Vampire Army Rises, XSI Dating Maya, & Poptimistic Photo-Anime...
Universal Assembling Vampire Army
(variety.com) Universal Pictures is developing The Knights
Templar, picking up a spec script from Adam Torchia and Justin Stanley
for Marc Platt and Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov to produce.
Variety says the film puts a horror spin on the famed organization of
fighters from the Middle Ages, with the Knights Templar, fresh from
the Crusades, forced to fend off an invading vampire army set on
destroying the Holy Grail.
Platt will produce "Knights Templar" through his Marc Platt
Productions, while Bekmambetov will shepherd the project through his
Bazelevs Productions, with Jim Lemley.
No 'Grand Theft Auto IV' Effect on Iron Man
(variety.com) Ironman50 $104.2 million later, I think we can
safely say that "GTA IV" had zero impact on "Iron Man's" opening.
Paramount's Rob Moore was right: "It's crazy to think that young males
can't carve out two hours for Iron Man. It's going to be a great week
to be a young guy.'' (Pamela McClintock reports in Variety that the
"Iron Man" aud was 62% male).
Obviously you can't prove a counter-factual, but when a movie breaks
this many records, it sure doesn't look like anything was holding it
back.
Pundits who got it wrong: Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello,
Wedbush Morgan analyst Edward Woo; the editors of GamePro; Janco
Partners analyst Mike Hickey; and probably others who I'm not finding
right now. (additions to this list are welcome)
For the record, I explored the idea that "GTA IV" might impact "Iron
Man's" opening b.o., but did a little research and concluded that was
unlikely (though I did leave open the possibility that there could be
a slight overall effect on movie viewership this summer amongst
gamers).
Instead, I wrote in a story on the topic, "GTA IV" was more likely to
impact homevideo sales (which is why no DVDs aimed at young males came
out last week) and TV ratings amongst the gamer demo. I'll check the
TV ratings data this week and find out if that proved true.
XSI & Maya Dating At Last
(digitalproducer.digitalmedianet.com) There is a new exporter that allows you to move all of your rigs seamlessly from XSI to Maya. It's no doubt that Maya is quickly becoming a big player in the D game design, and with its adoption into the autodesk family, and living alongside MAX - and going directly into toxik, there are several features game developers who are switching to Maya might want. Face Robot from SoftImage is on the wishlist.
There are several new features in SoftImage's Face Robot 1.9 in the form of video training, headmodels and interactivity with Crosswalk (going to Maya/MAX), MOTOR, Delta Referencing and animation layers.
Sure, Face Robot helps you to easily apply mocap data to solved head meshes, but its strength isn't about simply slapping captured animation data onto geometry. What's nice about the tool is that it allows you to get the broad brushstrokes in place, so the animators can tweak on the smaller details that make character animation truly expressive. It's not going to replace animators (or rather, it shouldn't).
One of the most impressive uses of Face Robot is its implementation within the development of game models. While a mesh and rig might be extremely dense, you can export bones to your game res mesh and extract normal maps (you can use these in secondary aps as well).
You can get Face Robot out via COLLADA and FBX when you update your Face Robot Crosswalk to version 2.5.2.
As SoftImage is a division of Avid, and Avid will not be at NAB this year, you'll have to check out their website rather than being able to talk face to face with a person at an NAB booth.
"Ice Age" Man Builds Mechanical Man
(variety.com) Ice Age helmer Chris Wedge has signed on to
direct Brian Selznick's magic-themed children's novel "The Invention
of Hugo Cabret" for Graham King's GK Films, Johnny Depp's Infinitum
Nihil and Warner Bros.
Variety says screenwriter John Logan ("Sweeney Todd," The Aviator,
Gladiator) has been hired to pen the adaptation.
King and Infinitum Nihil's Christi Dembrowski will produce the
live-action film, which centers on an orphaned boy who secretly lives
in the walls of a busy Paris train station and looks after the clocks.
He gets caught up in a mystery adventure when he attempts to repair a
mechanical man.
The studio is eyeing a fall start date.
GK Films and Warner Bros. acquired screen rights to "The Invention of
Hugo Cabret," a No. 1 New York Times best-seller, in 2007.
