You forget that, at least for movies, it can take a year or more to make one, and that assumes that everybody involved is working full-time on it. While much of the work done on movies (planning, writing the script, etc.) doesn't need to be worked on full-time (allowing you time for a day job), this could extend the filmmaking process by as much as a year or more. And let us not forget that little phase of filmmaking called principal photography, which usually requires at least 3 months of 10- to 18-hour days to get it done, and it MUST be done as quickly as possible (rental for most equipment is on a per-day basis; whether you use it for 1 hour or 24 hours, you get charged the same amount). People not in the movie business seldom realise this, but principal photography is EXTREMELY expensive. One of the contributing factors to Titanic's $200 million budget was the 7 months of principal photography.
The VFX unions may boycott the shop. Weta hires people from all over the world, USA included. This means that people in one of the US VFX unions would be unable to work at Weta unless they wanted to leave the union. Once you're out of the union, it would be tough to get back in, and a VFX shop that only hires union people (like ILM) wouldn't hire you until the union lets you back in.
Most VFX artists don't stay at the same studio for long, so this can be a problem for them.
The whole bit about Weta not being in Australia is that a lot of film work is migrating over there. No unions AFAIK, so much of the cost of shooting in Hollywood goes away. And directors like it because they're further from the studios, which means the studios don't bug the director and other creative people as much.
Oops. My bad. BMRT (Renderman-compliant global illumination renderer) comes with an app to do some basic distributed rendering, and that's what I (incorrectly) assumed Alfred was.
I'm going to clue you in on a little secret: even in an all-CG movie like Shrek or Final Fantasy, the scene isn't just recorded onto film as output by the renderer. The TDs break each scene apart into separate elements, render the elements separately, and then the compositors put it all back together. The reason: control. If CG Character A is way off in the distance, it makes much more sense to render it without any fog or other atmospheric effects that occur when something is really far away, then add them at the compositing stage, because if the director decides that there's too much fog or whatever, it's easier to just redo the fog in your compositing package than to re-render the scene.
Yes. They used the Unreal engine to do previz for AI. But they still use traditional storyboards a lot, because those are easier to carry around than a computer. The realtime engines are mostly just used for bluescreen work, etc., when the director can't see how the final shot is going to look just by peering through the viewfinder or video tap on the camera.
WTF? Since when does a VFX company get money from movie sales? The company gets all their money before the film is even released. When the movie is released, the VFX company doesn't own a single copyright on it.
Are you guys incapable of visiting the website? Hammerhead wrote their own renderer for Deep Blue Sea, and uses their own tools for compositing, tracking, rotoscoping, etc.
AFAIK, the type of VFX work that Hammerhead does isn't so much doing all-CG shots, but tricky compositing (The Fast and the Furious) with some CG elements thrown in (Deep Blue Sea).
The director rarely deals with the actual artists. Instead, he mostly interacts with the Visual Effects Supervisor(s) (decides how the effects get done, shows up on set to take down what lens is being used, where the lights are, etc.) and Visual Effects Producer(s) (deals with how much shots are going to cost, how long they're going to take, etc.). Both work for the VFX studio enlisted to do the work.
Most film effects are done at 2K (approx. 2048x1556) or 4K (approx. 4096x3112), assuming that you are doing "regular" 35mm. If you're doing CinemaScope, Super35, or VistaVision, the resolution will be higher (VistaVision work can be has high as 6K).
Check out Cinesite's website. Dig around in there, and you'll find a list of resolutions their film scanning and recording services support.
Learn as much as you can about VFX. Gain as deep of an understanding of all aspects as you can. Try to imagine what you, as a VFX artist, would want in a tool. Then try to code that;)
Looking at Hammerhead's website, it is clear that Thad writes the tools that they use. He wrote their proprietary digital compositing software, their rotoscoping software, tracking software, etc.
