That's debatable at best. At least the Entropy guys mentioned that they would maybe publish papers on ntheir technology that didn't infringe on Pixar's stuff, I believe an analytical hider. They actually got them becausde Pixar owns a very broad patent on stochastic sampling which other entities have disputed as being too broad. Same thing with Deep Shadows. It's also interesting that many of the innovations Entropy had, particularly in combining raytracing and in particular there additions to the shading language were later incorporated into PRMan.
They use a lot of propietary software there, mainly menv (or Marionette whatever you want to call it) for animation. They do use stuff like Maya, like for modeling or setting scenes and the like (say setting up Sully's hair, etc.).
Who knows but they did get a deep discount on their SUN servers back in the Toy Story 1/2 times. SUN extensively promoted the use of their servers back then.
Will we now see Photorealistic Renderman come out for OSX and the G5? Hopefully?
Actually around last SIGGRAPH they mentioned that if you were interested on that to email them. If there was enough interest they would probably start a beta test program. Not sure what came of it though. They have already benchmarked PRMan on G5, actually they had them running it at their booth last SIGGRAPH.
The rendar farm however still uses a mixture of SUNs and SGI
Well maybe. Pixar switched to RackSaver Linux blade servers for their renderfarm about a year ago. Their website still lists them as clients though that could have changed.
ILM has won 23 Sci-Tech awards (not counting the RenderMan ones, which while the research was started when Pixar was still part of Lucasfilm , they werfe awarded after they spun off). Pixar has 3 per se, though as td pointed out some stuff they have won when they were still at Lucasfilm (particle systems, math principles of digital compositing, etc.).
I list the ILM award, plus some done by poeple later that left here:
Many other companies have won. Some of the Sci-Tech awards have been shared, like the DID was between ILM and Tippett Studio, and ILM, the Computer Film Company (now part of Famestore/CFC) and other have won for film scanning and digital compositing, PDI has won for their facial animation system and fluid dynamics, etc.
Besides Massive there were 2 other software related. There was the initial subsurface scatteting research done at Stanford (the Henrik Wann Jensen paper from SIGGRAPH 2001), and the first practical application of subsurface scattering by Christophe Hery of ILM and Joe Letteri and Ken McGaugh of Weta (although both were at ILM prior to joining the Two Towers, the initail reserch was done at ILM for Ep. 2). I have two writeups on those:
There was also the propietary stuff they worked on besides RenderMan. I believe Alvy Ray Smith continued working one paint systems there, the Pixar Image Computer was mainly for compositing so they had to write software for that.
They were also somewhat involved in what would become EditDroid and SoundDroid, but more importantly also building film scanners and recorders for film use (their film scanner was coupled with the Pixar Image Computer), particle systems, etc.
No the commercials didn't predate the shorts, since they started those when they were still part of Lucasfilm. Andre and Wally B. was the one done while they were still part of Lucasfilm, and Luxo Jr. came out not long after the spin off. Ther's of course the VFX work they also did (Genesis sequence in Star Trek 2, return of the Jedi deathstar animation, etc.).
The bake-off finalists are picked by a group of pros (the VFX Branch) many of whom have over 20 years of experience.
Actually you also provide the counter-argument "not even all that much of a computer graphics conniseur". Maybe there the fact that most people can't recognize good CG or VFX apart from the bad ones. I see many ntimes personal feelings interefere. There is also stuff like the psychology of perception. Just because something looks unnantural or you know it's CG doesn't mean it looks like bad CG. Renders of the hulk in black and white look eerily nreal, and I saw tests of the Hulk with a regular human skin shader applied that looked amazing. Seems most people don't know about good VFX. Try to read up on it in Cinefex. Maybe the pros know something more than average joe moviegoer;-).
I predict the Hulk will also get quite a few nominations at the Visual Effects Society awards.
Funny thing since ILM has one if not the biggest model shop in the industry. Most ILM projects make use of miniatures including the bake off finalists for these years. Just check the numerous photos in Cinefex to see it with your own eyes.
