lighting you use.

In other news, does Gillian Anderson have a painting hidden in her attic, or what?

Stupid

[Whiteox]

So fucking stupid, pointless and dumb movies with bad scripts, blue filters and moronic, plagiaristic morals being a total waste of resources, time, effort and the rest of the shit I can't think of at the moment. That sub-genre is dead and they're still pushing it. Fuck off.

real?

[allo]

What makes a robot make look real?

Maybe the fact, that there is no such thing in Reality like the typicial movie robot, so that they are free to do whatever they like?
Okay, after some Movies came for example the ASIMO, which looks familiar with typical humanoid robots, but how does e.g. a terminator (after some skin was removed) look like a "real robot" or not?