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Shrek 2 How-To 359

Posted by CmdrTaco from the look-at-the-perty-picatures dept.
mblase writes "Animation World Magazine has an article online about some of the technical hurdles Dreamworks Animation had to overcome in making "Shrek 2". With November's "The Incredibles" being Pixar's first movie to feature an all-human (er, superhuman) cast of characters, it's interesting to watch how these two studios push each other to the limits of computer animation."
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Shrek 2 How-To More

Shrek 2 How-To

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  • State of the art? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Patik ( 584959 ) *
    I don't know where anyone gets off comparing Shrek's animation to other movies, especially Pixar movies. The animation has nowhere near the level of detail as other animated movies. The textures are very basic and the facial expressions lack subtlety. Ice Age was simplistic but it had its own style; Shrek just looks like it was a half-assed effort.

    Mod this as a troll if you want, but I really wanted to like Shrek and it just couldn't compare to anything else on the market.

    • Re:State of the art? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Treker ( 192846 ) * on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:41PM (#9249331)
      I think Pixar is far superior to Dreamworks when it comes to fully animated movies. Dreamworks seems to be much better at special effects and environmentals. I think the two might be better off merging than competing in different areas.

    • Re:State of the art? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by lukewarmfusion ( 726141 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:42PM (#9249340) Homepage Journal
      I saw Shrek 2 last night and was shocked at the quality of animation. The textures, facial expressions, and especially lighting were all amazing. Certain scenes or shots were a little less impressive, but even in looking at the first five minutes (Shrek2.com [shrek2.com]} you can see the improvements they've made since the last one. It's also worth noting that there were huge improvements between Toy Story and Toy Story 2.
      • What's also really cool is that these "state of the art" effects actually move pretty quickly. These effects will probably be pretty dull in 2-3 years. By that time, most of these techniques will be filtered down to video games, starting to show up in home-based rendering packages, etc. It kinda goes back to yesterdays article about innovation vs copying in the workplace. Make you kinda wonder what will be next.

        --
        New deal processing engine online: http://www.dealsites.net/livedeals.html [dealsites.net]

        • Re:State of the art? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by malducin ( 114457 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:20PM (#9249790) Homepage
          To be fair I find these sort of comments amusing. It's almost like saying Tex Avery cartoons are dull because they look dated and crude compared to todays more complex cartoons and anime. After all 3D animated movies are also stylized visions, just like their 2D counterparts of yesteryear.

    • Re:State of the art? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by stev3 ( 640425 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `repsas'> on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:42PM (#9249346) Homepage Journal
      I personally thought that the facial expressions of the characters in Shrek and Shrek 2 were the best part of the movies. It gave it a character that most other animated films don't have (save for a few, most recently Finding Nemo).

      Shrek 2 was an amazing movie, and as a college student I and the rest of the group of ~15 people that went thourougly enjoyed it. It was funny, had an interesting story, and held our interest for almost 2 hours.

      I don't think your post is a troll, but I completely disagree with you.

    • Mod Parent Down (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Obviously employed by Pixar.

    • Re:State of the art? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Chaswell ( 222452 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:46PM (#9249398)
      Have you even gone to see Shrek 2? It is amazing, especially compared to the first. My wife and I love to go to movie openings, so we decided this time to take our 2 year old to Shrek 2 opening. He loved it, sat and watched the whole thing.

      Back to the animation, the atmosphere/environment in Shrek 2 is amazing. The hair, faces and movement of the characters is definately cutting edge. Please don't expect a sad sequel, Shrek 2 is much better than the first, in both animation and script.

    • Re:State of the art? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tar-Palantir ( 590548 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:47PM (#9249408)
      I don't know where anyone gets off comparing Shrek's animation to other movies, especially Pixar movies

      I'm not sure why you feel that way. I saw Shrek myself the other day and was quite impressed with the quality and detail of the animation. As far as I could remember, it exceeded the first in quality.

      The textures are very basic and the facial expressions lack subtlety

      What on earth are you talking about? Shrek wasn't going for subtlety anyway, but the facial expressions were quite well done. Same goes for the textures.

      Shrek just looks like it was a half-assed effort.

      120-odd million dollars worth of tickets disagree with you.

    • Re:State of the art? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by HarvardAce ( 771954 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:47PM (#9249414) Homepage
      While others may agree or disagree with your analysis of the technical feats of Shrek and Shrek 2, if you're going to the movie just for the graphics, then you're really missing out.

      The two movies are huge hits not because of their graphics (although it doesn't hurt) but because of their stories.

