John Knoll on CGI, Tron And 25 Years of Change 194
StonyandCher writes to tell us John Knoll, visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic, is using the 25th anniversary of Tron as a platform to look back at the last 25 years of visual effects. "The type of imagery that was possible to create at the time was very clearly computer generated; it wasn't going to fool anybody into thinking it was live action. That was a limitation of the technology that worked very well within the story, that fit right in and made a lot of sense: if you're telling a story about events taking place inside a computer, inside a big virtual environment, what techniques should you use? Parts of the film were done by shooting live action then doing rotoscope and other optical techniques over the top of it, but the stuff that really looked cool and stood out was the stuff that was computer generated."
And passed over for an Academy Award... (Score:5, Interesting)
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And the monkey costumes in the first part of 2001: A Space Odyssey was passed over for the monkey suits from Planet of the Apes
The Academy would not know innovation if it bit them.
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Certainly, it did not come out before Tron, which was the first feature film to use computer animation. Willow was also not largely influential within the industry. In fact, it was largely seen as a counter-example for just about everything that it did.
Read the original question that your GP asked. He was wondering when computer effects become "not cheating" with respect to the perceptions of the Academy, and presumably of the effects industry. I really see The Abyss as the definin
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Not quite.
Tron more extensive usage of computer generated imagery, but it was beat by almost a decade by Westworld [wikipedia.org].
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I'm going to define that as meaning "What was the first movie nominated for a special effects/visual effects Academy Award(R), on the strength of the use of computer graphics for anything that wasn't meant to be a computer display?"
(The "on the strength of" qualification rules out, say, the star fields from Star Wars, which were largely incidental. The "non-computer-display" qualification rules out Westworld and Looker (not that they were nominated), and elements such as the hologram from Return of the Je
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The winners over the years were:
Re:And passed over for an Academy Award... (Score:5, Interesting)
The gurus that worked on the film said that this was the last movie they worked on that didn't use computer visual effects.
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I can confirm that, within the industry of computer-animation (which I was only loosely connected to in the late 80s), 1989 through the early 1990s was THE time to be entering that business, so it makes sense that it's when the result started being taken more seriously
Now, (Score:2)
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Now that I have young kids I have an excuse to watch it again. I love that movie because the story and such while good are fine, the muppet work is awesome.
-nB
Re:Now, (Score:5, Insightful)
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I remember watching Go Ranger (as it was called in the States then - Super Sentai in Japan, Power Rangers in the US after 1992) in the 70s and just being captivated.
Mazinger and Raydeen were also fun to watch. Never had anything about giant robots kicking ass in the states.
There was another show about a house robot called Robocon [japanhero.com] that I loved and I wish I could get my hands on some episodes. He had robot friends, each with a distinct
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THERE was a time when GOOD stories were told, and technology was used to push the story forward and special effects were not the stars per se.
Technology and special effects have been a part of film longer than the narrative. From the display of simple scenes where the draw itself was a moving picture, to other scenes where various film trickery are used to create optical illusions, technology has always been a featured star.
That doesn't mean special effects makes a particularly good movie. I also believe that story is important and truly great special effects are ones that are accepted so readily you forget that what you're seeing isn't real (
Tron (Score:4, Funny)
Come on Hollywood!
Re:Tron (Score:5, Insightful)
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There's been such an advance in special effects, that a special-effects-oriented movie could really be good.
Besides, I would like to see an update revolving around the Internet.
Then again, I liked Freakazoid, [wikipedia.org] so who knows what I want?
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Of course I'd like a new film sequel too, but only if it kept the same stark art style of the original.
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Now, a sequel, updated to the current environment, could go to CGI - especially with real actors mixed in - and look really good...
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hehe, so many jokes. The remake could be just a series of tubes. Or Tron just sits in YouTube all day. Subtitles would be required when playing a game as all the opponents speak l33t. etc.
