The VFX branch nominates films not only on innovation but on execution as well. Thatr's why films with a great quantity of invisible VFX can get nominated (for example Gladiator).
For MC, real ocean plates were used along with CG water. For more details on the VFX of the film check this:
Not all the water was CG. For half the VFX shots, mainly Asylum's work, they shot real ocean plates and composited the real ship and miniatures onto it. For the storm sequence, they actually sent a crew to Tierra de Fuego to film stormy seas and composite the miniature.
The Apple trailer site even had a featurette on that though it seems they removed it.
That's because it's not intended to look real, you are missing the point of the movie and visuals. This is an attempt to have a more faithful interpretation of the story. The visuals are heavily art directed to have a stylized apperance.
It's like What Dreams May Come (which won the VFX Oscar btw). It was supposed to look painterly. Same with Peter Pan's many vistas.
It's not released because Miramax, which own distribution rights in the US hasn't officially released. What you probably saw was a theatre getting/importing a reel and showing it, or maybe as part of a film festival.
Well there are 2 other options. They could certify stuff for RH WS. Still cheaper than SCO's licensing and still supported by RH. No need to buy the AS version for workstations. It might be even enough for the renderfarm.
There's always OS X since it already runs Maya, PRMan and Shake. I still have my doubts about the commitement of app developers like Alias (plus other that haven't ported like Softimage), plus the willingness of studios to masively move to OS X. It could happen I guess.
Although I'm sure a lot of people could contribute to a fund for this. Maybe a collection plate can be passed around at the next VES awards for Thad's explosives fund;-). Maybe have another one for the Deep Shadows Map thing;-).
Yep seems a bit on the stunt publicity side. Afetr all most VFX studios are separate from the movie studios, except for a few notable exceptions. Why would they talk to the executives at Universal, since they contract their VFX work. Heck maybe even the executives at Sony don't know what Imageworks are using and must be thinking SCO is on crack or something.
But they are mainly talking about CG and VFX studios. Most of those are privately owned (ILM, DD, Hammerhead, Pixar, etc.). Just a handfull are part of big media companies, like Imageworks with Sony, Disney, PDI/Dreamworks and Blue Sky with Fox. So it could play in 2 different ways.
Not always. Treasure Planet cost around 140 million, Shrek 60 million, Finding Nemo 90 million and Titan AE 100 million. They are comparable to big budget VFX movies.
You could conceivably cast relatively unknows, actually ala Harry Potter, which would allow more money for production values. Then again if it's Disney there's a good chance they'll want a recognizable name there.
The problem is that the studios, which function like an oligarchy, control basicly all forms of theatrical distribution. Sure they can make movies but how would they get them to theatres?
That's why Pixar has a deal with Disney, PDI is part of Dreamworks, Blue Sky is owned by Fox and of course Imageworks is part os a movie studio. If Pixar cut off with Disney (there's a real possibility) they would still need to make a distribution deal with Disney. Look also what happened to ILM. They were going to do a CG animated Frankenstein which Universalpuilled the plug. They were then slated to do Where the Wild Things Are but that was then pulled out and made 2D.
You need to break the grip on the movie studios first and that ain't gonna happen (at least not short term).
By the way, Millimeter had an article how movie studios (Universal) assigns VFX work:
Although some have a lower threshold. Some studios, mainly the animation ones were almost exclusively propietary (Blue Sky, Rhythm and Hues, PDI, Pixar, Hammerhead and pre 1989 ILM). Then again most of this places have adopted some off the shelf software, mainly Maya and Photoshop, for some of the work. Then again those are particular cases and you are absoulutely right.
You neglect the fact that "Hollywood" is a big heterogenous machinery. Movie studios (Disney, Universal, Fox, etc.) are the members of the MPAA. VFX studios (ILM, Imageworks, Digital Domain, Weta, Tippett, Rhythm and Hues, Cinesite, Framestore/CFC, etc.) work for Hollywood by providing a service. They are not more than contractors, not much unlike the catering company, or even say you plumber. VFX studios are not members of the MPAA and have no say on projects or policies.