All the large/high-end VFX studios use at least some proprietary software, whether it is just a few csh scripts to check an artist's work into the asset management system, or their own rendering and compositing tools (Weta Digital used their GRUNT (Guaranteed Rendering of Unlimited Numbers of Things) renderer to render the scenes output by their Massive crowd-generation software; ILM's Viewpaint, CompTime, Sabre, Cari; Digital Domain's Nuke). So yes, most large or high-end VFX studios will continue to have at least one dedicated programmer, because they'll continue to need their own software that is designed to work in their production pipeline. And, let's not forget, there is no such thing as a tool that does everything. A studio might decide that the soft-body dynamics a certain commercial animation program provides doesn't have the level of quality and/or control that they need, so they write their own soft-body dynamics simulator.
It isn't just about writing scripts for Maya or whatever. In fact, modellers and animators only handle the rendering aspect of it in the smallest VFX houses. The TDs (technical directors) handle that in any VFX company that can afford to hire more than 2 or 3 people.
Except, AFAIK, you can't get Photorealistic RenderMan or Shake for FreeBSD. You could run the Linux emulation drivers under FreeBSD and then run PRMan or Shake, but if you're going to all the trouble, why not just use Linux?
They don't ALL work on the same frame at once. But it can be set up so that more than one machine works on the same frame: each renders a part of the same frame, then they are automatically pieced together by Alfred (the distributed rendering software that comes with Photorealistic RenderMan).
Of course they'll have hard disks. It makes no sense not to. Having a RAM disk would be stupid, because you don't pay through the nose for dual XEON CPUs (waaay more expensive that normal P4 CPUs) and 4GB of memory only to try and save $150 by not throwing in a hard disk. And I'm sure that those huge battle scenes need every last bit of RAM the machine has.
And remember, these aren't your normal desktop PCs. Certain parts would be more expensive because they have to use parts specifically designed for use in 1U systems.
There are, as far as I know, unions for VFX people. I don't have any hard facts to back this up, but I remember seeing a jobs page at the ILM website months and months ago that described some of the positions as union jobs.
Lucas has always been recognized as being a bad director, at least when it comes to actors. Harrison Ford once said to him on the set of A New Hope, "George, you can write this shit, but I can't say it." Mark Hamill later said, "If he could find a way to replace actors, he would."
Also, the rest of your post is incorrect. The studio system had faded away in the 60s. Sure, many directors were under contract in the 70's (Spielberg included), but they weren't the ironclad, ball-and-chain that they used to be, allowing the directors to pick the projects they directed, etc., and were certainly didn't provide much "job security".
Spielberg, Coppola, et al, were directing serious feature films that got good reviews long before Star Wars was a twinkle in Lucas' eye.
As for your comment that today's actors tune out directors: what? Sure, some prima donna actors do, but most don't. Remember, the director is the actor's boss.
"so only good technical directors can greatly affect the quality of the film." Huh? This has to be the dumbest statement I've heard all day. Spielberg is a better director than Lucas and makes better films because he doesn't just pay attention to the technical stuff. James Cameron is a better director than Lucas and makes better films because he doesn't just pay attention to the technical stuff.
Maybe next time you should try knowing what you're talking about, mmmkay?
In a fit of nostalgia, I bought an SGI Indy a few weeks ago (check it out right here) and it cost $100, and was manufactured in the early-mid 90s. Definately not SGI's latest and greatest.
SGI's latest workstation is the Octane2. I think the Indy was first previewed by BYTE magazine (or a similar mag) in 1993!
Texas really is big enough to be it's own thrid world country.
For a few years (10? 15?) Texas was its own country. AFAIK, the whole Alamo thing took place during Texas' war for independence from Mexico. And, IIRC, it became so poor that it asked the US to annex it.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but you can make photocopies of storyboards, etc.
Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages.