      People in general value good stories much more than good graphics. The same can be applied to the gaming industry -- while games with amazing graphics may sell well initially, they will only last until the next eye candy comes out a few weeks later. Games with solid gameplay will continue to be played for years (see Counter Strike for an example).

      Plus, they must have been doing something right with the graphics -- I've never heard an entire audience simultaneously sigh "Awwwww" because of a cartoon before (if you've seen the movie you know what I'm talking about).
      • "The two movies are huge hits not because of their graphics (although it doesn't hurt) but because of their stories."

        I doubt it. Take Shrek, make it live action, and you've got a box-office flop. The story just wasn't that strong. The movie basically had to be animated to be acceptable, being pleasant on the eyes made a huge difference, too. I'd be surprised if many people bought the DVD and watched it over and over and over again. If it had a stronger story, it'd survive that like Monsters Inc did.
        • Take Shrek, make it live action, and you've got a box-office flop.

          I agree with you here. However, I think the underlying reason is not because of the story, but because of the genre of the movie. I can't think of a successful fantasy/fairy tale live-action movie off the top of my head. Especially ones with talking animals.

          Most kids would rather see a cartoon than a live-action movie anyway.

          I will agree, however, that making it a cartoon does add a boost -- back in the 90's, everyone saw the new Dis

      • Re:State of the art? (Score:4, Informative)

        by PunchMonkey ( 261983 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:15PM (#9249728) Homepage
        I've never heard an entire audience simultaneously sigh "Awwwww" because of a cartoon before

        Nice capture for those who are wondering what Ace is talking about (and nice wallpaper for those who do):

        Puss in Boots [shrek2.com]

    • Re:State of the art? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by gowen ( 141411 )
      Maybe thats true, but Shrek had many things that "Monsters Inc" and "Finding Nemo" didn't have. Such as a good script, and funny jokes.
    • That's your opionion, mine is that the orginal Shrek would have been great even if it was drawn in ketchup. While people can oh and ahhh about the technical aspects of a movie, it's the basics that really make a movie great, the plot, the writing, and how the actors deliver their lines. Everthing Pixar has made fits the ketchup description as well.
    • "I don't know where anyone gets off comparing Shrek's animation to other movies, especially Pixar movies. The animation has nowhere near the level of detail as other animated movies. The textures are very basic and the facial expressions lack subtlety. Ice Age was simplistic but it had its own style; Shrek just looks like it was a half-assed effort."

      What? What about Shrek 2 was half assed? I'm a 3d artist, I can spot half-assedness in a movie like this, yet nothing stood out at me in that movie. It wa

    • Re:State of the art? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by prandal ( 87280 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:03PM (#9249588)
      The original Shrek lacked one piece of animation which really would have helped the animation's "reality".

      I don't know if they've learnt since then, but real people (and ogres, I presume) BREATHE. Their rib-cages move, even when they're just standing there talking.

      The trouble with "realistic" animation is that we're all going to expect it to be that real in the future. As the technology improves, so will our expectations grow.

    • Re:State of the art? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by eean ( 177028 )
      Your missing the point. Shrek is a cartoon. They're not trying to make a movie that looks like its Live Action (like Final Fantasy was trying to do). They initially tone down the detail.

      I thought they did a good job with the facial expressions given the kind of movie Shrek is. I guess it just depends.

    • Re:State of the art? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by sreeram ( 67706 )
      I have to agree with the parent.

      I just came back from watching the movie. I loved the original, and went into this sequel without a thought in my head other than "Cool!".

      But I was less than impressed. It's not just that the detail was lacking at times. There were serious defects in animation. There are scenes where the donkey is all out of proportion (as in, his "width" (z-axis in profile view) would be wrong). Other creatures too. For example, when Shrek and co. enter the "far, far away" kingdom, the hor

  • *whoa* Check out the ultra-wide smile on that dude (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:41PM (#9249330)
    Is he artificial too?

  • Shrek (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:42PM (#9249342) Homepage Journal
    For me, the best aspect of the Shrek 2 experience was the movie itself, not the locations, props or actors necessarily, but that whole experience. The graphics were just right, right enough to allow the experience of the film to come to life. That's what has been missing for so many years in animation. And that's why the tech is important so that the audience can see past the technology and get the point of the picture. I can see oscars for Shrek 2 and more than a few, methinks. It was splendid.

    • Mission accomplished.. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Mz6 ( 741941 ) *
      As part-time animator myself, I think that is probably some of the better compliments you can receive. If it's real enough to get passed that you are watching an animated film and bring your characters to life, mission accomplished!

