By Gregory Douglas LeMieux (Lone) (161.231.1.21) on Friday, January 10, 2003 - 03:41 pm:

was over at SPLINEGOD's GOLLUM thread, where he mentioned CINEFEX. the latest edition, in addition to a large LOTR article, has another on ROBERT RODRIGUEZ and his SPY KIDS films. opinions?

By Larry Shultz "SplineGod" (Larrys) (209.179.226.100) on Saturday, January 11, 2003 - 02:40 pm:

Both articles are a great read. I cant believe how much work went into Gollum only to redo it all. Its also incredible the amount of work that went into creating the motion database for massive to work.

By arthur argote (Archiea) (68.164.66.82) on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 04:29 pm:

the LOTR article I read cover to cover. It was closer to the content of previous cinefex of 10 years ago. I found it really usefull in understanding the extent of digital set extention that was utilised. They also cover their dependence of custom software, in relation to commercial software, especially in areas of tracking,

Covered in too few words the evolution of gollum's creation, outlining the various obstacles that they faced. Particularlly interesting is how they enginnnered their approaches towards the facial expressions, Mocap reliance, the muscle and skinning technology, and best of all, the skin. The evolution of gollums skin alone is worth the cost of the issue. As opposed to the cliche descriptions of sub surface scattering and miles of code, you learn how several departments, not all of them digital, was utilized in the creation of Gollum's skin. Perhaps this is the best example of Weta's success in this movie. The use of alot of "old school" thinking produce some of the most cutting edge visuals.

They also describe the crreation of alot of tools and technology to help with just the intermediate steps. For instance, how there were both Gollum preportioned and Andy proportioned digital representation to ensure the fidelity of the tracking. These were immediately switchable for the animators. Also switchable was the use of NURBS and subpatches for the trees as needed by the type of animation. the limitations of each were describe in plain, honest english. This kind of flexibility in tool building in Maya is long missing in LW, but for understandable reasons.

Easily, LOTR should have filled an entire Cinefex, even as a special eddition issue, and I don't understand why it shared billing, especially with a film like spy kids.

BTW, larry, where is your Gollum thread?

By Larry Shultz "SplineGod" (Larrys) (216.244.32.109) on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 07:12 pm:

Based on the amount of resources put into JUST the digital aspects of the film, I dont think it could have been done here for nearly the cost.
Heres the thread.
http://forums.newtek.com/discus/messages/2/37218.html?1042267846

By Szabolcs Matefy (J3st3r) (62.112.219.144) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 03:05 am:

Speaking of Gollum, it`s a good idea to visit Bay Raitt`s Spiraloid forum. Sometimes he shares few thoughts about LOTR production (where he`s a character TD, and he modelled and gestilculated Gollum`s and the Troll`s head)

He was very upset, when the true modelling and animation tool wasn`t even mention in CGW`s article of LOTR. The "magical" tool was mirai....


Jester

By Szabolcs Matefy (J3st3r) (62.112.219.144) on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 03:09 am:

And the link to spiraloid is:

http://cube.phlatt.net/forums/spiraloid//index.php

Jester

By Jessica Vitale (Jvitale) (209.178.129.24) on Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 01:44 am:

I am glad you mentioned Robert Rodriguez and Spy Kids...I found that a more interesting article to read than LOTR...I like the part where it says "when it comes to VFX companies consider the 'little guys'"....Most of those Little Guys would be LightWave houses that do awesome work...

By Larry Shultz "SplineGod" (Larrys) (209.178.140.213) on Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 01:54 am:

I was impressed by the LOTR write up only in the way Im impressed by the space program. The sheer scale is incredible and there is just no way it could have been done for the cost in the U.S. Spending as much time as they did on Gollum and his hundreds of sculpted expressions...jeez!
Im more impressed by smaller studios who find clever ways to do great work.