Depends on the place. On small shops probably most of the work is done on PCs and Macs anyway. For big places the work is more distributed. The guy doing 3D, say particles or character animation, shouldn't need Photoshop, as that would be the responsability of the texture artists. Since the responsabilities are separate the texture artists might as well be using a PC or Mac.
At ILM the rebel unit just switched to PCs with windows for that sort of work. On the other hand 3D artists, TDs, compositors, etc. are on combination of Linux PCs and SGI gear (O2s).
Nope, the effect's still not all that different from the original movie. In the 'bullet-time' effects, the background was completely CG rendered using photos from the set. The only real difference was that they didn't build the character himself in 3D as well. They basically took the effect from the first movie and introduced animated characters as well as settings. We're not talking a really huge leap here. Pity that the CG effects in MR were less effective in convincing the audience than in the Matrix.
Well maybe the rendering of sets was similar but there were other areas of reseacrh and innovation. After all Borushkov, dan Pipponi and the rest didn't exactly were taking a vacation. The Universal Capture is one of the first major examples of facial mocap, using optic flow, to get facial animation. Most setups are usually magnetic or optic and sually don't give you a detailed enough animation (mesh deformation). I know ILM amde tests a few years back (the Hugo test) but it was not yet good enough for them. Matrix 2 was also one of the first major productions using actual and extensive measures of material BRDF for rendering. I've heard of a few other places testing it but not on that scale. There was aslo the use of fluid dynamics for the fire animation and several other things.
Unfortunately I think that the final color correction accentuated any artifacts and shifted the color so as to mess the shading and compositing. Several shots in Episode 2 and in particular the LOTR movies were a bit messed because over color correction and grading.
I talked to Borushkov after their presentation and he pointed out that suumaries of his research are available at his website. They have some stills of the tests which look stunning. Pity some of the final VFX shots were a bit off. But plenty of innovation there.
Well it's more generically called image based techniques. In these case image based modeling and in particular image based lighting or IBL. Matrix was one of the first practical examples though the technique was already known and demonstrated at SIGGRAPH in particular by Paul Bebevec's team (some of the research was seen as far back as SIGGRAPH 96). The Campanille movie was a good example. Borushkov was part of that team.
Also as a reference, Doug Chiang is no longer at ILM. He worked on the 2 prequels but left last year. He is the Art Director for Robert Zemeckis' Polar Express. VFX by Imageworks under the supervision of Ken Ralston:
Yep, very old news. Even the interview linked up there doesn't reference the project that much. Both CGChannel and 3DVF ran interview with Chiang about it:
Even though that was meant to be a joke (man, when will it get old) Doug Chiang was not the main designer of Jar Jar. Ian McCaig and Terryl Whitlatch were probably the main contributors. And before the complaining expands, Ian McCaig wqas also the designer for Darth Maul, the Natalie Portman costumes, and the Sith witch that was not done in Ep. 2.
Doug Chiang's specialty was more the hardware like robots and spaceships.
Yes, there have been 3 versions of Body Snathchers. The original, B?W starred the great kevin McCarthy, It came out in 1956, directed by Don Siegel. The second one came out in 1976, directed by Philip Kaufman. Apart from Sutherland it starred other genre veterans like leonard Nimoy, Veronica Cartwrigth and Jeff Goldblum. If I remember right even McCarty has a brief cameo. Third version came in 1993 with Gabrielle Anwar (which happens in a military base, pretty crappy and probably the one you saw).
But you are right I think Sutherland also starred in The Puppetmasters version which was ok.
Not always. Other 2 examples are John Carpenter's The Thing, and thje second remake of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the one with Donald Sutherland).
Well the thing is that the article description is a bit misleading and it's comparing two slightly different things. ILM used the Unreal engine to do storyboarding for Spielberg's AI couple of years ago. The system would allow Spielberg to decide shots, say where to place the camera and actors, any camera movements etc. (this was mostly for the Rouge City seqeunce). It was just a crude system to help the director plan the shot.
It's not much differrent than say now using CAD programs to design sets instead of going to a big board or easel. CAD designing of sets and props can give more flexibility and options to the filmmakers. Just the same, game engines are just a way to improve on typical storyboarding which is stil being done quite a bit, along with video animatics or stuff like ding animatics in Maya or XSI.