    • Re:Shrek (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Too Much Noise ( 755847 )
      Well, the graphics were almost right. My major complaint would be with the animation of the "happily-ever-after-enhanced" Shrek and Donkey. They actually looked more like animated characters than their original forms. As for the movie itself ... unfortunately you might be right about Oscars. Myself, I'll stick to the first movie, thank you very much.

  • Interesting info... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mz6 ( 741941 ) * on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:43PM (#9249356) Journal
    "Of all the advances on this film, I think that our use of global illumination was the biggest technology breakthrough," asserts Bielenberg. "Ray tracing/global illumination/radiosity techniques have been out there for a number of years, but it has been price-prohibitive to utilize them significantly. For Shrek 2 we used global illumination for 80% of the shots. "It's our own renderer, and it's been re-written since the first Shrek. We developed a bounce light technique that --given a key light -- automatically computes the correct bounce light off of the other objects in the scene. If the light bounces off of a yellow wall, it will bounce back yellow in character.

    They re-wrote an entire renderer? Granted, Shrek is still behind some of Pixar's work but i've got to ask... Why not use some of the other renderer tools out there?

    • I don't know... the same can be said for ILM. Why don't they use one of the other renderer tools out there instead of their own?

      Ted
      • Because any decent renderer would have packed up and failed to render Jar-Jar due to a core dump in it's QoS code?
      • ILM uses mostly commercial renderers: mostly Photoreaistic RenderMan (PRMan) and now quite a bit of Mental Ray. But being on the leading edge they sometimes needed to render stuff that couldn't be done in any commercial app, like hair, they had their own renderer when first used in Jumanji, or their own particle renderer (pRender) which was used on Twister.

        They mostly use commercial renderers but for certain specific things they might still mix and match. You want to use the best tool for the job at hand.

    • Re:Interesting info... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by doconnor ( 134648 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:50PM (#9249457) Homepage
      I suspect that, given the effort required to make a movie, the cost of writing you own renderer, which you can have 100% control over, are pretty insignificant.

    • Re:Interesting info... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) * on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:58PM (#9249545) Homepage
      They re-wrote an entire renderer? Granted, Shrek is still behind some of Pixar's work but i've got to ask... Why not use some of the other renderer tools out there?

      ...well, if you're going to use a renderer to make an entire movie, you'll want several people on staff who understand the thing inside-out, upside-down, and in Pig Latin. In addition, if you're making an entire movie using computer graphics, you're going to have some pretty specific needs when it comes to tools, image quality/style, and rendering infrastructure/performance.

      Now. Consider the fact that you have millions of dollars at your disposal, some absolutely brilliant CG engineers, and a very clear set of needs and goals. Would you rather take an existing renderer, analyze it, tweak it, adapt it, hunt down bugs, et cetera--or would you rather simply build a system from the ground up? After all, you're going to need to be able to tweak things throughout, and if something goes wrong with the software, you could save days of debugging by using an internally-built system...

    • Re:Interesting info... (Score:5, Informative)

      by pdiguy ( 588801 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:01PM (#9249577) Homepage
      Yes, we rewrote an entire renderer :) We also use propietary software to do layout and animate characters, and our effects are about 60% propietary as well.

      PDI has been around since the early 80s, when commercial software was not really an option. Over time, we've amassed both a core of pretty cool technology and an r&d group to put it together. Face it, any project the size of Shrek will require lots of ad hoc software, and having total control over it is definitely an advantage.

      j

    • "Granted, Shrek is still behind some of Pixar's work but i've got to ask..."

      You sure about that? Pixar's previous movies weren't exactly bathing in global illumination.

      "Why not use some of the other renderer tools out there? "

      Shopping for other renderers is like choosing between buying a Ferrari with a 1 gallon gas tank, a school bus that only operates on certain roads, and a pedal powered hover bicycle that can fly over water. It's hard to find that renderer that's high quality, renders fast, and w

    • Re:Interesting info... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by malducin ( 114457 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:10PM (#9249667) Homepage

      They re-wrote an entire renderer? Granted, Shrek is still behind some of Pixar's work but i've got to ask... Why not use some of the other renderer tools out there?

      Because PDI is a mostly propietary place. They wrote their own renderer years before there was anything commercially available. As such they have an R&D team continually updating their infrastructure. Interestingly enough I saw a couple of PDI guys at the SIGGRAPH photon mapping course by Henrik Wann Jensen a few years ago in San Antonio.

      The upside is you don't have to wait for a commercial vendor to get those new features. They control their own destiny rendering wise. Witness for example how long it took Pixar to make Depp Shadow maps available in PRMan (something like 2 years) even though they had published a SIGGRAPH paper and were using it internally (for Monsters Inc.). Some clients were a bit upset about that.