Some examples:
Hulk: Pear Lake, some of the canyons and desert vistas, Redwood forest Pirates of the Caribbean: miniature ships T3: particle accelarator, unedrwater skulls shot, many of the topside future war shots
Even Ep. 2 was one of the biggest miniature shots in ILM history:
And I guess giving an actor 10, 15 or 20 million, with studios hoping to open a film on just their name doesn't drive up the cost. That's 20 million for 1 person who might work for say 6 months on a film. Tack in the salary for other abpve the line people (a high profile directors, the producer, a script that was sold for a million or more, etc) and half of the cost of the film goes to just a handful (litearally) people.
On contrast while VFX on a high profile VFX film might go for 30, 40 even 60 million, that's for the hard work of 200, 300, 400 or more talented artists and technicians working for a year or even upwards of 18 months. Most VFX houses, which work as sort of contractors work on razor thin margins (1 or 2 %) and barely make it. That's why you have every year boutique VFX shops that come and gone, many underbid to get work and then disappear because for the most part its not profitable.
I agree with your basic idea, but I think some of the blame is misplaced. Check out "The Monster that Ate Hollywood" at the PBS site to se what the large media conglomarates have done to Hollywood.
A lot of the work in the Matrix sequels was actually miniatures, particularly the Zion shots. Just check out the credits for all the modelmakers. And they did have quite a bit of innovation, check George Borushkov's website for his SIGGRAPH documentation:
http://www.virtualcinematography.org/
You would find that most of the VFX bake-off finalists used miniatures in some quantity:
X2: the dam exteriors for example. Pirates of the Caribbean: ships were miniatures for the most part. Master and Commander: also quite a bit of ship miniatures. Hulk: miniature Redwood forest, building the explodes, parts of the desert vistas and canyons, etc. T3: the particle accelerator,most of the future war sequences. Peter Pan: at least some of the ships were miniatures, but the movie hasn't opened yet, next Cinefex will have more details.
Also you'll be surprised at other stuff in LOTR. Not all was forced perspective, there were instances where actors were filmed separately (blue screen mostly) and resized and recomposited back in.
You would find most decent VFX supervisors and directors (like those represented in these 7 finalists), know when to use the most appropiate techniques. Old fashioned stuff doesn't always look better, take the sometimes not well scaled miniature water during the flooding of Isengard. It's a matter of when to use and combine which techniques checked against time and money constraints. Many of the supervisors of these 7 films (Richrd Hollander, Mike Fink, Dennis Muren, Scott Farrar, Richard Taylor, Jim Rygiel) have over 15, 20 years of professional VFX experience.
To me, the real problem with the list is not that the last two Matrix movies are not included, but that the Hulk is included.
You do realize the list is picked by a team of VFX pros, the VFX Branch of the Academy, headed by Richard Edlund. There are many reason why the Matrix might not have made it. Maybe all the submission requirements were not submitted on time. WB was going to submit Revolutions anyway so not to split the vote.
Second the Hulk had some of the most innovative VFX work of the year, unfortunately most people don't see it. But the real pros did. You could read the Cinefex coverage.
but I have seen enough trailers of it to be disgusted... The cinematic previews of it were so bad as to make me actively avoid seeing it... How can a movie have the best visual effects when they can't even peice together a couple minutes worth of believable trailers? Those trailers have to be the absolutely least believable special effects I have ever seen.
Because Universal fumbled the trailers. Many VFX films use unfinished footage, and even test shots are used because studios need to hype films sometimes even more than 6 months in advance. In this case Universal assemebled the trailers without the knowledge or even input from ILM and producers like Gale Ann Hurd. Shots in the trailers were sped up (for time reasons) and in progress shots. And after all you judge the finished products not the trailers.
Tack on a plastic looking green CG skin to the bad movement
I beg to differ but the Hulk had one of the best skin shaders I've ever seen. If it looks "fake" it's because green on a person looks so unnatural. See a detaqiled photo of him in black and white to see how good it looks (which was done in production to check his look). Some movement did look funky but a lot of that conformed to the comic book.
don't just act like gravity doesn't affect him
Well you would have to see the film to see how great the physics are. The hulk stumbles, sliups, missteps, etc. all over the place.