You forget that, at least for movies, it can take a year or more to make one, and that assumes that everybody involved is working full-time on it. While much of the work done on movies (planning, writing the script, etc.) doesn't need to be worked on full-time (allowing you time for a day job), this could extend the filmmaking process by as much as a year or more. And let us not forget that little phase of filmmaking called principal photography, which usually requires at least 3 months of 10- to 18-hour days to get it done, and it MUST be done as quickly as possible (rental for most equipment is on a per-day basis; whether you use it for 1 hour or 24 hours, you get charged the same amount). People not in the movie business seldom realise this, but principal photography is EXTREMELY expensive. One of the contributing factors to Titanic's $200 million budget was the 7 months of principal photography.
Whoops. Hammerhead didn't write their own renderer for Deep Blue Sea. Browsing hammerhead.com it looks like they wrote their own animation software.
The VFX unions may boycott the shop. Weta hires people from all over the world, USA included. This means that people in one of the US VFX unions would be unable to work at Weta unless they wanted to leave the union. Once you're out of the union, it would be tough to get back in, and a VFX shop that only hires union people (like ILM) wouldn't hire you until the union lets you back in.
Most VFX artists don't stay at the same studio for long, so this can be a problem for them.
The whole bit about Weta not being in Australia is that a lot of film work is migrating over there. No unions AFAIK, so much of the cost of shooting in Hollywood goes away. And directors like it because they're further from the studios, which means the studios don't bug the director and other creative people as much.
Oops. My bad. BMRT (Renderman-compliant global illumination renderer) comes with an app to do some basic distributed rendering, and that's what I (incorrectly) assumed Alfred was.
Will you hire me?
Visit Hammerhead's website. They use their own proprietary compositing software, which Thad wrote.
I'm going to clue you in on a little secret: even in an all-CG movie like Shrek or Final Fantasy, the scene isn't just recorded onto film as output by the renderer. The TDs break each scene apart into separate elements, render the elements separately, and then the compositors put it all back together. The reason: control. If CG Character A is way off in the distance, it makes much more sense to render it without any fog or other atmospheric effects that occur when something is really far away, then add them at the compositing stage, because if the director decides that there's too much fog or whatever, it's easier to just redo the fog in your compositing package than to re-render the scene.
ILM, Pixar, Disney, et al all support OpenGL because it is cross-platform and because they don't use Windows for actual production work ;)
Yes. They used the Unreal engine to do previz for AI. But they still use traditional storyboards a lot, because those are easier to carry around than a computer. The realtime engines are mostly just used for bluescreen work, etc., when the director can't see how the final shot is going to look just by peering through the viewfinder or video tap on the camera.
WTF? Since when does a VFX company get money from movie sales? The company gets all their money before the film is even released. When the movie is released, the VFX company doesn't own a single copyright on it.
Are you guys incapable of visiting the website? Hammerhead wrote their own renderer for Deep Blue Sea, and uses their own tools for compositing, tracking, rotoscoping, etc.
AFAIK, the type of VFX work that Hammerhead does isn't so much doing all-CG shots, but tricky compositing (The Fast and the Furious) with some CG elements thrown in (Deep Blue Sea).
The director rarely deals with the actual artists. Instead, he mostly interacts with the Visual Effects Supervisor(s) (decides how the effects get done, shows up on set to take down what lens is being used, where the lights are, etc.) and Visual Effects Producer(s) (deals with how much shots are going to cost, how long they're going to take, etc.). Both work for the VFX studio enlisted to do the work.
Most film effects are done at 2K (approx. 2048x1556) or 4K (approx. 4096x3112), assuming that you are doing "regular" 35mm. If you're doing CinemaScope, Super35, or VistaVision, the resolution will be higher (VistaVision work can be has high as 6K).
Check out Cinesite's website. Dig around in there, and you'll find a list of resolutions their film scanning and recording services support.
Learn as much as you can about VFX. Gain as deep of an understanding of all aspects as you can. Try to imagine what you, as a VFX artist, would want in a tool. Then try to code that ;)
Check Hammerhead's website. Licenses for most of their proprietary tools can be purchased.