      Dan Wexler used to write their renderer (he is now at Nvidia with Larry Gritz and those crazy Entropy guys). He has some interesting statistics on the first film:

      Renderfarm Statistics [flarg.com]
      Shrek Rendering Statistics [flarg.com]

    • Most big production companies like PDI and Pixar use their own tools. It gives them the capability of making the code do exactly what they need it to do without carrying overhead for things they don't need it to do.

      Maya and other commercial packages are wonderful tools, but they are generic and a specialty tool that fills the need will always be a better choice. An Indy car is a marvel of engineering but it will never beat a dragster in a quarter mile. Likewise the dragster will never beat an Indy car if t

    • Re:Interesting info... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Requiem ( 12551 )
      Yeah, it happens.

      I went to a seminar a week or two ago given by Byron Bashforth, a Pixar employee. He told us that Pixar h as a version of Renderman that's significantly different than the standard one. They make changes and improvements as they need to. Sometimes changes get rolled into new Renderman versions; other times, they're kept proprietary.

  • server animation? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    maybe they need to donate one of those powerful animation clusters to this website..

    slashdotted already.

  • mirrors? (Score:5, Funny)

    by astrokid ( 779104 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:44PM (#9249372)
    slashdotted already, you know.. for a group of people that never RTFA we sure do a lot of damage.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:47PM (#9249407)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Was it not DreamWorks that was behind pirates of the carabian?
      • Nope, Disney. And I believe they had ILM do the effects, but I could be wrong.

        • Re:Damn you Square! (Score:3, Informative)

          by malducin ( 114457 )
          ILM did half of the effects on Pirates of the Caribbean, including the skeleton pirates, miniature ship and water tank effects and a good deal of matte paintings, supervised by John Knoll. Charlie Gibson supervised about half the other VFX work done by about half a dozen other facilities.

    • Re:Damn you Square! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by dthree ( 458263 )
      I actually liked the plot of the FF movie. There were some clumsy parts, but I was pretty engaged, and I am no mindless-action-movie fan. What bothered me about FF was that they tried TOO hard to make the humans look real. I think animators are a long way away from being able to fool the eye into believing an animated movie of human characters is real, so the harder they try, the more we NOTICE how hard they are trying. The point is, I didn't think they needed to strive for human realism. The whole movie wa

      • Re:Damn you Square! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by GeckoX ( 259575 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:22PM (#9250569)
        You are totally correct, except I don't really think it is limited to humans, it's just that our brains are very highly tuned for reading each other, and thus it is hardest to trick our brains when we're dealing with human renders.

        Exact same problem as the HULK suffered from.
        They spent so much time making the renderings look 'real', that all they really did was prove to our minds, over and over again and again, how incredibly NOT-real it really was.
        Remember all of the studio hype about how much time, effort and detail went into just the hulk's eyes? Of course it didn't work because the hulk isn't even _real_, so our minds were just totally insulted by it all really. It would be a better movie by simply overlaying all of the 3D renderings of the hulk with simple 2D animation.

        Finding Nemo looked awesome (haven't seen Shrek2 yet, so bear with me, this works, I promise). They all looked like real fish and birds etc...no, no wait, they didn't at all. Fish don't have lips and talk and have facial features like we do. They have a HUGE amount of fish-like detail, but it's so obvious to our brains that they're cartoon characters that we aren't even remotely offended. They knew this too when they made Finding Nemo. Take a look at the actual human characters in Finding Nemo, they're designed to be OBVIOUS cartoon characters.

        Actually, on the DVD they talk about and show the process they went through to develop their water environment renderings. They came up with a water rendering system that produced near photo quality water-like environments (They looked incredibly real) They didn't use it though because it would have undermined every other rendered thing in the movie. They ended up redesigning it to render very nice cartoony water environments. Still gorgeous, but keeps the movie in the land of animation.

        Now try to imagine the same movie if they did everything they could to make it look 'real'.
        Sucks doesn't it?

    • Am I alone in wanting a completely computer-generated movie that looks real instead of cartoony and actually has a good plot?

      Well if that were the case why not film it as live action instead (and with VFX where need be). The only reason to do it that way is to prove it can actually be done.

    • What about blizzard (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Psymunn ( 778581 )

      Granted they've only ever done 2 minute long CG intros for their games, but Blizzards animation quality is almost unparraleled when it comes to game cinematics. If they ever got together and made an epic braveheart/gladiator style movie, entirely CG I think they could easily rival Pixar or Dreamworks. Not to mention bring the field to a more mature audience (even though everyone at college i know has seen shrek 2, monsters inc, finding nemo, etc.