Or maybe they did and failed miserably; either way, it sucked.
Not according to most pros. Maybe the problem lies with the audience with their preconceived ideas and having no idea to tell good VFX from bad, IMHO;-).
Absolutely. ROTK will be robbed if they don't get it.
I guess you don't know how the Academy operates. The VFX Branch (composed of VFX pros) select the 7 Bake-Off finalists and then the VFX membership votes the 3 nominees. But it's the entire Academy membership (actors, producers, directors, etc.) votes on all the winners. Which is why sometimes you have some surprises, upsets and funky selections.
X-Men 2 didn't strike me as actually using all too many rendered effects.
I believe they had over 500 VFX shots nothing to sneeze about done by a variety of studios. Many were of the invisible kind like set extensions (the interior of the X plane, Cerebro was a partial set, Wolverine's claws in many shots, etc.)
Even the lava flows looked quite realistic, and that's something that's fairly difficult to get right, I hear.
Well yes and no. CG fluid dynamics for production are relatively recent (Cast Away, Perfect Storm, etc.). Do remember the CG lava in Shrek. Also there have been other ways to do it. ILM used methacyl (a thick viscous fluid) on a miniature set for Congo. The methacyl was later color corrected and composited on the live action sets.
Overall the ROTK work was extremely impressive and more polished than the previous work. There are some minor rough spots but overall it was superb.
Actually in many shots (mostly wide ones or far away riders) there are CG horses. Heck there were CG horses ion The Two Towers as well. It's easier to spot them if you know what to look for.
I also did not really see anything in Matrix 2/3 that really raised the bar from original Matrix.
Well then maybe you should read the coverage on Cinefex to see all the work that was done. Also the second film was the subject of several SIGGRAPH sketches, ehich is a pretty good indication how innovative it was:
It was more than a rumor. It was reported somewhere (Hollywood Reporter, USA Today, can't remember for sure).
The requirements for submission might not have been met or submitted on time. Remember a few years ago when Pixar missed the deadline to submit one of their shorts? (For the Birds I think).
I wasn't even aware that T3 brought anything new to special effects stage.
That's a naive statement on the state of VFX. Not particularly directed at you but a large number of people just go by the looks without knowing what goes on behind the scenes.
T3 was the subject of several SIGGRAPH (the most important conference and organization related to computer graphics) sketches and even one SIGGRAPH paper (one of the highest honors in CG research):
I don't know how they have been outdone when they worked on 5 of the 7 finalists. And many former members of ILM worked on the other 2 (Joe Letteri on LOTR ROTK, Stephen Rosenbaum on X2).
Funny thing is that maybe Lucas was unaware that ILM did work on Gangs of New York. They did shots like the pullback after the initial battle, the final NY transition, the attack from the harbor, and actually a lot of invisible set extensions all around, which most people never noticed or knew about.
For its VFX, Gangs of New York was nominated for a VFX BAFTA (the British Oscar) and for 2 VES (Visual Effects Society) awards for best matte paintings and best invisible VFX.
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That's debatable at best. At least the Entropy guys mentioned that they would maybe publish papers on ntheir technology that didn't infringe on Pixar's stuff, I believe an analytical hider. They actually got them becausde Pixar owns a very broad patent on stochastic sampling which other entities have disputed as being too broad. Same thing with Deep Shadows. It's also interesting that many of the innovations Entropy had, particularly in combining raytracing and in particular there additions to the shading language were later incorporated into PRMan.
They use a lot of propietary software there, mainly menv (or Marionette whatever you want to call it) for animation. They do use stuff like Maya, like for modeling or setting scenes and the like (say setting up Sully's hair, etc.).
Who knows but they did get a deep discount on their SUN servers back in the Toy Story 1/2 times. SUN extensively promoted the use of their servers back then.
Will we now see Photorealistic Renderman come out for OSX and the G5? Hopefully?