I guess I misunderstood you a bit though I still don't agree with the final consequences.
Why would CG be fine for animation but not VFX. The argument is analogous. You could divide them in classic hand drawn and into CG animated. I think both forms are valid, and some like Sinbad and Spirit mix the two. Imagine if people said all CG animated films sucked or are not worthy because CG is not real art, no stylization, it's cheating because you use computers or doesn't make it look like animation but a video game?!?! Same thing thing with VFX, the computer is just a tool and it's the right step forward. The only problem is when it's poorly used.
And I do disagree, both Star Wars prequels had stupendous VFX. The American and British Academies thought so, so did VES and SIGGRAPH. Granted some VFX are not up to par, but the same thing happens with most movies like Matrix, LOTR, X2, etc.
The other implication is that especially action and scifi movies shouldn't use CG and VFX since most of them the VFX would be the central part, not the story and characters. But how are we supposed to bring to life aliens, creatures, ships and other planets? There are good and bad ways to achieve them, either CG, traditional or both.
There are action and acifi extravaganzas that looked good with tons of CG, and others that didn't. There is also the perceptual thing. Just because you know it's CG doesn't mean it looks CG. After all miniatures and stop motion in classic films are easy to spot, that doesn't mean you discredit the film.
Sure I agree that some movies are built around the action and VFX and sometimes they do suck. But CG is a great tool and can be used to (pardon the pun) great effect.
Slashdot Mirror
The VFX branch nominates films not only on innovation but on execution as well. Thatr's why films with a great quantity of invisible VFX can get nominated (for example Gladiator).
For MC, real ocean plates were used along with CG water. For more details on the VFX of the film check this:
The Effects Mastery of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Not all the water was CG. For half the VFX shots, mainly Asylum's work, they shot real ocean plates and composited the real ship and miniatures onto it. For the storm sequence, they actually sent a crew to Tierra de Fuego to film stormy seas and composite the miniature.
The Apple trailer site even had a featurette on that though it seems they removed it.
ILM did use some CG water for their shots.
That's because it's not intended to look real, you are missing the point of the movie and visuals. This is an attempt to have a more faithful interpretation of the story. The visuals are heavily art directed to have a stylized apperance.
It's like What Dreams May Come (which won the VFX Oscar btw). It was supposed to look painterly. Same with Peter Pan's many vistas.
It's not released because Miramax, which own distribution rights in the US hasn't officially released. What you probably saw was a theatre getting/importing a reel and showing it, or maybe as part of a film festival.
Well there are 2 other options. They could certify stuff for RH WS. Still cheaper than SCO's licensing and still supported by RH. No need to buy the AS version for workstations. It might be even enough for the renderfarm.
There's always OS X since it already runs Maya, PRMan and Shake. I still have my doubts about the commitement of app developers like Alias (plus other that haven't ported like Softimage), plus the willingness of studios to masively move to OS X. It could happen I guess.
Although I'm sure a lot of people could contribute to a fund for this. Maybe a collection plate can be passed around at the next VES awards for Thad's explosives fund ;-). Maybe have another one for the Deep Shadows Map thing ;-).
Yep seems a bit on the stunt publicity side. Afetr all most VFX studios are separate from the movie studios, except for a few notable exceptions. Why would they talk to the executives at Universal, since they contract their VFX work. Heck maybe even the executives at Sony don't know what Imageworks are using and must be thinking SCO is on crack or something.
But they are mainly talking about CG and VFX studios. Most of those are privately owned (ILM, DD, Hammerhead, Pixar, etc.). Just a handfull are part of big media companies, like Imageworks with Sony, Disney, PDI/Dreamworks and Blue Sky with Fox. So it could play in 2 different ways.
Not always. Treasure Planet cost around 140 million, Shrek 60 million, Finding Nemo 90 million and Titan AE 100 million. They are comparable to big budget VFX movies.
You could conceivably cast relatively unknows, actually ala Harry Potter, which would allow more money for production values. Then again if it's Disney there's a good chance they'll want a recognizable name there.
Well don't forget about stuff like Galaxy Quest (though that fits your MIB criteria but Hitvhhiker could be that way) and Innerspace.
