What's New in Shrek 2?
Ellen Wolff takes a look at new advances in Shrek 2.
May 19, 2004
By Ellen Wolff
If you happened to be cruising the parking lot at PDI/Dreamworks' Northern California studio during production of Shrek 2, you might have seen something that looked like a stunt for the David Letterman show -- containers of water being dropped from ladders, with several people scrutinizing the splashes when the containers hit the ground.
"We always shoot live-action references for ourselves," says Shrek 2 visual effects supervisor Ken Bielenberg about PDI's approach. "On Halloween, we had cauldrons in the cafeteria with dry ice that gave off a smoky effect, and our effects guys came by and said 'Oh that's perfect!' They shot footage and used that as reference, too." So audiences at Shrek 2 can expect to see more realistic-looking effects than they've seen before in the computer-animated ogre's stylized world.
It's a high standard to exceed, since the original Shrek won the animated feature film Oscar for 2001, the first winner in that category. Bielenberg, who earned a BAFTA nomination for the visual effects in Shrek, garnered wide attention for breakthrough work in several areas, including an innovative approach for animating fire. For this sequel, Bielenberg says, "We've raised the bar again. The overall level of complexity is two or three times the complexity of the first Shrek. For instance, in the forest scene where Donkey and Shrek first met there was a certain simplicity to the environment. There was moss-like grass and not much ground cover. This time, in a similar forest scene, the amount of detail that we have in the environment is much richer. There are vines and flowers and grass, and the leaves on the trees flutter in the wind. It's not photoreal, but the richness has increased."
For this new film, Shrek co-director Andrew Adamson paired with co-directors Kelly Asbury and Conrad Vernon, and the voice actors from the original are back in force. Newlyweds Shrek and Fiona (Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz) are once again accompanied by sidekick Donkey (Eddie Murphy). They're also joined by some major new characters -- the tabby cat Puss-in-Boots (voiced by Antonio Banderas) and a quartet of humans, including King Harold (John Cleese) and Queen Lillian (Julie Andrews) as Fiona's royal parents.
Up Close and Personal
When it came to the look of the characters, reports Bielenberg, "There were a lot of refinements done 'under the hood.' We've added more muscles, especially in the necks of the characters -- for example, the male characters have Adam's apples now." Using the sci-tech Academy Award-winning facial animation system developed by longtime PDI animator Dick Walsh, the studio was also able to achieve what Bielenberg calls "amazing close-ups where the acting shows through. You're no longer looking at an animated character -- you're really looking at an actor."
Overall, asserts Bielenberg, "We did very little to change Shrek's and Fiona's appearance, so they're very consistent with the first film. We've done a little bit of upgrading, adding a little bit more subsurface scattering on their skin, but not a lot, actually. We did use subsurface scattering to soften the area around Shrek's nose, and also with his ears so that when they're backlit the light shows through. And we've redone Fiona's hair a little bit, but I don't think it will be an apparent change."
"The bulk of visual development time was spent working on the new human characters and developing new technology for modeling and moving hair," says Bielenberg. "Modeling hair is a real challenge because you're not dealing with something that's hard and easily definable. You have tens of thousands of hairs that you're trying to move around. We came up with new programs and techniques for modeling hair." Compared to PDI's previous method of modeling a "clump volumes" of hair, the new approach enables PDI to interpolate the movement of neighboring hairs on a much finer leve
SCO attempting to prove selective enforcement?
on
FSF Subpoenaed by SCO
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
IANAL, but that's my take from reading the subpoena. It looks to me like Darl & company may be trying to assert that the GPL is void because it's not being enforced. And, its use against SCO is a special case.
Well, I must admit that originally I was under the impression that using iTunes was somehow linked with having an iPod. I also would have been more interested had they put the caps on Mountain Des.
If you can find a copy, "Angels Down" by Steve Vaughn (ISBN: 0-9653330-0-0) is worth a read.
He describes a future where the "greenies" have taken control, decried science as "evil", and eliminated nearly all pollution. The down side is the massive reduction in greenhouse gasses and airbourne particulates has brought on another ice age with glaciers descending as far as the Dakotas.
Since the book came out dry, it would appear that paper cannot absorb Saphire. Given that, how do you clean it up? It's not always convenient, or even possible, to turn the heat up to 120.6F.
which as far as I can tell, open source projects lack
Perhaps in an ideal company. Sadly, I have seen countless proprietary projects that had none of these. A few have actually produced viable products.