Seriously, it could actually be quite interesting as the Tron of the 80's is not the same Tron of today. There could be a good way to incorporate social, economic, and global problems of today into the sto
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Re:Tron Remake ---The Matrix (Score:4, Insightful)
A rethinking of Tron is really the Matrix. Both concepts hinged on a person trapped in a computer and having to overcome the 'evil' technology that was abused in some way and returning it to human control. The Matrix is the natural evolution of Tron. Instead of a nice resolution where man gained control of the technology, in The Matrix control was never restored but man worked out a truce with machine. We've come from a place where we were unsure about the role of computers in the future to a time where we anticipate their power and understand that the genie doesn't go back in the bottle.
Both were masterpieces of their time that captured a culture's fears and anticipations of technology with cutting edge computer generated graphics which set the tone for the setting of the movie.
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Tron - box office flop (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure it's not because of the technology involved. I don't know -- maybe the story didn't grab people, or they felt like it was too juvenile. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't technique-related.
Re:Tron - box office flop (Score:4, Interesting)
At the risk of repeating myself [slashdot.org]: I'm convinced the biggest difference between Tron and Star Wars is John Williams [imdb.com]. Go ahead, hum the Tron theme. I'll wait while you try to remember it...
Music isn't the only difference, I'll grant. But I believe it is the biggest.
Re:Tron - box office flop (Score:5, Insightful)
Especialy those who played the game, who can't hum the tune of the
-coin insertion
-the MCP cone
-the spider sequence (which had about 4 seconds of screen time in the movie)
-game over
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I also have SOB2, WTC, and By Request with his name. The By Request album has his caricature.
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Do dee do dee dooo do do (da da da da da da)
Because it was too much of an "in" thing (Score:2)
By 1982, there were beginning to be a lot of people who could relate to that kind of story, but still not enough to make a movie a box-office hit.
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Tron- cutting-edge *TRADITIONAL* animation? (Score:2)
It was because, underneath the brilliant technology, it was pretty standard Disney fare. The Disney audience didn't appreciate the technology and those that did wanted better writing.
Very good point. The plot (as you imply) doesn't have much depth- it's ultimately just a cheesy fantasy. However (IMHO) the reason Tron doesn't really work as a Disney family film either is because the characters never come alive. You just don't care what happens to them... the wooden dialogue and acting just don't help.
I speculated on reasons for this in a much longer analysis of the film I did a couple of years back. [slashdot.org]
However, (as also mentioned in that comment), Tron has never been given the credit i
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Cindy Morgan's comment on this: "We were playing computer programs. We weren't supposed to be emotional!"
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Cindy Morgan's comment on this: "We were playing computer programs. We weren't supposed to be emotional!"
Well... you know, it depends how you view the film. The premise was that on some abstract level computer programs were "alive". Ultimately, this is fantasy as much as (say) someone becoming part of a story within a book is- perhaps moreso because computer programs of that time generally don't pretend to mimic human motivation or behaviour. (It's probably not worth overanalysing this aspect precisely *because* Tron is ultimately fantasy- in the general sense of the word- rather than sci-fi.)
But my point w
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I'm just boggled that you praise Star Trek as quality but bash Tron. They are quite similar in both style and content.
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- Theodore Sturgeon
- Jerry Sohl
- Robert Bloch
Maybe you don't know your 50s/60s Sci-Fi writers that well but there's three award winning authors for you.Re: (Score:2)
George RR Martin wrote (is writing) 'A Song of Ice and Fire' yes, but he also wrote 'Dying of the Light'
Orson Scott Card wrote 'Ender's Game', but he also wrote 'Folk of the Fringe'
Etc.
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Re:Tron - box office flop (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, so opinions vary over the quality of the writing but, objectively at least, Star Trek has the better pedigree.
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Saying "better" implies "relative to". Tron I guess. Star Trek had better writing than Tron, yes. Tron was horrible. But Star Trek is just bad. Better than Tron, but bad.
Honestly I could never understand why it gained such traction, maybe since it was first of its kind.
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But Star Trek is just bad.
YMMV and all that, but I think it's more fair to say that Star Trek is just uneven. I'd argue that the best episodes of the original series are, at least in terms of writing and ideas, as good as anything since. It's just that the worst episodes are, well, as bad as anything since. I can't think of any TV series offhand, including all of the subsequent Trek series, that were as wildly inconsistent from show to show.