The problem is that the studios, which function like an oligarchy, control basicly all forms of theatrical distribution. Sure they can make movies but how would they get them to theatres?
That's why Pixar has a deal with Disney, PDI is part of Dreamworks, Blue Sky is owned by Fox and of course Imageworks is part os a movie studio. If Pixar cut off with Disney (there's a real possibility) they would still need to make a distribution deal with Disney. Look also what happened to ILM. They were going to do a CG animated Frankenstein which Universalpuilled the plug. They were then slated to do Where the Wild Things Are but that was then pulled out and made 2D.
You need to break the grip on the movie studios first and that ain't gonna happen (at least not short term).
By the way, Millimeter had an article how movie studios (Universal) assigns VFX work:
Casting Visual Effects: How Universal Chooses FX Teams
Although some have a lower threshold. Some studios, mainly the animation ones were almost exclusively propietary (Blue Sky, Rhythm and Hues, PDI, Pixar, Hammerhead and pre 1989 ILM). Then again most of this places have adopted some off the shelf software, mainly Maya and Photoshop, for some of the work. Then again those are particular cases and you are absoulutely right.
Well here is an article about ILM's network which requires a few 10G interconnects at the core and will soon upgrade:
10G muscle
You neglect the fact that "Hollywood" is a big heterogenous machinery. Movie studios (Disney, Universal, Fox, etc.) are the members of the MPAA. VFX studios (ILM, Imageworks, Digital Domain, Weta, Tippett, Rhythm and Hues, Cinesite, Framestore/CFC, etc.) work for Hollywood by providing a service. They are not more than contractors, not much unlike the catering company, or even say you plumber. VFX studios are not members of the MPAA and have no say on projects or policies.
Well there are iother examples too. PRman, mental ray, Air, Angel, RenderDotC, the Maya batch renderer, Aqsis, Pixie, and maybe I'm missing a few.
Depends on the place. On small shops probably most of the work is done on PCs and Macs anyway. For big places the work is more distributed. The guy doing 3D, say particles or character animation, shouldn't need Photoshop, as that would be the responsability of the texture artists. Since the responsabilities are separate the texture artists might as well be using a PC or Mac.
At ILM the rebel unit just switched to PCs with windows for that sort of work. On the other hand 3D artists, TDs, compositors, etc. are on combination of Linux PCs and SGI gear (O2s).
Nope, the effect's still not all that different from the original movie. In the 'bullet-time' effects, the background was completely CG rendered using photos from the set. The only real difference was that they didn't build the character himself in 3D as well. They basically took the effect from the first movie and introduced animated characters as well as settings. We're not talking a really huge leap here. Pity that the CG effects in MR were less effective in convincing the audience than in the Matrix.
Well maybe the rendering of sets was similar but there were other areas of reseacrh and innovation. After all Borushkov, dan Pipponi and the rest didn't exactly were taking a vacation. The Universal Capture is one of the first major examples of facial mocap, using optic flow, to get facial animation. Most setups are usually magnetic or optic and sually don't give you a detailed enough animation (mesh deformation). I know ILM amde tests a few years back (the Hugo test) but it was not yet good enough for them. Matrix 2 was also one of the first major productions using actual and extensive measures of material BRDF for rendering. I've heard of a few other places testing it but not on that scale. There was aslo the use of fluid dynamics for the fire animation and several other things.
George Borushkov's Virtual Cinematography
Unfortunately I think that the final color correction accentuated any artifacts and shifted the color so as to mess the shading and compositing. Several shots in Episode 2 and in particular the LOTR movies were a bit messed because over color correction and grading.
I talked to Borushkov after their presentation and he pointed out that suumaries of his research are available at his website. They have some stills of the tests which look stunning. Pity some of the final VFX shots were a bit off. But plenty of innovation there.
George Borushkov's Virtual Cinematography
Well it's more generically called image based techniques. In these case image based modeling and in particular image based lighting or IBL. Matrix was one of the first practical examples though the technique was already known and demonstrated at SIGGRAPH in particular by Paul Bebevec's team (some of the research was seen as far back as SIGGRAPH 96). The Campanille movie was a good example. Borushkov was part of that team.