I think the author make some very good points. Especially with respect to UI Design and Programming for the Self. There are a number of Open/Free projects that are not intended for mere mortals and some that can, on occasion, stump even a guru.
Sun's implementation of Java is non-free. Blackdown is also non-free; it is an adaptation of Sun's proprietary code. The standard Java libraries are non-free also. We do have free implementations of Java, such as the GNU Java Compiler and GNU Classpath, but they don't support all the features yet. We are still catching up.
If you develop a Java program on Sun's Java platform, you are liable to use Sun-only features without even noticing. By the time you find this out, you may have been using them for months, and redoing the work could take more months. You might say, "It's too much work to start over." Then your program will have fallen into the Java Trap; it will be unusable in the Free World. -- RMS
I generally respect RMS, but I have a problem with this. Like it or not Sun (and others via the JCP) set the Standard for Java. I fail to see how using the Standard is falling into a trap.
The real reason Java would be unusable in Stallman's "Free World" is because the current, free compiler is sub-standard.
I shouldn't use the features supported by Sun, Blackdown and IBM because the GNU Java Compiler hasn't caught up with the pack?
Vos thinks part of the problem might simply be unfamiliarity with the noise. As people get used to it, he says, they might find it less annoying.
<sarcasm>
Wonderful approach! Ignore it and maybe the problem will go away. Why would you actually want to try to eliminate the source of the noise?
</sarcasm>
Now those idiots who don't know enough to pull off and take a nap, use their cell phone, apply make-up, shave, etc will actually survive long enough to procreate.
You don't hear the PC industry wailing and moaning about how their sales are down because people are installing Linuxinstead of buying new machines to run 2003 server.
Were DVD sales down as well?
Hardly, but if M$ wasn't there as the "arch villian" would Linux be exactly where it is today?
Look at the petty squabbles that break out in the development community. BSD vs Linux. XFree86.org vs X.org. Gnome vs KDE. We either put aside or quietly tolerate a lot of this nonsense to work together against Microsoft. A sort of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" as it were.
I do not condone Microsoft's strong arm tactics, but neither can I say that we would be in the same or better place if Microsoft never was. I'd really like to believe we would, but experience tells me otherwise.
Look at LRP. It was an excellent idea. But there are so many "acceptable" alternatives there was no demand for it and no real support. Now, if M$ (or Cisco) had completely dominated the router market (no Linksys, NetGear, DLink, Belkin, etc) this project would have probably flourished simply because it was a better alternative. With no "arch villian" in the router market, it was just another alternative. Not a better one, just a different one.
Maybe Linux flourishes, in part, just because it's "not Microsoft". Would it get that attention if there wasn't a M$ to hate?
As loathe as I am to say it now, Microsoft has actually show us the benefit of "standards".
How many of the standards would be there if it wasn't for MicroSoft's presence?
Not as an innovator, but as a bad example or possibly antagonist. How much of HTML came about by pure W3 innovation vs how much was from prior work by M$, NCSA, Netscape, an others all trying to out do each other? Would W3 have been as productive if M$ wasn't there trying to take over the standard?
How many OSS developers would have given their all without the popular foe to rail against?
If freedom (both as in beer and speech) is the carrot... Is Microsoft perhaps the stick?
According to this site the last Apollo mission cost about $1536M in 1994 dollars. Converting to 2003 dollars using the information provided here gives us $1905M. That's the cost to get 3 men to lunar orbit and 2 men on the surface of the moon for a long weekend.
Mars is 5 months travel each way (assuming 2 years on planet). Regaining Mars orbit will require more fuel than reacquiring lunar orbit due to the increased gravity (38% vs 16.5% on the moon). Food, water, oxygen, shelter for 2 years....
'A nonymous Coward (7548)' may have been guessing at 100x cost, but I expect, if anything, his guess is on the low side.
Why? I use FM because it is very easy to maintain consistency. When you're writing something more than a memo (say a book or manual set) you need consistency.
For example, in OpenOffice and/or Word, paragraph formatting, character formatting, indentation, numbering/bullets, etc can all work independently. This gives a lot of flexibility. The downside is it makes is too easy to write everything in 'Normal/Default' and just change the fonts, pitch, numbering, whatever. Then when a PHB comes along with "Can you make all the fonts a little bigger?" it's hello overtime. Especially when the original author just left the company!