Actually around last SIGGRAPH they mentioned that if you were interested on that to email them. If there was enough interest they would probably start a beta test program. Not sure what came of it though. They have already benchmarked PRMan on G5, actually they had them running it at their booth last SIGGRAPH.
PRMan on a G5
Will the rendering farm also be switching to the G5 in the future, ala Virginia Tech?
Well they just switched to Linux RackSaver servers last year.
Pixar switches from Sun to Intel
The rendar farm however still uses a mixture of SUNs and SGI
Well maybe. Pixar switched to RackSaver Linux blade servers for their renderfarm about a year ago. Their website still lists them as clients though that could have changed.
Pixar switches from Sun to Intel
RackSaver Customers
The Full Throttle sequel was cancelled months ago:
LucasArts cancels Full Throttle
ILM has won 23 Sci-Tech awards (not counting the RenderMan ones, which while the research was started when Pixar was still part of Lucasfilm , they werfe awarded after they spun off). Pixar has 3 per se, though as td pointed out some stuff they have won when they were still at Lucasfilm (particle systems, math principles of digital compositing, etc.).
I list the ILM award, plus some done by poeple later that left here:
ILM Academy Awards
Many other companies have won. Some of the Sci-Tech awards have been shared, like the DID was between ILM and Tippett Studio, and ILM, the Computer Film Company (now part of Famestore/CFC) and other have won for film scanning and digital compositing, PDI has won for their facial animation system and fluid dynamics, etc.
Actually what I found more surprising is that Marc Levoy wasn't given an award, even though he is one of the authors of the "A Practical Model for Subsurface Light Transport" paper.
Also the winner have been known for more than a month:
Scientific and Technical Achievements Honored with Academy Awards
Besides Massive there were 2 other software related. There was the initial subsurface scatteting research done at Stanford (the Henrik Wann Jensen paper from SIGGRAPH 2001), and the first practical application of subsurface scattering by Christophe Hery of ILM and Joe Letteri and Ken McGaugh of Weta (although both were at ILM prior to joining the Two Towers, the initail reserch was done at ILM for Ep. 2). I have two writeups on those:
ILM Wins 2003 Sci-Tech Oscar for Subsurface Scattering
Star Wars Newsletter Discusses Christophe Hery Sci-Tech Oscar Win
There was also the propietary stuff they worked on besides RenderMan. I believe Alvy Ray Smith continued working one paint systems there, the Pixar Image Computer was mainly for compositing so they had to write software for that.
They were also somewhat involved in what would become EditDroid and SoundDroid, but more importantly also building film scanners and recorders for film use (their film scanner was coupled with the Pixar Image Computer), particle systems, etc.
No the commercials didn't predate the shorts, since they started those when they were still part of Lucasfilm. Andre and Wally B. was the one done while they were still part of Lucasfilm, and Luxo Jr. came out not long after the spin off. Ther's of course the VFX work they also did (Genesis sequence in Star Trek 2, return of the Jedi deathstar animation, etc.).
The bake-off finalists are picked by a group of pros (the VFX Branch) many of whom have over 20 years of experience.
;-).
Actually you also provide the counter-argument "not even all that much of a computer graphics conniseur". Maybe there the fact that most people can't recognize good CG or VFX apart from the bad ones. I see many ntimes personal feelings interefere. There is also stuff like the psychology of perception. Just because something looks unnantural or you know it's CG doesn't mean it looks like bad CG. Renders of the hulk in black and white look eerily nreal, and I saw tests of the Hulk with a regular human skin shader applied that looked amazing. Seems most people don't know about good VFX. Try to read up on it in Cinefex. Maybe the pros know something more than average joe moviegoer
I predict the Hulk will also get quite a few nominations at the Visual Effects Society awards.
Funny thing since ILM has one if not the biggest model shop in the industry. Most ILM projects make use of miniatures including the bake off finalists for these years. Just check the numerous photos in Cinefex to see it with your own eyes.
