#StarGate
11 messages in this thread
If you can take in the feature film StarGate with Kurt Russle and
James Spader (and Jay Davison), and you think the Mask/Body Armor
effects are cool…they were done with Elastic Reality.
The "Jig Saw" mode in our Windows (and SGI) versions was specificly
developed in support of the creation of this film. One of the
examples of how our cooperation with Hollywood studios benefits
desktop users.
What kinds of other cool effects do you have up your sleeve? 🙂
Yowser!
Hello.
I imagine the effects for the movie were created on the SGI machine, and do you
think something created in the Windows version could transfer with decent
quality to film or video?
Yes, I do. When the software being used is identical, and the
resolutions are kept the same, the only difference between rendering
on a PC and rendering on another platform is the time it takes to
render. In preparing Elastic Reality for Windows, for example, one of
the validation tests we used was to render the same test frames from
the same projects running on the SGI and a Windows machine. The
resulting frames were subtracted one from the other (actually, they
were differenced) and the results inspected. Any difference between
the two versions would be revealed in this manner.
As for rendering time, certainly there is a LARGE difference between
100 and 150 MHz R4000s, R4400s and R4600s, and a 66 MHz 486. But as
you shift into the Pentium range the difference is reduced a great
deal with a 90 MHz Pentium executing faster than a 100MHz R4000, for
example. Once MIPS and PowerPC based Windows machines are factored
in, the differences in rendering time become very fuzzy.
In actually transferring to video, there would be no difference at all
since the same techniques (our Abekas driver for example) are
available on both platforms.
In transferring to film, you'd probably have to transfer PC rendered
images through another platform for actual motion picture film
recording. This could be as simple as being on the same network, or
by writing a TAR tape, or even removing your harddrive and placing it
on a Windows NT machine which is one the same network as the motion
picture film recorder.
And as a last comment, the proof-is-in-the-pudding. There's a couple
of movies in current release which had some shots run on our PC
version as the post-houses tested the product to make sure we did our
jobs right.
Perry (off on an extended Comdex trip – thanks for asking!)
Thanks for the answer Perry. I'll try to stop by the ER booth at
COMDEX. Unfortunately I'll only have two days at COMDEX this year,
and it's got to the point where not even in the whole week you can
see everybody and all the things you want to check out.
>>and you think the Mask/Body Armor effects are cool…they were done with
Elastic Reality.<<
Very cool indeed! I saw the movie this past Sunday and really liked
the effects! Will you folks have a booth at COMDEX? I'd like to make
sure to drop by and get a personal demo!! (Hawaiian Coffee or
Chocolate Macadamia Nut bribes available)
I'm an architect currently trying to make the transition into a
professional producer of animations. I just completed my first one
using Stratvision 3D on a powermac. Is there any way you can compare
the power of Elastic Reality to this one? Does ER run on the mac
platform? I'll have to go swee the film. The clips in the
commercials are impressive.
ER does run on the mac. In fact, when it first came out, I saw it for
about $99. If you want to check it out, you can download a demo of in
the Graphics Plus+ area, or direct from them.