FrameMaker gives you that consistency. You have paragraph formatting and charater formatting and that is all! Indentation, numbering, and the like are attributes of the paragraph.
I cannot say I would recommend Frame for short memos, or the letter to Aunt Betty, but I certainly would not want to try writing a full length manual set with Word or OpenOffice.
It comes down to using the right tool for the job. The argument that a word processor (such as Word or OpenOffice) or Indesign is all you need is quite reminiscent of "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." (Although, InDesign is more like an industrial strength nail gun.)
I've had the experience of being far enough out in the countryside that there is no cell tower in range and having my battery choose to roll over and die. A passing motorist was kind enough to stop and give me a jump start so I could get into the nearest town and buy a new battery.
With a locked down hood, I would have had to get a ride somewhere, then try to find a mechanic that had the right tool to open it.
It might not be so bad 10-15 years down the road when the manufacturers have settled on one style of hood lock. But for the first several years you'll probably need different tools for a Ford, GM, etc. And odds are, when you need that battery on a Sunday afternoon, neither of the shops open will have the tool for your vehicle
Open sourcing 'Java' is an issue of binaries. It's a misnomer in fact. Its not really Java that ESR is calling for to be open sourced. Its Sun's implementation of Java, their JVM. At least as far as I can tell that is what he is calling for.
Many years back, I had a hand in the development of AT&T's SVR4 and saw an interesting side of ownership.
At the time (late 80's) there was some fierce headbutting going on between Unix International (UI) and OSF; each promoting their own flavor of Unix. UI was pushing SVR4 and OSF was pushing a SVR3 derivative. One of the not-so-public discussions between the opposing camps consisted of UI offering OSF the SVR4 source code. AT&T did not want ownership of the code. Here's why...
The owner of the code maintains the base from which everyone else creates their own ports. As a result, the base had to remain more-or-less architecture agnostic. This meant that the Unix that AT&T's sold was neither the fastest or sleekest in the marketplace.
Granted, they could have created a second development team for the version they sold, but that was deemed too costly at the time and there was concern that it would be perceived that they were distributing inferior code to their licensees.
So, it may not be in Sun's best interest to open source Java until there is someone willing to develop and maintain the porting base.
Slashdot Mirror
Ellen Wolff takes a look at new advances in Shrek 2.
May 19, 2004
By Ellen Wolff
If you happened to be cruising the parking lot at PDI/Dreamworks' Northern California studio during production of Shrek 2, you might have seen something that looked like a stunt for the David Letterman show -- containers of water being dropped from ladders, with several people scrutinizing the splashes when the containers hit the ground.
"We always shoot live-action references for ourselves," says Shrek 2 visual effects supervisor Ken Bielenberg about PDI's approach. "On Halloween, we had cauldrons in the cafeteria with dry ice that gave off a smoky effect, and our effects guys came by and said 'Oh that's perfect!' They shot footage and used that as reference, too." So audiences at Shrek 2 can expect to see more realistic-looking effects than they've seen before in the computer-animated ogre's stylized world.
It's a high standard to exceed, since the original Shrek won the animated feature film Oscar for 2001, the first winner in that category. Bielenberg, who earned a BAFTA nomination for the visual effects in Shrek, garnered wide attention for breakthrough work in several areas, including an innovative approach for animating fire. For this sequel, Bielenberg says, "We've raised the bar again. The overall level of complexity is two or three times the complexity of the first Shrek. For instance, in the forest scene where Donkey and Shrek first met there was a certain simplicity to the environment. There was moss-like grass and not much ground cover. This time, in a similar forest scene, the amount of detail that we have in the environment is much richer. There are vines and flowers and grass, and the leaves on the trees flutter in the wind. It's not photoreal, but the richness has increased."
For this new film, Shrek co-director Andrew Adamson paired with co-directors Kelly Asbury and Conrad Vernon, and the voice actors from the original are back in force. Newlyweds Shrek and Fiona (Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz) are once again accompanied by sidekick Donkey (Eddie Murphy). They're also joined by some major new characters -- the tabby cat Puss-in-Boots (voiced by Antonio Banderas) and a quartet of humans, including King Harold (John Cleese) and Queen Lillian (Julie Andrews) as Fiona's royal parents.