Looking at Hammerhead's website, it is clear that Thad writes the tools that they use. He wrote their proprietary digital compositing software, their rotoscoping software, tracking software, etc.
All the large/high-end VFX studios use at least some proprietary software, whether it is just a few csh scripts to check an artist's work into the asset management system, or their own rendering and compositing tools (Weta Digital used their GRUNT (Guaranteed Rendering of Unlimited Numbers of Things) renderer to render the scenes output by their Massive crowd-generation software; ILM's Viewpaint, CompTime, Sabre, Cari; Digital Domain's Nuke). So yes, most large or high-end VFX studios will continue to have at least one dedicated programmer, because they'll continue to need their own software that is designed to work in their production pipeline. And, let's not forget, there is no such thing as a tool that does everything. A studio might decide that the soft-body dynamics a certain commercial animation program provides doesn't have the level of quality and/or control that they need, so they write their own soft-body dynamics simulator.
It isn't just about writing scripts for Maya or whatever. In fact, modellers and animators only handle the rendering aspect of it in the smallest VFX houses. The TDs (technical directors) handle that in any VFX company that can afford to hire more than 2 or 3 people.
Except, AFAIK, you can't get Photorealistic RenderMan or Shake for FreeBSD. You could run the Linux emulation drivers under FreeBSD and then run PRMan or Shake, but if you're going to all the trouble, why not just use Linux?
They don't ALL work on the same frame at once. But it can be set up so that more than one machine works on the same frame: each renders a part of the same frame, then they are automatically pieced together by Alfred (the distributed rendering software that comes with Photorealistic RenderMan).
Of course they'll have hard disks. It makes no sense not to. Having a RAM disk would be stupid, because you don't pay through the nose for dual XEON CPUs (waaay more expensive that normal P4 CPUs) and 4GB of memory only to try and save $150 by not throwing in a hard disk. And I'm sure that those huge battle scenes need every last bit of RAM the machine has.
And remember, these aren't your normal desktop PCs. Certain parts would be more expensive because they have to use parts specifically designed for use in 1U systems.
There are, as far as I know, unions for VFX people. I don't have any hard facts to back this up, but I remember seeing a jobs page at the ILM website months and months ago that described some of the positions as union jobs.
Lucas has always been recognized as being a bad director, at least when it comes to actors. Harrison Ford once said to him on the set of A New Hope, "George, you can write this shit, but I can't say it." Mark Hamill later said, "If he could find a way to replace actors, he would."
Also, the rest of your post is incorrect. The studio system had faded away in the 60s. Sure, many directors were under contract in the 70's (Spielberg included), but they weren't the ironclad, ball-and-chain that they used to be, allowing the directors to pick the projects they directed, etc., and were certainly didn't provide much "job security".
Spielberg, Coppola, et al, were directing serious feature films that got good reviews long before Star Wars was a twinkle in Lucas' eye.
As for your comment that today's actors tune out directors: what? Sure, some prima donna actors do, but most don't. Remember, the director is the actor's boss.
"so only good technical directors can greatly affect the quality of the film."
Huh? This has to be the dumbest statement I've heard all day. Spielberg is a better director than Lucas and makes better films because he doesn't just pay attention to the technical stuff. James Cameron is a better director than Lucas and makes better films because he doesn't just pay attention to the technical stuff.
Maybe next time you should try knowing what you're talking about, mmmkay?
In a fit of nostalgia, I bought an SGI Indy a few weeks ago (check it out right here) and it cost $100, and was manufactured in the early-mid 90s. Definately not SGI's latest and greatest.
SGI's latest workstation is the Octane2. I think the Indy was first previewed by BYTE magazine (or a similar mag) in 1993!
Texas really is big enough to be it's own thrid world country.
For a few years (10? 15?) Texas was its own country. AFAIK, the whole Alamo thing took place during Texas' war for independence from Mexico. And, IIRC, it became so poor that it asked the US to annex it.