      Of course, that's just my own personal dream...

    • Actiually, the animation in Final Fantasy wasn't all that good. Sure, people had realistoc skins with warts and acne and all other kinds of imperfections, but the character movement, especially the bad guy, were way off. Noone in that movie had any mass at all. FF made for great still images and some of the sequences were very impressive, but overall the animation wasn't very good.

    • Re:Damn you Square! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by wandazulu ( 265281 )
      While I agree with you, I think that a realistic looking CG movie is still a ways off. I saw the FF movie, and though the details of the face, etc., were pretty realistic, the movements were just awkward enough to prevent me from believing that this could have been, in some way, real.

      Audiences are very forgiving of a make-believe world in terms of character movement, but in a "real" movie (a world populated by humans in real human environments), any amount of unintential stilted movement is suspect, and I

    • Why Final Fantasy failed. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by El Camino SS ( 264212 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:44PM (#9250115)

      Pixar and Dreamworks, as far as I know, haven't tried to do a non-cartoony movie, but even with knowing how good their teachnology and artists are, it would be quite hard to compare to the level of detail the FF movie had.

      Look, it is CG. It is, for many years at this rate of technology, going to look like CG if you do the entire movie in it. You can either play with it or you can look like a clown trying to ignore it.

      I think that the biggest problem with Final Fantasy was the fact that it did look animated. There was too much seriousness going on with animated characters. It just didn't sell as a human drama. It wasn't a human drama. It WAS A CG DRAMA. This is the difference between the best film you've ever seen, and being up front row with the worst play you've ever seen. The play is still more immersive.

      The movie was, in a nut shell, as well thought out as one would making Shindler's List an animated movie... or telling Frank Zappa to keep it clean, straightforward, and don't go over anyone's head. Even Mizayaki doesn't try to give a 'most realistic looking people' project. And he does animation like a master.

      Final Fantasy the movie failed because it played to all of the disadvantages, and none of the advantages of the medium. ART is never about, "toning it down."

      "Let's impress people by how real we can make it."

      NO! NO! NO! Bad idea! Comics and animated characters are loved for their elasticity and style. You just don't try to make a style that is "indistinguishable from normal." That is playing to all of the disadvantages, and none of the advantages of the medium. Good actors don't try to be "normal." They try to be extraordinary. All good art tries the same.

      If they wanted drama, good acting, and suspense, they should stick with real actors.

      If you want unreality... elasticity... uniqueness... style and art, then you go with an animated medium.

      Final Fantasy was shortsighted. They thought the cutscenes in the game could be a movie. It is like saying, "let's remake the Godfather movies, but use CG instead of actors! Make it real serious! That'll show this CG is a serious medium!"

  • Google Cache of the article (Score:5, Informative)

    by CompWerks ( 684874 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:48PM (#9249434)
    Google Cache of the article [216.239.41.104]

  • Realism (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Paulrothrock ( 685079 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:49PM (#9249445) Homepage Journal
    I took my nieces and nephew to see Shrek (big mistake, now they all know what a thong is) and I was amazed at the realism. Granted, we weren't in very good seats, but more than once I thought they had taken a live human and composited him/her into the CG scene. It was really amazing.

    As CG gets more and more realistic, I think we'll start to see a different kind of movie star, one who can do excellent voice work instead of just looking daring/pretty/hunky/etc.

    • Okay, I don't have kids, but the annoying excuse for a poor mother who was sitting behind me when I was watching it (and yapping through the whole damn movie) did... and among her continuous commentary track, I caught her during the thong scene saying "what kind of movie is this?"

      What in the world is wrong with a thong making it something parents wouldn't want kids to know about? Of all the other stuff in that movie, violence, and the (make me laugh my ass off) scene where the three women were fighting to

  • Beware the French..... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:50PM (#9249449)
    There are several CGI movies [lycos.fr] comming out of France that look to blow away anything done in the US to date.
    • You're kidding, right? If you think for a second that these animators aren't exceptional at what they do, you've got another thing coming. How can you even start to compare the detail level in an animated movie to something that's supposed to be realistic?

      The point is that these movies (Shrek, Shrek 2, Monsters Inc) are modeled with the INTENTION to be cartoonish. Too much realism takes away from the fantasy aspect of it. Remember, they are still animated films. It'll be the same problem when games get too
    • Apparently you need flash or some other equally crappy plugin (even for the text stuff(?!), minus the left nav). i refuse to install it. how do the french say... piss off?