Up Close and Personal
When it came to the look of the characters, reports Bielenberg, "There were a lot of refinements done 'under the hood.' We've added more muscles, especially in the necks of the characters -- for example, the male characters have Adam's apples now." Using the sci-tech Academy Award-winning facial animation system developed by longtime PDI animator Dick Walsh, the studio was also able to achieve what Bielenberg calls "amazing close-ups where the acting shows through. You're no longer looking at an animated character -- you're really looking at an actor."
Overall, asserts Bielenberg, "We did very little to change Shrek's and Fiona's appearance, so they're very consistent with the first film. We've done a little bit of upgrading, adding a little bit more subsurface scattering on their skin, but not a lot, actually. We did use subsurface scattering to soften the area around Shrek's nose, and also with his ears so that when they're backlit the light shows through. And we've redone Fiona's hair a little bit, but I don't think it will be an apparent change."
"The bulk of visual development time was spent working on the new human characters and developing new technology for modeling and moving hair," says Bielenberg. "Modeling hair is a real challenge because you're not dealing with something that's hard and easily definable. You have tens of thousands of hairs that you're trying to move around. We came up with new programs and techniques for modeling hair." Compared to PDI's previous method of modeling a "clump volumes" of hair, the new approach enables PDI to interpolate the movement of neighboring hairs on a much finer leve
IANAL, but that's my take from reading the subpoena. It looks to me like Darl & company may be trying to assert that the GPL is void because it's not being enforced. And, its use against SCO is a special case.
These puns are reVolting.
Well, I must admit that originally I was under the impression that using iTunes was somehow linked with having an iPod. I also would have been more interested had they put the caps on Mountain Des.
He describes a future where the "greenies" have taken control, decried science as "evil", and eliminated nearly all pollution. The down side is the massive reduction in greenhouse gasses and airbourne particulates has brought on another ice age with glaciers descending as far as the Dakotas.
Well, since it's looking at the 'Net, it's clearly yet another futile search for evidence of terrestrial intelligence.
Like Cory Doctorow describes in "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom"?
Since the book came out dry, it would appear that paper cannot absorb Saphire. Given that, how do you clean it up? It's not always convenient, or even possible, to turn the heat up to 120.6F.
- full indepth analyses of market need,
- product placement,
- user targeting, etc etc,
which as far as I can tell, open source projects lackPerhaps in an ideal company. Sadly, I have seen countless proprietary projects that had none of these. A few have actually produced viable products.
I think the author make some very good points. Especially with respect to UI Design and Programming for the Self. There are a number of Open/Free projects that are not intended for mere mortals and some that can, on occasion, stump even a guru.
This book, "GUI Bloopers: Don'ts and Do's for Software Developers and Web Designers", should be required reading for anyone tackling GUI design. It makes for enlightening reading as you begin to notice how many GUI's are following the "Don'ts".
If you develop a Java program on Sun's Java platform, you are liable to use Sun-only features without even noticing. By the time you find this out, you may have been using them for months, and redoing the work could take more months. You might say, "It's too much work to start over." Then your program will have fallen into the Java Trap; it will be unusable in the Free World. -- RMS
I generally respect RMS, but I have a problem with this. Like it or not Sun (and others via the JCP) set the Standard for Java. I fail to see how using the Standard is falling into a trap.
The real reason Java would be unusable in Stallman's "Free World" is because the current, free compiler is sub-standard.
I shouldn't use the features supported by Sun, Blackdown and IBM because the GNU Java Compiler hasn't caught up with the pack?
Now, whose trap is that again?
<sarcasm>
Wonderful approach! Ignore it and maybe the problem will go away. Why would you actually want to try to eliminate the source of the noise?
</sarcasm>
Now those idiots who don't know enough to pull off and take a nap, use their cell phone, apply make-up, shave, etc will actually survive long enough to procreate.
We're doomed I say, doomed!
You don't hear the PC industry wailing and moaning about how their sales are down because people are installing Linuxinstead of buying new machines to run 2003 server. Were DVD sales down as well?
Look at the petty squabbles that break out in the development community. BSD vs Linux. XFree86.org vs X.org. Gnome vs KDE. We either put aside or quietly tolerate a lot of this nonsense to work together against Microsoft. A sort of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" as it were.
