-Sources
http://www.creativebloq.com/3d-tips/cgi-movie-moments-1234014
Some great links about CG films, Why you should watch them and some information on each one! Very Useful!
Jurassic Park
Industrial Light & Magic scanned in chunks of a model dinosaur to create patch meshes,then used custom program “SOCK” ( Surface Original With Continuous sKIN) developed from Terminator 2,to create an overall mesh.
A new app called “Envelop was also created enabling the underlying points to be manipulated,either by hand or driven by other geometry- thus recreating the effect of muscles beneath the skin.
Both “Alias PowerAnimator and Softimage Creative Environment 2.0 take credit for the animation in the movie,the latter employed because of “CHAIN” , the first commercially available IK system.
Finally a Dinosaur Input Device (DID) was developed by “Craig Hayes” of Tippett Studios. Built just like stop-motion armatur,this rig translated movement into key-frames,enabling stop-motion artists to use their skills.
Lord of the Rings-The Two Towers
WETA
Gollum
“Very first time an actor’s performance and digital animation were combined to make one lifelike CGI movie character. The Gollum head model consisted of just over 2,600 polygons.
Raitt also created tools that exposed 64 control points to animatoin artists, who animated Gollum into the films scenes.
Andy Serkis – Supposed to voice Gollum but witnessing his extreme facial expressions, they scrapped their first model and instead captured Andy’s movements instead. Was a monumental moment in CG history and Andy has gone onto work with the same methods as Caesar in the new Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, King Kong, Gollum in the Hobbit, and has even opened his own Studio in the UK.
Andy Serkis Performs Gollum Scene
Bringing Gollum to Life
Terminator 2
After tron, effects were the most ambitious since the 1982 release of Tron. Although the CGI scene takes up only 5 minutes of the film it took the 35 animators,technicians and artists 10 months to create!
Cyberscan- ILM used laser scanning technology to project a laser beam across the face of Robert Patrick and video cameras to build up a 3-D database.
Robert’s distinctive walk and run were also recorded and studied vigorously to make the T-1000 realistic as possible. Won Oscar for Best VFX in 1992.
King Kong
Ground breaking special effects for its time. This Kong was impeccably detailed and photo realistic, right down to the individual hair follicles and scar tissue. WETA took on roughly 25% more people to create King Kong. The team used a Maya,Renderman and Shake pipeline.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Caesar,composed completely inside of a computer ( with Setkis providing the motioin and facial acting on set) and was the most photorealistic CGI animal to be ever put on screen. ( Used a chain of fur, texture,lighting,modelling etc).
They Incorporated mo-cap in live action,( actors on set). First in such a large Scale ( Golden Gate Bridge)
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Interview with;
VFX supervisors :
Erik Winquist,
Dan Lemmon
Director: Matt Reeves
- How did you build a better Ape?
Erik Winquist WETA
“Change to the fur system, brand new. Then the facial system: the animation system in this film,well in rise we only saw Caesar say “NO!”… that was kind of it. Though in this film he speaks…; a couple of apes actually, because of that dialogue requirement,the facial system we had…wasn’t quite gonna cut it. Characters had to go back for a bit more work,especially around the muzzles.”
Matt Reeves
“The thing that happened between Rise and our film (Dawn) is that WETA has taken a quantum leap forward.”
“Using motion-tracking cameras, tracking markers and witness cameras, to capture all of the detail of the actors performance…”
“Huge help,active body marker strands (suits) so you could velcro that to performers and they could roll around,fight..etc.”
Dan Lemmon
“The hair simulation,the skin simulation,the moisture simulation, everything that they do in terms of the apes bodies is so much more realistic.” ( Wet fur, Fur on Fire).
Behind The Screens – A mini documentary looking at the amazing visual effects work from Weta Digital and phenomenal motion captured performances from Andy Serkis and Toby Kebbell on Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes
The Hobbit- Creating Golum- WETA
(Imaged based facial performance capture- Sensors to face and body)
They had years to develop Gollum, from creating other characters in between, e.g King Kong. Created a new system called “TISSUE” that allows them to show all the muscles movement from skeleton to skin. Sub Surface Scattering.
Animatronics TO CGI (Computer Generated Imagery)
Animatronics – Jurassic Park, Largest one which was the T-Rex ( Robotic Skeleton)
CGI- Allowed to create anything from a computer program- Humans to aliens,monkeys and even BLOODY DRAGONS!
Smaug-Benedict Cumberbatch
Actor has active body markers and wears a helmet that holds a camera about 8 inches from the face. It captures movement in a 2-D image and then its fed into a “solver” to guess what muscles are moving.
Aidan Scott Animation 