    • Re:Beware the French..... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Murphy(c) ( 41125 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @04:31PM (#9252280)
      Actually, no.

      The movie you linked to (Kaena) is already on DVD over here in the EU. I've seen it, and it isn't bad, really. But in all honesty, it's about as good visually as the Diablo2 Cutsceens.
      Well, ok maybe a bit better but the animation wasn't up to Pixar/Dreamworks level. And to me the worst part was that the story heavily relied on a form of water (some kind of goo) and it really didn't look all that good.

      So don't hold your breath for it, allthough it's still is entertaining.

      Murphy(c)
    • ... when the movie's water/liguid effects look like randomly changing goo. Gosh that was horrible, the human characters are expressionless and are reminiscent of what you would see on a saturday morning (3D) animated show.

      And let's not talk about the generic dialog in the trailer ...

      "To free her people ... a young girl, dares to defy the ancestral beliefs. Her name is "Kaena".

      LOL!

  • Animation is not necessarily realism (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bellyflop ( 681305 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:51PM (#9249462)
    Animation is not necessarily at its greatest when it is the most like the real world. Yes, Pixar did quite well with the modeling hair in the wind, etc., but that doesn't necessarily make for a better animated movie. It has to be a good mix of realism and fantasy.
    • I have a theory that people are more accepting of animated characters the less photo-realistic they are. The more realistic you make the character, the more our brains try to pick up on the subtle flaws that make us think, "that's not right, he/she's lying."

  • Different strokes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by solarwolf ( 755899 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:52PM (#9249478)
    Dreamworks and Pixar have both done very well with their CG movies, but they both have different styles and both have their own animation engines. They deserve a pat on the back for all their hard work.

    As an animation major (and a slashdotting girl) I enjoy almost all "cartoons" but I don't think the final product of CG should be ultimate realism. I like the direction Dreamworks and Pixar are taking - I call it "realism with style". If we wanted ultimate realism we could just film people, but it's the style, characters and the ability of the viewer to suspend belief that makes an animation special.

    Dreamworks and Pixar have both done excellent animations - if they're trying to be competitive I think it's all the better for us - we get twice as many good films. All I can say is that both of these companies are much better at creating sequels than Disney is.

  • Wired (Score:4, Informative)

    by skzbass ( 719269 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:53PM (#9249488)
    For a similar story about Pixars The Impossibles, check out the june edition if Wired, they should also have it on thier site, www.Wired.com

  • The ugly step sister... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RandoMBU ( 740204 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:54PM (#9249503)
    ...is Dreamworks.

    I liked both Shrek movies for what they were... funny movies that relied on a lot of good sight gags.
    Beyond that, Pixar is absolutely head and shoulders above DreamWorks in storyline, casting, (which is an underappreciated aspect of their films imo) and digital effects. Their movies are significantly more complete, better voiced, and more visually stunning than anything else, hands down.

    • Well it should be noted it's PDI/Dreamworks. Dreamworks is just the parent company (movie studio) which actually has 2 animation divisions: Dreamworks Animation (which did the 2D stuff like Spirit, Sinbad and the Prince of Egypt), and PDI (or Pacific Data Images) which was an independent studio, then Dreamwork acquired part of it until it got a controling stake and now owns it and is doing all the 3D animated films. Since Sinbad did poorly I think Dreamworks Animation might be shut down (don't remember the

    • Beyond that, Pixar is absolutely head and shoulders above DreamWorks in storyline, casting, ... and digital effects.

      That's really interesting and all but it doesn't matter. Box office matters. Shrek's opening box office numbers show DreamWorks/PDI are no ugly step-sister. We'll have to wait for Sharkslayer to see if they can make magic with something that isn't Shrek, though.

  • In Store Display (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rupert ( 28001 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:59PM (#9249552) Homepage Journal
    I walked into the local video store the other day and stopped, staring at the "life size" Shrek2 display. Every single hair on the donkey had been rendered. Fabulous detail.

    Obviously the donkey had the Frizzled6 [nytimes.com]gene, too.

  • Shame About Clothing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jameth ( 664111 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:06PM (#9249627)
    I haven't seen Shrek 2 yet, but the previews seemed lacking all-the-same. They just don't have fluid motion of clothing done yet!

    The best clothing motion I have seen to date is in the cut-scenes for WarcraftIII. Unlike other things, it not only had complex folding, it had complex clothing and robes as well.

    The clothing was the most dissapointing graphical aspect of Spirits Within.

  • How-to? (Score:3, Informative)

    by lightspawn ( 155347 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:06PM (#9249632) Homepage
    Shouldn't it be "the making of"?