I do not condone Microsoft's strong arm tactics, but neither can I say that we would be in the same or better place if Microsoft never was. I'd really like to believe we would, but experience tells me otherwise.
Look at LRP. It was an excellent idea. But there are so many "acceptable" alternatives there was no demand for it and no real support. Now, if M$ (or Cisco) had completely dominated the router market (no Linksys, NetGear, DLink, Belkin, etc) this project would have probably flourished simply because it was a better alternative. With no "arch villian" in the router market, it was just another alternative. Not a better one, just a different one.
Maybe Linux flourishes, in part, just because it's "not Microsoft". Would it get that attention if there wasn't a M$ to hate?
Thta's all fine until you die because the surgeon BSOD'd!
How many of the standards would be there if it wasn't for MicroSoft's presence?
Not as an innovator, but as a bad example or possibly antagonist. How much of HTML came about by pure W3 innovation vs how much was from prior work by M$, NCSA, Netscape, an others all trying to out do each other? Would W3 have been as productive if M$ wasn't there trying to take over the standard?
How many OSS developers would have given their all without the popular foe to rail against?
If freedom (both as in beer and speech) is the carrot...
Is Microsoft perhaps the stick?
Mars is 5 months travel each way (assuming 2 years on planet). Regaining Mars orbit will require more fuel than reacquiring lunar orbit due to the increased gravity (38% vs 16.5% on the moon). Food, water, oxygen, shelter for 2 years....
'A nonymous Coward (7548)' may have been guessing at 100x cost, but I expect, if anything, his guess is on the low side.
For example, in OpenOffice and/or Word, paragraph formatting, character formatting, indentation, numbering/bullets, etc can all work independently. This gives a lot of flexibility. The downside is it makes is too easy to write everything in 'Normal/Default' and just change the fonts, pitch, numbering, whatever. Then when a PHB comes along with "Can you make all the fonts a little bigger?" it's hello overtime. Especially when the original author just left the company!
FrameMaker gives you that consistency. You have paragraph formatting and charater formatting and that is all! Indentation, numbering, and the like are attributes of the paragraph.
I cannot say I would recommend Frame for short memos, or the letter to Aunt Betty, but I certainly would not want to try writing a full length manual set with Word or OpenOffice.
It comes down to using the right tool for the job. The argument that a word processor (such as Word or OpenOffice) or Indesign is all you need is quite reminiscent of "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
(Although, InDesign is more like an industrial strength nail gun.)
bad
1 a : failing to reach an acceptable standard
3 : inadequate or unsuited to a purpose
poor
2 a : less than adequate
4 a : inferior in quality or value
With a locked down hood, I would have had to get a ride somewhere, then try to find a mechanic that had the right tool to open it.
It might not be so bad 10-15 years down the road when the manufacturers have settled on one style of hood lock. But for the first several years you'll probably need different tools for a Ford, GM, etc. And odds are, when you need that battery on a Sunday afternoon, neither of the shops open will have the tool for your vehicle
I'd rather see a hood lock where you can only get the key if you pass a basic competency test.
Out of curiosity, where's the battery in this car? How would one get a jump start if you need a mechanic to open the hood?
If the UoSAT-2/UO-11 is still functioning after 20 years, why was there such a rush to deorbit the Iridium satellite constellation?
Why wait? XP Revolting is available today!
XP Rebooted ... Rebooted ... Rebooted ...
I'll give it 2 thumbs down!
But, 2 thumbs way up for the sequel:
Loading linux-2.4.20..........
Many years back, I had a hand in the development of AT&T's SVR4 and saw an interesting side of ownership.
At the time (late 80's) there was some fierce headbutting going on between Unix International (UI) and OSF; each promoting their own flavor of Unix. UI was pushing SVR4 and OSF was pushing a SVR3 derivative. One of the not-so-public discussions between the opposing camps consisted of UI offering OSF the SVR4 source code. AT&T did not want ownership of the code. Here's why...
The owner of the code maintains the base from which everyone else creates their own ports. As a result, the base had to remain more-or-less architecture agnostic. This meant that the Unix that AT&T's sold was neither the fastest or sleekest in the marketplace.
Granted, they could have created a second development team for the version they sold, but that was deemed too costly at the time and there was concern that it would be perceived that they were distributing inferior code to their licensees.
So, it may not be in Sun's best interest to open source Java until there is someone willing to develop and maintain the porting base.