Has Peter Jackson Gone Mad With Power?
(martiniboys.com) Peter Jackson is a filmmaker who has always
been loyal to his collaborators. He continues employ writers, special
effects gurus, and other technicians who he met on early low-budget
genre movies like Meet The Feebles and Braindead. This sense of
loyalty has always suggested a very collaborative and respectful
relationship between the director and his crew, but these warm
relationships have been changing during recent productions. The first
incident occurred during post production on King Kong when Jackson
fired Oscar winning composer Howard Shore (the man responsible for the
wonderful Lord Of The Rings music) over "creative differences." In
Hollywood, "creative differences" is a euphemism for an ego-driven
fight and this incident came as a shock because it involved two
particularly amiable Hollywood personalities who had worked well
together previously. It was a surprising moment, but one that simply
could have meant that Shore was simply the wrong person for that
particular job. That is, until the incidents continued.
Are We Closer to a 'Matrix'-style World?
(msnbc.msn.com) Are we closer to living in a
"Matrix"-style virtual world? Some sophisticated new projects are
showing just how far we've come toward creating the visual, tactile
and conversational elements of an eye, hand and ear-fooling virtual
world.
What if a computer could make you a picture-perfect
glass of milk, let you feel the tension as it pulled an ant's leg from
another room, and chat you up with the charisma of Oprah Winfrey? No
one machine can do all three — yet. But some sophisticated new
projects are showing just how far we've come toward creating an "I
can't believe it's not real" virtual world.
Last month, Brookhaven National Laboratory computer scientist Michael
McGuigan told New Scientist magazine he believed a "Matrix"-style
virtual world, in which one cannot always distinguish between what's
real and what's not, could be up and running in just a few years. His
optimism derived in part from the impressive ramp-up in processing
speed he obtained with the lab's BlueGene/L supercomputer while
running a conventional ray-tracing software program that mimics the
effect of natural light.
Henrik Wann Jensen, an associate professor of computer science and
engineering at the University of California at San Diego, is among
those leading the charge toward more powerful algorithms that yield,
say, a convincing fog-shrouded lighthouse or a frosty glass of 2
percent milk. Best of all, the convergence of speed and power means
those virtual stand-ins don't necessarily require a room-sized
supercomputer to produce them.
"Now is a pretty exciting time in graphics," Jensen says. "We've
reached a level now where we can make very realistic images: five to
10 hours to make images more or less perfect, where people say, 'Wow,
that's a photograph!' "
Maintaining the same illusion for real-time animation isn't as far
along, largely due to its enormous appetite for computing power. But
that limitation is quickly falling by the wayside, Jensen says, with
the aid of muscular new graphics processors like Intel's Larrabee chip
and Nvidia's CUDA technology.
Pushing the envelope
Jensen is attacking the problem of limited power from the other end by
cutting the computational costs of graphics-producing algorithms known
as ray tracing and photon mapping. Ray tracing follows a beam of light
through a virtual environment, mimicking how the beam would interact
with its surroundings. Photon mapping is essentially the reverse, and
together, the two algorithms fit into what Jensen calls global
illumination, a framework for simulating how light bends a spoon in a
glass of water, cuts through the swirl of smoke around a spotlight
stage, or penetrates a thick fog in the form of a lighthouse beam.
"In many ways, we're just taking the physics of nature and trying to
simulate that," he says, but in a streamlined way that uses far less
power. Instead of counting all the photons associated with a light
source, Jensen's algorithms start with a question: If you place a set
of eyes at a specific spot in a scene, what would they see? Previous
methods sampled photons here and there across a light source, but
Jensen's technique maps the relevant photons along the light's entire
pathway, letting a graphics interface follow the light around a scene
and determine how much will be absorbed, reflected or scattered by
other objects.
For the first "Shrek" movie, filmmakers told Jensen a scene with the
Gingerbread Man and a glass of milk was one of the most difficult to
produce. "They didn't think of milk as a medium like fog," Jensen
says, and consequently used the wrong technology to simulate how light
interacted with it.
More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24394425/
Gaeta's Poptimistic Photo-Anime
(vrmag.org) Take a movie which is made for the whole
family. Written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers ("V for
Vendetta" and "The Matrix trilogy").