    Or will reading it teach me enough to create a comparable movie?

  • Pushing what limits? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by vitalyb ( 752663 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:11PM (#9249681) Homepage
    With November's "The Incredibles" being Pixar's first movie to feature an all-human (er, superhuman) cast of characters, it's interesting to watch how these two studios push each other to the limits of computer animation."
    What limit are they "pushing"? Final Fantasy set all the limits, as far as gfx are concerned (not the plot though). Why can't Pixar and the FF group unite forces on this? They surely have a lot to learn from each other. P.S Not that I think that Shrek/ToyStory style of cartoons should be replaced. There's place for every genre.. But lets not call it "pushing limits".
    • From the Wired article.. take as you will:

      These days, Bird, like the rest of us, is a Pixar convert (and that footage is soon-to-be bonus material on an upcoming DVD). Outspoken and high-spirited, Bird calls himself "the first virus let into this climate-controlled atmosphere." His Pixar debut, The Incredibles - an action comedy about a family of superheroes roused to action after having hung up their spandex - screens later this year. It's the company's first foray into animated human protagonists, witha

  • Effects Ain't Everything (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eberlin ( 570874 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:13PM (#9249710) Homepage
    Alrighty, I admit it -- I went to Shrek 2 for the story and experience...not because I wanted to gawk at purtty graphics. Isn't that what movies are about?

    Let's face it, I saw Titanic, all the Jurassic Park movies, the Matrix sequels, and the Star Wars prequels for the effects. Not expecting a story...just give me the oohs and aahs and wows and I'll concede the plot. With Shrek, the animation was secondary to the writing. I mean even Banderas made for a good cat!

    Just making a point that pretty isn't always the best thing to have. If nothing else, the moral and plot of both Shrek movies tells us that.

  • Animation realism matters? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:14PM (#9249718) Homepage Journal
    The plot was so enjoyable that I lost most of the special effect described in the article.

    Ok, there are a level were animation could be so worse that you note the bad animation instead of the movie itself, and a level when is so good that you lose track of the movie and watch the animation (i.e. when Donkey now as a horse moves its head and you notice the hair animation).

    But the middle point, where what you are actually watching the movie and don't letting the animation distract you because is too bad or too good, should be the best approach (er, unless is desired to go at least once more to see the movie to watch the animation or certain effects more in detail, of course)

  • Honestly, I'm quite a critic of computer animation and Shrek 2 was outstanding. I think it even topped Final Fantasy in some aspects of skin quality and diffinately character animation. Sometimes I looked at things like walls and the fireworks and thought "I can't even tell". I think Dreamworks is already outdoing Pixar.

  • DreamWorks/Pixar bashing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pdiguy ( 588801 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:27PM (#9249884) Homepage
    Every time there's an online discussion about cg movies, tons of people are fast to jump on the bashing of either of the main players.

    PDI/DreamWorks vs Pixar, Ford vs Chevy, Pepsi vs Coke. Come on guys, understand that these are companies that make products with the intention you will buy them. That "customer faithfulness" rings silly in my mind, given that after all, we are the consumers and in general have little interest on the well being of those companies.

    For the record, the cg industry is a small one, and there's a lot of coming and going of people. I've been at PDI for more than seven years, and thus know tons of people working here who used to be at Pixar, and tons of people at Pixar who worked here and are my friends, and the same could be said about any of the other major cg companies. There's no inherent difference between the talent of people in one place or the other.

    j

  • What is with PDI/Dreamworks? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:46PM (#9250139)
    While I tend to prefer Pixar's style, you certainly cannot just discount PDI/Dreamworks' efforts. Shrek was a pretty good movie that brought an even larger audience to appreciate CGI movies. Antz certainly had its moments, especially the intro.

    Having said that... what is the deal with Dreamworks ripping off ideas from Pixar?

    I'm talking about Antz and the forthcoming Shark Tale. The Bug's Life/Antz controversy, as you may recall, caused quite a stir in the computer animation circles - I seem to recall someone at Pixar complaining about being the 'R&D dept. for PDI'. But now we have this other underwater movie, which seems an awful lot like it was inspired by Finding Nemo.. but with massive cash thrown at voice talent (check it out [sharktale.com]) and dumber-looking sharks.

    'Bruce' and gang from Nemo were much more interesting visually than this goofy Dreamworks clown-shark if you ask me.

    • The antz idea was stolen by someone that left pixar and had access to the script. And it came out first because of the interpolation techniques they used, instead of meticulous hand-designing facial expressions and such (rather, they used software to interpolate between the key frames).