Some examples:
Hulk: Pear Lake, some of the canyons and desert vistas, Redwood forest
Pirates of the Caribbean: miniature ships
T3: particle accelarator, unedrwater skulls shot, many of the topside future war shots
Even Ep. 2 was one of the biggest miniature shots in ILM history:
Brave New Worlds
Just as well as much as miniatures were used in LOTR there was a lot of CG used as well.
And I guess giving an actor 10, 15 or 20 million, with studios hoping to open a film on just their name doesn't drive up the cost. That's 20 million for 1 person who might work for say 6 months on a film. Tack in the salary for other abpve the line people (a high profile directors, the producer, a script that was sold for a million or more, etc) and half of the cost of the film goes to just a handful (litearally) people.
On contrast while VFX on a high profile VFX film might go for 30, 40 even 60 million, that's for the hard work of 200, 300, 400 or more talented artists and technicians working for a year or even upwards of 18 months. Most VFX houses, which work as sort of contractors work on razor thin margins (1 or 2 %) and barely make it. That's why you have every year boutique VFX shops that come and gone, many underbid to get work and then disappear because for the most part its not profitable.
I agree with your basic idea, but I think some of the blame is misplaced. Check out "The Monster that Ate Hollywood" at the PBS site to se what the large media conglomarates have done to Hollywood.
A lot of the work in the Matrix sequels was actually miniatures, particularly the Zion shots. Just check out the credits for all the modelmakers. And they did have quite a bit of innovation, check George Borushkov's website for his SIGGRAPH documentation:
http://www.virtualcinematography.org/
You would find that most of the VFX bake-off finalists used miniatures in some quantity:
X2: the dam exteriors for example.
Pirates of the Caribbean: ships were miniatures for the most part.
Master and Commander: also quite a bit of ship miniatures.
Hulk: miniature Redwood forest, building the explodes, parts of the desert vistas and canyons, etc.
T3: the particle accelerator,most of the future war sequences.
Peter Pan: at least some of the ships were miniatures, but the movie hasn't opened yet, next Cinefex will have more details.
Also you'll be surprised at other stuff in LOTR. Not all was forced perspective, there were instances where actors were filmed separately (blue screen mostly) and resized and recomposited back in.
You would find most decent VFX supervisors and directors (like those represented in these 7 finalists), know when to use the most appropiate techniques. Old fashioned stuff doesn't always look better, take the sometimes not well scaled miniature water during the flooding of Isengard. It's a matter of when to use and combine which techniques checked against time and money constraints. Many of the supervisors of these 7 films (Richrd Hollander, Mike Fink, Dennis Muren, Scott Farrar, Richard Taylor, Jim Rygiel) have over 15, 20 years of professional VFX experience.
To me, the real problem with the list is not that the last two Matrix movies are not included, but that the Hulk is included.
You do realize the list is picked by a team of VFX pros, the VFX Branch of the Academy, headed by Richard Edlund. There are many reason why the Matrix might not have made it. Maybe all the submission requirements were not submitted on time. WB was going to submit Revolutions anyway so not to split the vote.
Second the Hulk had some of the most innovative VFX work of the year, unfortunately most people don't see it. But the real pros did. You could read the Cinefex coverage.
but I have seen enough trailers of it to be disgusted ... The cinematic previews of it were so bad as to make me actively avoid seeing it ... How can a movie have the best visual effects when they can't even peice together a couple minutes worth of believable trailers? Those trailers have to be the absolutely least believable special effects I have ever seen.
Because Universal fumbled the trailers. Many VFX films use unfinished footage, and even test shots are used because studios need to hype films sometimes even more than 6 months in advance. In this case Universal assemebled the trailers without the knowledge or even input from ILM and producers like Gale Ann Hurd. Shots in the trailers were sped up (for time reasons) and in progress shots. And after all you judge the finished products not the trailers.