Look inside the cast and find Emile Hirsch (Speed), Christina Ricci
(Trixie), Oscar winning Susan Sarandon (Mom Racer) and American Golden
Globe - and Emmy-winning actor John Goodman (Pops Racer), to name just
a few. Mingle your childhood's dreams, synthesized in a 1966 Japanese
anime with super fast, latest technology roaring cars and a young man
whose DNA is full of racing instincts and whose aims are directed to
rescue his family's business and racing sports.
Now, push the movie's technical and creative design to the edge of any
cinematic limit. Editorially collage human actors with immersive
photography and CGI together to create a new format. Add tons of
colors out of any palette of your wish. Overlay a multitude of
expressive non realistic effects throughout the background, midground
and foreground.
Forget the feeling of film texture.
Here you have the real first "poptimistic photo-anime": Speed Racer,
whose world captures the eyes with techno colors, ever bending
perspectives, car-fu and flashing lights, in what is the latest
accomplishment by the brother Wachowski, John Gaeta (Award winning
Matrix trilogy's visual effects designer), Dan Glass(VFX Supervisor
for V for Vendetta) and their team's techno-magic spells.
If, within the Matrix, he had creatively enabled several kinds of
emergent effects techniques to visualize a new type of movie, whose
innovation was awarded with the recognition of his abilities by the
Academy Award for Visual Effects, BAFTA Award for Best Achievement in
Special Effects, and a pair of VES Awards (to name but a few); in
Speed Racer John Gaeta and his long time collaborators move forward
again with the incubation of a completely new genre and film format.
More: http://www.vrmag.org/issue30/WHEN_CINEMA_MEETS_VR_-_JOHN_GAETA_TALKS_ABOUT_SPEED_RACER.html
Virtual Magazine For Virtual Reality
(vrmag.org) Dive into the crystal clear water of Hawaii
and grab a seat on the trains which cross Europe, Middle East and
Americas. Float above Germany, Scotland, Miami, New York and San
Francisco at altitudes of 500 ft AGL. Climb higher and experience zero
gravity or descent rapids to have a rush of adrenaline to your head;
participate to weddings and enter creepy abandoned hyper real houses.
John Gaeta and his team uncovers the secrets of Speed Racer. Read our
interviews with top-notch VR artists and grab their hints and secrets.
Immerse yourself into the next generation's entertainment.
Virtual Reality Magazine: http://www.vrmag.org/
Metal Exoskeleton Crew Keeps It Real
(hollywoodreporter.com) Director Jon Favreau issued a
mandate to "Iron Man" senior visual effects supervisor John Nelson:
Keep it real. So Nelson, an Oscar winner for "Gladiator," strove for
photorealism in Paramount's blockbuster comic book film, mindful that
the characters had to be kept front and center.
When Robert Downey Jr. suits up in his metal exoskeleton, the gleaming
body armor is a combination of computer-generated versions, created by
lead VFX house Industrial Light + Magic, and practical, built by Stan
Winston Studios.
"We would always try to do as much as we could practically, but we
replaced most of it with CG because it's mostly an action movie,"
Nelson said. "We had practical stuff to ground us, and that made it
that much better."
The ILM team, which included internal VFX supervisor Ben Snow ("Star
Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones") and animation supervisor
Hal Hickel ("Pirates of the Caribbean"), developed several suit
variations, including different sizes and flying abilities.
In some cases, character performances were captured using iMoCap,
ILM's proprietary motion caption system first used for the CG Davy
Jones character in the "Pirates" films. For "Iron," Downey or stunt
people were used depending on the needs of the shots.
Some of the motion capture was filmed at Perris Valley Skydiving in
California, where the motion of skydivers was captured in a wind
tunnel. For Iron Man's flight, a combination of flamethrowers and CG
flames were used to create realism.
To allow Downey to act inside the exoskeleton, the team created a
virtual display with which the actor could interact. Those shots were
created at VFX house the Orphanage.
The climactic final showdown has Iron Man and villainous Iron Monger
battling in three key locations: a freeway in Long Beach, Calif.;
80,000 feet in the air; and on a rooftop. In the complex sequence, the
aerials were mostly CG environments. Some plates were shot, for
instance, from a Learjet diving with a nose camera at dusk. Miniatures
also were shot for the final sequence.
