#Hey, We Won!
13 messages in this thread
I agree about Jurassic Park! The best CGI I've seen in my life! Maybe my
wish-list items regarding skeletal/muscular animation/modeling will make it in
R4 <s>…
Anyway, I'm heading to the Great White North for the summer. Time to hang out
with the in-laws and play paleontologist for a while… The Red River Canyon,
exposing 150 miles of coastline from 75 MegaYears ago. I've been going there
every summer since '85. As one of the richest fossil beds in the world, is
badland heaven.
Yup, I'll be up there sittin' in mosquitoes, licking rocks all day…
Working on my new book "Cretaceous Carnival", about a small town, 3D Studio
animator that models the DNA of dinosaurs in the 3D Lofter, and sells the
information to a local carnival that clones a T-Rex to help power their ferris
wheel. The T-Rex however eats too much sugar from all the cotton candy the kids
keep dropping on him, and in a fit of energy breaks out of its chains. It then
hunts down the small town animator and eats him. Afterwhich ILM offers the
T-Rex a job in Marin County for a comfortable 80K a year. T-Rex makes the move
and moonlights on the side as a 3DS beta tester. The end.
I'm now accepting bids for the CGI required in the film version…
-MM
Hi Mike,
First, let me congratulate yourself, Martin, Greg, and everyone who contributed
to the "Carribean" project that won the awards! From the reports that I have
gotten, the project was huge, VERY well done, and delivered on an almost
impossible deadline. May you all bask in a little well-deserved limelight!! (I
hope I get to see the animation sometime…)
Re: Jurassic Park. Saw it last weekend and was awestruck at the breathtaking
CGI scenes. I believe I read that they were polygonized meta-ball – derived
objects. Anyway, it the a phenomonal juxtaposition of stop-frame, robotic, and
CGI that really blew me away — almost seamless!
Nice talkin' to ya, Mike. Hope you have a good time up north.
-Alan Iglesias
PS – If any of those White North mosquitoes bite ya just make sure that at
least one lands on a real sappy tree — that way someone can clone you in a
coupla' million years!<g>
Alan, I'm sure that if ILM used Metaballs for Jurrasic, they were only used on
10% or less of the total dinosaur work. Most of the models were spline models
modeled and animated in SoftImage and rendered with Renderman.
– G
Yeah, more than likley it was the articulated joints in the "hands" and feet
that got that meta-treatment. Can't wait to get a laser copy of the flic to do
some stop-frame investigation of the CG scenes…
-Alan
It could be nice to see some of that japanese METABALL stuff in upcoming
versions of 3ds. Have seen tons of experiments with that kind of modeling in
Imagina for years and it's amazing.
Ana
Mikey, are you an honest-to-goodness rock cracker? Wow! I cruise the local
Tennessee mountains occasionally and sit in the rock slides. Last Saturday the
kids and I found some great ferns (and some un-great chiggers!)
JKJ
Ah, Chiggers… I havent had that pleasure for a few years. I think the last
time was in '89 when I found some really cool plant patterns in the hills of
West Virginia. You can almost always find something digging around abandoned
coal mines.
-MM
Mike:
Have a great time! We really enjoyed seeing you at the Caddie awards
presentation, let us know when you are back in town!
Greg Pyros
Hey Greg
Congratulations to you and all who worked on the project. Although I have not
seen the animation, from what I hear and have read – not to mention the people
who were involved on the project – it MUST be great. I hope I get to see it
SOON.
Again CONGRATULATIONS!!
– Ralph Frantz
Just saw the animation today, Greg (and Mike and Martin)… Great stuff! I
especially like the fountain in the back garden and the INCREDIBLE number of
great-looking palm trees… ahh.. the Carribean, the sun, the sand, the wind in
the trees… <g>
We're definitely going to include highlights from the shot in the new video for
Siggraph. THANKS!
– G
Hey, glad you liked it! Especially since I did the palms, banana trees and the
fountains. It was funny that the client liked the courtyard fountain so much
that they had us re-render it so the camera would pause in front of the
fountain so they could see the water! So much for architectural details, giv'em
a great fountain, and they won't even notice the crooked, texture mapped
windows on the buildings!<G>
I think I managed to get those 3D banana trees down to about 70 vertices each,
which allowed us to plant them everywhere.
The best Hack however belongs to Martin. He performed the best 3DS slight of
hand I've seen with those chandeliers in the dinning/theater sequence. I would
love to blurt out his secret, but I'll have to leave that up to him. Martin
also did some great work in the ballroom, including a grand piano, low vertice
furniture, etc…
CU@SIGGRAPH -MM
70 verts for each of the palms, eh? That's GREAT. They looked pretty lush for
70 verts. <g>
C _U_ @ Siggraph 2!
– G
Gary:
Thanks for the kind words – we are all honored to have our work displayed in
the next Autodesk '93 Siggraph tape!
Greg Pyros