      It showed, too. Examine the expressions of the faces in Antz, and compare them to A Bug's Life. Bug's Life has much more "alive" characters.

      I'm really surprised there weren't lawsuits.

      Other similar ideas, however, I sus

  • Animation quality (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Thieron ( 584668 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:49PM (#9250162)
    I went to the film to see the story. In the first few minutes I was amazed to see how much they've come along in the animation. The rain and water scenes where incredible. There was a bit of flash in there, where you can tell a toss of hair, etc was done just to play with animating it, but overall the animation was spectacular. Story wise, I found that it wasn't a good as the first movie, but entertaining enough with some good laughs along the way. What I think the discussion of Pixar vs. Dreamworks misses on is just looking at how much they both improve from film to film. In just a few years they've development new ways to animate the films that make the previous ones seem almost silly. For a techinical discussion, I think it would be more interesting to look at what they have done to improve the animation than whose is better. There is nothing like a good competition to keep this moving too. Shrek 2 shows that Dreamworks is keeping up and making sure to push Pixar. I wonder what we'll get to see when Shrek 3 or the next Pixar after incredibles comes out. Remember, this are animated movies. Realism isn't the goal, hell, Shrek stars an Ogre, a talking Donkey, Cat, and Gingerbread Man amoung others.

  • Pixar vs. DreamWorks (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Upright Joe ( 658035 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <eojthgirpu>> on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:01PM (#9250295) Homepage
    Well, I think there's going to be a Pixar vs. DreamWorks debate raging for a long time. I've seen all of Pixar's movies and most of the DreamWorks flicks that were computer animated, including Shrek I and II. I tend to try to stay out of these types of debates but I do have some opinions on this one.

    First off, I've felt that DreamWorks has been unfairly riding Pixar's coattails for a long time now.

    They find out about Bug's Life, they release Antz.
    They find out about Monsters Inc., they release Shrek.
    They find out about Finding Nemo, they start work on Shark Tale [imdb.com].
    (I would expect the announcement of a super hero flick really soon now.)

    It always came across to me as being a dirty practice meant to intentionally cause confusion in the marketplace and get people to see their movies thinking there was a connection to the Pixar films.

    Secondly, I feel DreamWorks' stories are lacking - particularly when it comes to Shrek I and II. To me, watching Shrek was like watching the best of Saturday Night Live. There were lots of short parody bits, many targetting Disney movies or traditional fairy tales - most targetting current pop culture. I think that between these bits and the modern pop music, these movies are not going to stand the test of time well. In my mind, they were well worth the ticket price at the theatre but I wouldn't dream of purchasing them on DVD.

    As for the quality of the animation, I think anybody would be hard pressed to say that Shrek I and II weren't extremely well done. They were certainly cinema quality productions. I still think Pixar does it better though. There's something about the movement of the characters in Pixar movies that is more emotionally expressive and natural looking. It's just a tad more polished and artistic than the DreamWorks stuff.

  • not as good as 1st (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bark ( 582535 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:13PM (#9250455)
    I felt that Shrek 2 wasn't as good as the 1st one, in script, and in style. Never mind about animation, that's not very important.

    Many things in Shrek 2 have the potential to be great, but the ideas weren't fully realised. I loved how the environment in the original shrek brought the world of story books and fantasy stories alive. In Shrek 2, the only thing that captured my imagination was the fairy god mom's factory. Everything else is not as detailed / well developed as I would like.

  • But it's not getting cheaper (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @04:20PM (#9252148) Homepage
    The big headache with all this is that the technology isn't making animated features cheaper. The project headcounts are still huge.

    A few years ago, when I was peripherally involved with the effects industry, everybody was looking forward to the coming era of low-budget effects. "Reboot" and "Starship Troopers" (the TV show, not the movie) seemed to herald the beginning of a new era of feature films at TV production prices.

    Didn't happen. The first problem was with live-action directors who didn't understand the inflexibility and costs of CG. As one art director with experience from the pre-computer era put it, "now you can make changes until you run out of money".

    Then came the "no limits" problem - "Let's have a drive-through of ancient Rome". Speilberg started it with Jurassic Park, and now everybody expects it in every film. Minor directors plan shots DeMille would have envied. And somewhere, a modelling department has a hundred people busy for months, often for less than a minute of screen time.

    The result has been $100M animation budgets. Even "Sky Captain", which was supposed to be a low-budget effects movie, is headed towards that figure. (The production team screwed up, and now ILM is bailing them out. ILM makes a sizable fraction of their money bailing out the botched productions of others.)

    It's not about compute power. It's a labor cost issue. It still takes too many bodies to do this stuff.

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