Ipod Renders

Ipod model, rendering practice

render 1

final gathering

global illumination
mental ray

image based lighting

Project 1

Homework 2 cont'd

3 things I found interesting about the history of special effects:

1) I found it interesting and very impressive, that special effects were used as early as 1899; in the Cinderella when the pumpkin is turned into a stage coach.

2) In as early as 1899 they utilized miniatures for special effects shots, in particular Albert Smith and J Stuart Blackton in "The Windsor Hotel Fire."

3) The movie Titanic featured over 450 effects shots, which were worked on by 17 different companies.

Homework 2

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4218826.html?series=6

arcticle summary

written by Matt Sullivan

published July 3rd 2007

"Transformers: The Best Special Effects Ever?"

George Lucas's company 'Industrial Light and Magic,' worked for two years tod develop plans and ideas that would be used in Transformers, to create some of the most believable and realistic looking special effects to date. The movie overall contains 50 transformations, each taking about six months to plan and put together. The digital production crew at Industrial Light and Magic faced several challenges along the way, as the movie's director, Michael Bay, hoped for energy-filled and groundbreaking CGI scenes.

ILM devised their digital effects using a backwards interface, giving the initial rigging control to the animators. They then produced their own software to deal with the flying camera angles that Michael Bay is known for. This helped them organize and handle the several different transformations throughout the movie. Animation supervisor Scott Benza explains that the process generally involved beginning with the final result (the end of the transformation) and work backwards, collapsing the character down into its initial position. Filling out the steps in between was a long and tedious process, as the ILM team had to devise realistic looking animations for more than 10,000 car parts. In 2006, the team travelled to autoshops and looked under the hoods of several cars, to draw sketches and achieve that most realistic looking CGI cars possible.

The animators were faced with the challenge of fitting all of these small car parts into the exoskeleton of the vehicle, and making sure that all pieces could move and fit together without collision. One notable transformation included 20,000 nodes in one movable rig.