The Campanille movie
A few films that pioneered some of that stuff too included Batman and Robin, Fight Club and What Dreams May Come.
Also as a reference, Doug Chiang is no longer at ILM. He worked on the 2 prequels but left last year. He is the Art Director for Robert Zemeckis' Polar Express. VFX by Imageworks under the supervision of Ken Ralston:
Doug Chiang update
Also in his place Feng Zhu has joined the art team for Episode 3. He is this incredible artist that worked at Blur Studios. You can see more here:
Meet the Episode III Art Department
Feng Zhu - Concept Artist
Yep, very old news. Even the interview linked up there doesn't reference the project that much. Both CGChannel and 3DVF ran interview with Chiang about it:
Interview with Doug Chiang
Interview de Doug Chiang (this one is back from November 2002)
Alos Sparx, the French studio who made the trailer is looking for financing to turn this into an animated feature:
The French like ROBOTA
Even though that was meant to be a joke (man, when will it get old) Doug Chiang was not the main designer of Jar Jar. Ian McCaig and Terryl Whitlatch were probably the main contributors. And before the complaining expands, Ian McCaig wqas also the designer for Darth Maul, the Natalie Portman costumes, and the Sith witch that was not done in Ep. 2.
Doug Chiang's specialty was more the hardware like robots and spaceships.
Yes, there have been 3 versions of Body Snathchers. The original, B?W starred the great kevin McCarthy, It came out in 1956, directed by Don Siegel. The second one came out in 1976, directed by Philip Kaufman. Apart from Sutherland it starred other genre veterans like leonard Nimoy, Veronica Cartwrigth and Jeff Goldblum. If I remember right even McCarty has a brief cameo. Third version came in 1993 with Gabrielle Anwar (which happens in a military base, pretty crappy and probably the one you saw).
But you are right I think Sutherland also starred in The Puppetmasters version which was ok.
Not always. Other 2 examples are John Carpenter's The Thing, and thje second remake of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the one with Donald Sutherland).
Well the thing is that the article description is a bit misleading and it's comparing two slightly different things. ILM used the Unreal engine to do storyboarding for Spielberg's AI couple of years ago. The system would allow Spielberg to decide shots, say where to place the camera and actors, any camera movements etc. (this was mostly for the Rouge City seqeunce). It was just a crude system to help the director plan the shot.
It's not much differrent than say now using CAD programs to design sets instead of going to a big board or easel. CAD designing of sets and props can give more flexibility and options to the filmmakers. Just the same, game engines are just a way to improve on typical storyboarding which is stil being done quite a bit, along with video animatics or stuff like ding animatics in Maya or XSI.
Here is the article:
ILM Creates Artificial Cities for Artificial Intelligence
I guess I misunderstood you a bit though I still don't agree with the final consequences.
Why would CG be fine for animation but not VFX. The argument is analogous. You could divide them in classic hand drawn and into CG animated. I think both forms are valid, and some like Sinbad and Spirit mix the two. Imagine if people said all CG animated films sucked or are not worthy because CG is not real art, no stylization, it's cheating because you use computers or doesn't make it look like animation but a video game?!?! Same thing thing with VFX, the computer is just a tool and it's the right step forward. The only problem is when it's poorly used.
And I do disagree, both Star Wars prequels had stupendous VFX. The American and British Academies thought so, so did VES and SIGGRAPH. Granted some VFX are not up to par, but the same thing happens with most movies like Matrix, LOTR, X2, etc.
The other implication is that especially action and scifi movies shouldn't use CG and VFX since most of them the VFX would be the central part, not the story and characters. But how are we supposed to bring to life aliens, creatures, ships and other planets? There are good and bad ways to achieve them, either CG, traditional or both.
There are action and acifi extravaganzas that looked good with tons of CG, and others that didn't. There is also the perceptual thing. Just because you know it's CG doesn't mean it looks CG. After all miniatures and stop motion in classic films are easy to spot, that doesn't mean you discredit the film.
Sure I agree that some movies are built around the action and VFX and sometimes they do suck. But CG is a great tool and can be used to (pardon the pun) great effect.