And while I know we shouldn't be judging the special effects of 40 years ago (!) by today's
And in another 25 years... (Score:3, Funny)
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I remember... (Score:3, Funny)
Not quite there yet! (Score:5, Insightful)
And when Cgi characters jump off something and land on the ground, most of the time it doesnt look natural. I mean, are they even using earth's gravity acceleration of 9.8 m/s2????
Seriously, look at the scene from the first movie where Peter jumps from building to building. it doesnt look naturally he's falling too fast, and when he lands, the way his body looks when he lands just doesnt look natural. looks as if he just fell 3 feet. his body should have crouched/sunk more.
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I'm an animator, and I know that the more real the images look, the more real the characters have to move. As you approach 100% reality, that last 5-10% becomes a very very steep slope. It's not easy.
This is why I prefer making cartoons, you get to write your own laws of physics.
Re:Not quite there yet! (Score:5, Insightful)
When a character is stylized, the audience suspends it's expectations. How exactly does a character like Bugs Bunny move? We don't know because we've never seen anything like that in real life. So, the good people at Warner Brothers show us how Bugs Bunny moves and we accept it as reality.
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Now we get CGI that does the same thing. We
Re:Not quite there yet! (Score:4, Interesting)
He was using that theory to explain why the protagonists in Japanese anime and manga tended to be very cartoony, while the villains were more detailed. The lack of detail in the main character's appearance more easily allows the viewer to put themselves in that character's place, while the detailed villains provide a stark contrast and a clear division of identity.
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Scott McCloud explained it alot better in 'Understanding Comics'
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Or there should be a hole in the ground with a dead-from-the-impact spiderman in it.
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But a man being bitten by a radioactive spider and gaining arachnid abilities sits ok with you, as long as it's accurately portrayed on film?
Yes, movie physics is fake (Score:5, Interesting)
I know, but that's what directors want. I used to do physics simulation for high-end animation. Directors want an end state - they want the character to end up in some specified position. Sometimes one that's unreachable in the physical universe, let alone achievable with human muscle power. That's tough to do with a physics engine.
The way this is usually done in production today is to motion capture lots of motion, splice the bits of motion together, and edit the result manually. The result is some good motion and some bogus motion tied together. It looks bogus, but it's become a cinematic convention.
This really shows up in sports games. When EA runs an EA Football ad during an NFL game, you can tell from way across the room that the motion looks wrong.
Game-like motion has become enough of a cliche to be parodied. The opening scene of Tomb Raider has Angelina Jolie moving like a video game character, tucking and rolling while staying in a single vertical plane, just like the game.
There are many cinematic motion conventions that don't work in the real world. The classic is a car jumping across a gap. In reality, once the front wheels go over the edge, the car starts to rotate forward in pitch at a high rate. When you see a car jump in a movie, there are guides, ramps, extra wheels, and even pneumatic rams involved.
As for "the way his body looks when he lands just doesnt look natural. looks as if he just fell 3 feet. his body should have crouched/sunk more.", that kind of thing is sometimes done with flying rigs and high-speed computer-controlled winches. "Underworld - Evolution" did that. They record and debug the motion in a heavily padded gym, then play it back on the set.
Today, when someone does a tough stunt for real, nobody notices. There's a minor SF film which shows a woman running down the face of a 40-story building with a cable paying out behind her for support. A stuntwoman is really doing that on a real building. And for the bottom 30 feet, the star of the picture is really doing that, twisting to land on her feet and come out shooting. On the screen, it looks no different than similar things done in CG in other movies.
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Most of the time - no, they aren't. When there are realistic characters falling off something like the Titanic, then it's usually calculated at real-world physics because it has to look realistic, but when it's a CG character doing crazy stunts, then the animator just eyeballs it to make it look right, and then there are supervisors and directors that make the changes until the director's happy with it. Even when the background characters are calcu
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Spiderman is a comic character (Score:2)
I'm with you and agree to your point if you look at movies which are set in a realistic environment and the modified physics aren't part of the visual concept. But Spiderman (or Matrix or LOTR or...) is a bad example for your point.