Tack on a plastic looking green CG skin to the bad movement
I beg to differ but the Hulk had one of the best skin shaders I've ever seen. If it looks "fake" it's because green on a person looks so unnatural. See a detaqiled photo of him in black and white to see how good it looks (which was done in production to check his look). Some movement did look funky but a lot of that conformed to the comic book.
don't just act like gravity doesn't affect him
Well you would have to see the film to see how great the physics are. The hulk stumbles, sliups, missteps, etc. all over the place.
Or maybe they did and failed miserably; either way, it sucked.
Not according to most pros. Maybe the problem lies with the audience with their preconceived ideas and having no idea to tell good VFX from bad, IMHO ;-).
Absolutely. ROTK will be robbed if they don't get it.
I guess you don't know how the Academy operates. The VFX Branch (composed of VFX pros) select the 7 Bake-Off finalists and then the VFX membership votes the 3 nominees. But it's the entire Academy membership (actors, producers, directors, etc.) votes on all the winners. Which is why sometimes you have some surprises, upsets and funky selections.
X-Men 2 didn't strike me as actually using all too many rendered effects.
I believe they had over 500 VFX shots nothing to sneeze about done by a variety of studios. Many were of the invisible kind like set extensions (the interior of the X plane, Cerebro was a partial set, Wolverine's claws in many shots, etc.)
Even the lava flows looked quite realistic, and that's something that's fairly difficult to get right, I hear.
Well yes and no. CG fluid dynamics for production are relatively recent (Cast Away, Perfect Storm, etc.). Do remember the CG lava in Shrek. Also there have been other ways to do it. ILM used methacyl (a thick viscous fluid) on a miniature set for Congo. The methacyl was later color corrected and composited on the live action sets.
Overall the ROTK work was extremely impressive and more polished than the previous work. There are some minor rough spots but overall it was superb.
Actually in many shots (mostly wide ones or far away riders) there are CG horses. Heck there were CG horses ion The Two Towers as well. It's easier to spot them if you know what to look for.
I also did not really see anything in Matrix 2/3 that really raised the bar from original Matrix.
Well then maybe you should read the coverage on Cinefex to see all the work that was done. Also the second film was the subject of several SIGGRAPH sketches, ehich is a pretty good indication how innovative it was:
George Borushkov's home page
For those into CG, they will recognize some of the real innovative work on the sequels.
It was more than a rumor. It was reported somewhere (Hollywood Reporter, USA Today, can't remember for sure).
The requirements for submission might not have been met or submitted on time. Remember a few years ago when Pixar missed the deadline to submit one of their shorts? (For the Birds I think).
That's the way you should judge this things: VFX regardless of story, etc.
Because it's an animated film not a VFX film. Just because you use computers doesn't mean it's VFX.
I wasn't even aware that T3 brought anything new to special effects stage.
That's a naive statement on the state of VFX. Not particularly directed at you but a large number of people just go by the looks without knowing what goes on behind the scenes.
T3 was the subject of several SIGGRAPH (the most important conference and organization related to computer graphics) sketches and even one SIGGRAPH paper (one of the highest honors in CG research):
Smoke Simulation for Large Scale Phenomena
Big Bangs
Melting a Terminatrix
The Machines of T3
'T3' -- BETWEEN THE LAYERS
Fight the Future
Terminator 3 Evolves Historic Effect
TechTV Segements on T3 and Pirates of the Caribbean Online
T3: Man vs. Machine
Building a Believable Blockbuster
Not saying that the others weren't outstanding and innovative as well. Thye same point can be made about all the other bakeoff finalists.
I don't know how they have been outdone when they worked on 5 of the 7 finalists. And many former members of ILM worked on the other 2 (Joe Letteri on LOTR ROTK, Stephen Rosenbaum on X2).
Funny thing is that maybe Lucas was unaware that ILM did work on Gangs of New York. They did shots like the pullback after the initial battle, the final NY transition, the attack from the harbor, and actually a lot of invisible set extensions all around, which most people never noticed or knew about.
For its VFX, Gangs of New York was nominated for a VFX BAFTA (the British Oscar) and for 2 VES (Visual Effects Society) awards for best matte paintings and best invisible VFX.
Some info in the VFX are here:
Mean Streets