A lot of research also went into the level of reflections on the
chrome suit, particularly in the night scene.
Shrinking schedules have become an ongoing challenge in the VFX
industry, but Nelson insisted there are two sides to that coin.
"Both are good and trying," he said. "With big action movies like
this, people are always trying to shove as much into them as possible.
It makes delivery difficult. The other side is, if you are in post and
you see you can make something better, you want to do that."
"Virtual Filmmaking": The Future of Cinema?
(vfxworld.com) The dawn of a new "virtual filmmaking" age
is upon us. Sparked by the pioneering work of Bob Zemeckis on The
Polar Express and Beowulf and amped to the extreme to create a
realtime director-centric workflow by James Cameron, Rob Legato and
team for the upcoming Avatar, this new evolution of the filmmaking
process is energizing the Hollywood industry. Having worked on a
couple of these bleeding-edge film projects (Avatar, Tintin) with many
of the industry's' leading filmmakers, artists and technicians has
allowed me to witness and contribute to the development of this new
virtual filmmaking system that will likely lead the moviemaking
process over the coming decades.
The virtual filmmaking process is an amalgamation of traditional
filmmaking, CGI, visual effects pipelines, previs workflows and
realtime computer gaming technology. Virtual filmmaking combines the
best parts of all of these previous traditions in a unique way to
create something immensely useful and creatively liberating for the
director and other artistic team members. Although I can't elaborate
on the specifics of any one system, I'd like to briefly touch on the
technological progression toward the virtual filmmaking revolution in
general and point out some of the innovations of this new system.
Technical limitations imposed on filmmaking are nothing new. The art
form endured an earlier "dark-ages" period when it struggled with the
coming of sound and the introduction of the first color film stocks.
These technological advancements actually changed with way that films
were made for a short while due to the often overwhelming limitations
they imposed. The fluid moving cameras of the silent film era had
reached an almost poetic height only to be temporarily restricted when
cameras suddenly required bulky soundproof enclosures to eliminate the
noise from their mechanisms. Actors that previously had freedom of
motion now found themselves speaking into potted plants or telephones,
which concealed a hidden microphone, as in the infamous Warner Bros.
film The Lights of New York produced in 1928. In addition, there were
three different, non-compatible sound systems competing to become the
sound standard. These were the Vitaphone, Movietone and Photophone
systems and much like the current format wars of today they were all
backed and supported by different studios and groups. Sound familiar?
Later, in the 1950s, the heavy lighting requirements of early color
film stocks imposed limitations on the cinematographers and production
designers and also influenced and changed the final imagery of the
films themselves. Given time and ingenuity, these limitations were
overcome and the art form once again was able to flourish.
More: http://www.vfxworld.com/?atype=articles&id=3630
No, Wait. "3D Filmmaking": The Future of Cinema?
(scifi.com) Brendan Fraser, who stars in the upcoming film Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, told SCI FI Wire that the 3-D technology used to make the film is the true future of filmmaking.
"Do pay attention to this movie, because it's groundbreaking in the terms that this technology has not been given to the world yet in this format," Fraser said in an interview. "It's not the blue-eye/red-eye style that makes your eyes do calisthenics and makes people sick. It's high-def 3-D, live action and feature-length."
Journey is a contemporary retelling of Jules Verne's classic SF novel, with Fraser playing a scientist in search of his missing brother. Directed by former visual-effects supervisor Eric Brevig, Journey makes use of Real D Cinema technology and is the first wide release to open exclusively in the format in digital 3-D theaters.
"Usually 3-D has the perception of things just jumping out at you," Fraser said. "But the cool thing about this technology is that it's more immersive. You can have a sense of stepping through the proscenium into the environment that the actors are in. But beyond the other dimension is the depth of field, and you are in the immediate foreground, but you find yourself staring at the horizon and seeing the curvature of the Earth or wanting to know what is around a corner."
Coupled with advanced audio, the technology creates the sensation of seeing onscreen what you see in your mind, Fraser said. "Like there's a scene that delights kids, where these tiny glowing birds come swarming to the roof of a cavern, and they come down and flutter around the three heroes, and you see kids and adults reaching out to touch them," he said.