By arthur argote (Archiea) (68.164.66.82) on Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 11:46 am:

It is true what both you and jessica mention about the smaller studios having to be more clever. That is something that I missed when i moved to film. And unfortunately, not all of the time spent is up on the screen. most of the time its used to cover up poor planning. Period. In the case of Gollum, it was worth it I believe. had gollum turned out to be another Jar-jar, then I'd say no, but he wasn't. Could you imagine a CG character stiring up the acadamy for its acting ability. Now that is a succes story for FX!!!

I have repect for Robert rodrigues in his practicality and his self reliance. yes he points out in the article how these smaller shops are used to commcerial/TV schedules, and seemed to suit his sence of pace very well. However, He also mentioned how the Canadian exchange rate also help him, which hurts work here in the US. There theres the issue of having shot everything in Video, which caused alot of problems with greenscreen extraction. Why? they just didn't do their homework.

Also, some of these smaller places rely on more junior operators than experienced ones, since all of the under bidding has created a pricewar amongst salaries. I see alot of senior artist who's experience is worth their rate being tossed aside for some After effects jockey who doesn't even know what a cineon file is. Infact I knew of one viz effects supivisor who saved his scanned frames in jpeg, praising himself for saving disk space while not considering the extra amount of time the compositors would have to spend cleaning up the motion artifacts. meanwhile, harddrives are so cheap they are near impulse purchases.

None of this is covered in Cinefex, of course. its something that has to do with the structure and business end of our business, not the technology. So while alot can be learned from how rodriguez approached and executed a successful FX movies, you have to allow for comment of how a lack of structure can affect both small and large productions.

You hear of Rodrigues laughing at motion control. Well, in his case it may be Ok since he just "winged it' with the tracking of the comps. For a kid's film, that may be enough. For serious FXmovies, it can become a problem because the director WANTS perfection, not us winging it. it creates a tremendous amout of frustration because you spend much of your budgeted time fixing problems that could have been handled on set or with better planning.

the problem with this is that films like Spy KidsII will be held as some sort of general yard stick without considering the context that its purpose was served: a kid flick. For my tastes, alot of what was on screen did appear like they "winged it'. nothing wrong with that even subjectively. its just that alot of studios will use it as a yardstick. I, for one, am not a fan of extracting green screens from HD video.

By arthur argote (Archiea) (68.164.66.82) on Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 11:56 am:

PS> Larry, while you may be impressed with smaller studios who devise more clever ways of doing things, I have yet to see a performance as original and well executed as gollum from a smaller studio. Don't get me wrong, large studios can spend a crap load of money to create crap. However, all of those sculpted expressions served as an path to gollum's performance. to compare that to smaller studios being "clever" is not accurate. its hard to think of a more clever way of doing gollum when you consider how original his performance is. Infact, thank god for the extra time as it seemed like they were going the traditional route with Gollum to make him a CG character in the film as opposed to a character in the film until they redesigned both the character and approach....

By Rob Powers (Robpowers) (216.103.49.249) on Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 02:17 pm:

Arthur,

Good point, I would love to actually see what would happen if you gave such a long schedule and large budget to a team of Lightwave artists. I don't think this has ever happened and I would love to see the results. Lightwave can handle motion capture and it doesn't matter how you sculpt the models either in 3d or with real world techniques and then scan those in later. It would be interesting to see.

By Chris S. (Fez) (68.51.141.174) on Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 03:10 pm:

"I have yet to see a performance as original and well executed as gollum from a smaller studio."

I agree.

The buzz surrounding Golem and the spectacular results on screen and at the box office justified the time and money spent. Weta worked till they got it right. Until a "little guy" creates another Golem out of his garage, I don't think anything can be taken away from Weta. Audiences would have laughed Golem off the screen if he had looked as muddy and jerky as the creatures in Spy Kids.

By Larry Shultz "SplineGod" (Larrys) (216.244.20.11) on Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 10:06 pm:

Arthur, dont get me wrong. Im certainly not complaining about Gollum. The character was great and all that work paid off. I enjoyed the film more then once. It was impressive. It certainly shows what can be done with lots of time, money, resources and talent.
Rob, That would be interesting...