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Similarly,
Tron had great design... (Score:5, Interesting)
If Tron had only had a good story, good acting, and hadn't opened against ET, this anniversary would have gotten more notice.
I remember in High School... around 02... (Score:2, Funny)
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CGI... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not like the old days (Score:2)
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Why do they have to erase wires? I would imagine they use green wires that would meld against the green background.. no?
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In meatspace movie making if you need a phone on the set, you buy a phone and put it there; in CG movie making you need to build the phone from scratch. Yes you don't need as much imagination on how to "pull off" a scene, but at the same time it lets you be more creative with the actual scene because you don't need to think about that. The Star Wars Jabba scene is a good example, they shot it as best as they could
Ummm... (Score:3, Informative)
On any major film, they will have all sorts of specialties. Some people just model, some people rig, some people paint textures, some people light the scene, some people manage the render farm, some people do the special effects, some do the composite, some people animate.
But, yes, it is an assembly line, and things are standardized as much as possible, but the assembly line does change a bit depending on the show.
Only on really small productions do you have one person
John Knoll (Score:5, Interesting)
So what were the milestones (Score:5, Informative)
Toy Story (and Geri's Game, which I think was attached to Toy Story)
This film really advanced the public perception that movies could be all-CG, and opened the door for all of the CG films that followed.
Terminator 2 (another Cameron film)
This was, I think, the first use of a CG character in a live-action film.
Titanic (Cameron again)
The impact on the public with respect to the computer animation was minimal, but on Hollywood it was a huge deal. The fact that the ship was regarded as realistic by so much of the audience opened the door for dozens of projects that replaced models and stock footage with CG. It was, arguably, the most realistic CG in film to that date, and changed a lot of directors' and studios' perceptions.
Anything anyone else can think of?
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I'll toss out a few more:
That Genesis sequence was quite an eye-opener.
The ballroom scene, while not technically so amazing, raised public awareness of CG in movies.
After seeing this, I thought effects shouldn't matter anymore because now anything was possible. It still bothers me when people talk about the great CG effects in a movie. Who cares (except for Sin City...and Sky Captain...and 300
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I think they used vector graphics on the display screens of the spaceships in 2001.
The Robert Abel canned foods commercial with the shiny woman robot was one of the first realistic human animations...
Luxo Jr was the first CG animated short nominated for an Oscar
Tin Toy was the first CG short to win an Oscar
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all rear projection of cell animation. the simplest and most economical solution at the time.
Pixar (Score:2)
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Wow. It's just stunning that CG in movies has been with us since the 1970s!
Wikipedia's Computer-generated imagery [wikipedia.org] article also backs my intuition up on the idea that The Abyss was the entry of CG into the mainstream for the film industry (not a
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Showed that a really bad film with lots of CG is still a really bad film
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Star Trek II is an excellent example. The whole genesis sequence was certainly a catalyst for some of the work that I saw happening on the technical side, even as late as 1989.
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I had high hopes for Tron 2. (Score:2)
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Yeah, it would have been like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, only, instead of well-inked expressionistic characters, there would be wire-frame solid-shaded polygon monstrosities. Not what I would call filmographically compelling.
Don't get me wrong, I liked Tron (and, FWIW, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?), but CGI wasn't at the time up to the challenge of realistically modeling CG objects in a 'real' environment convincingly. That didn't even really start to happen until The Abyss. Even simple surface light-shading
Tron anniversary release (Score:3, Funny)
The other six people in the audience made no sound.
Failed to Credit Triple-I (Score:3, Informative)
How did Knoll or the author manage to snub Information International Inc. (aka Triple-I) , the very people who created the graphics for TRON?
Most people will read this story and think ILM did the graphics for TRON.
Shame on you, Computerworld and John Knoll!
ALSO Magi, Robert Able & Assc., Digital Effect (Score:2)
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In case the name's not familiar... (Score:3, Interesting)
Light cycles (Score:2)
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