Fraser said the new 3-D technology goes beyond what viewers are used to. "In my view, CGI films have hit a glass ceiling, and Journey breaks through it," he said. "The star of the movie is the experience. Who cares who's in it? It's the experience. It's an exciting time for filmmaking, and I'm privileged to be a part of it." Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D opens July 11.
Breaking The Human Body In 400 Shots Or Less
(digitalartsonline.co.uk) The human body is
remarkable, adaptable and robust – but not unbreakable. What happens
to the body when pushed to the extremes is the subject of the new
Discovery series Human Body: Ultimate Machine, which features over 400
high-definition VFX shots by Soho-based digital-effects house Rushes.
The series comprises four one-hour episodes, which were shot and
broadcast initially in high definition. The show details what happens
to the human body in physical circumstances ranging from being tackled
in American football to falling of a cliff, with storytelling momentum
provided by a series of real-life stories that have been recreated.
Produced by Dangerous Films, the series features real-world and model
special effects created by The Model Unit, and VFX, digital matte
paintings and compositing created by Rushes.
At the show's core is immensely detailed CG, showing how bones,
muscles and the central nervous system react, bend and break under
different circumstances.
Each scene recreates an incident using actors, with the central
character replaced by a CG model at times to show how the event
affects the human body.
To create this, Rushes needed a highly detailed 3D model of the human
body, which had to include all of the constituent elements and be
detailed enough to look good in HD.
Rather than creating the model from scratch, the post house bought one
from Zygote (www.zygote.com), which specializes in creating very
accurate anatomical models.
More: http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/index.cfm?FeatureID=1713
Tony Stark's Red Carpet Blues
(goldderby.latimes.com) Robert Downey Jr. and Gywneth
Paltrow are earning some of the best reviews of their careers for a
"Iron Man." The first big budget special effects movie of the 2008
summer season scored a solid 78 at Meta Critic.
This comic-book-come-to-life would be the biggest hit of their
careers. Robert Downey Jr., a one-time Oscar nominee ("Chaplin"), and
Gwyneth Paltrow, the 1998 best actress winner ("Shakespeare in Love"),
won't be walking the red carpet at the Kodak Theater next February for
their work in this film. However, they are likely to compete for the
Saturn Awards, bestowed by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy &
Horror Films.
Indeed, Downey won best actor at the Saturn Awards for "Heart and
Souls" in 1993 and competed with "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" in 2005, losing
to Christian Bale for "Batman Begins." And Paltrow was a 1995
supporting actress nominee there for "Seven," though she lost to
Bonnie Hunt for "Jumanji."
And, of course, "Iron Man" will compete for lots of Golden Boys in the
tech races. On its visual effects team, for example, is Stan Winston —
who won Oscars for "Aliens, " "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and
"Jurassic Park" — and Daniel Sudick, nominated for "War of the Worlds"
and "Master and Commander. " Among the talent on the sound team is
Mark Ulano, who an Oscar for "Titanic. " J. Michael Riva was nominated
for best art direction on "The Color Purple. "
OpenRoadTV Visits Letterman Digital Arts Center
(openroad.tv) The OpenRoad.TV crew uploaded a new video
today, San Francisco's Presidio & George Lucas, which takes you to a
place not too many people think to visit when they are in San
Francisco. Part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the
Presidio covers 1,491 acres and was in continuous operation as a
military base from 1776 through 1994. On October 1st of 1994, the
Presidio was transferred to the National Park Service as it was no
longer needed by the United States Military.
In 1999, Star Wars creator George Lucas
won the development rights for 15 acres of the Presidio, where he
proceeded to construct approximately 900,000 square feet of offices to
house 2,500 employees. The new Letterman Digital Arts Center, named
for the Letterman Army Hospital that was previously occupying the
site, replaces the Industrial Light and Magic and LucasArts studios in
San Rafael. The video uploaded today at OpenRoad.TV gives you a very
special inside look into the creative genius of George Lucas and his
staff, which is a real treat since their offices are not open to the
public.
Take a look: http://openroad.tv/video.php?vid=310
