Contents Zoom In Zoom Out For navigation instructions please … · 2013. 8. 1. · on the latest CG happenings. CGW.com also features the Animation Mentors, where top animators who

®

W O R L DComputer

T H E M A G A Z I N E F O R D I G I T A L C O N T E N T C R E A T I O N A N D P R O D U C T I O N

$4.95 USA $6.50 Canada

King Kong’s larger-than-life effects

The Power of XThe Xbox 360 defines a new era in gaming

Dragon QuestAdding digital magic to Harry’s latest adventure

Starting a StudioIf you build it, will they come?

Gorilla Tactics

January 2006 www.cgw.com®

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COMPUTERCOMPUTER

GRAPHICS WORLDGRAPHICS WORLD

to a friend!to a friend!

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ILLUSTRATIONARCHITECTUREPHOTOGRAPHYCOMPUTER ARTS

NEW MEDIA GRAPHIC DESIGN

INTERIORARCHITECTURE

& DESIGN

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© Copyright 2005 Alias Systems Corp. All rights reserved. Alias, the swirl logo, Maya and MotionBuilder are registered trademarks and the Maya logo is a trademark of Alias Systems Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

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T H E M A G A Z I N E F O R D I G I T A L C O N T E N T C R E A T I O N A N D P R O D U C T I O N

W O R L DComputerAlso see www.cgw.com for computer graphics news, special surveys and reports, and the online gallery.

w w w . c g w . c o m JANUARY 2006 Computer Graphics World | 3

Departments

Editor’s Note 4

Kong is King, Again

CG continues to proliferate at the box offi ce, thanks in no small part to the cutting-edge effects in King Kong and Harry Potter. As a result, opportunities abound for artists and animators, some of whom may be tempted to open their own shop.

Spotlight 6

Products

D2’s Nuke 4.5

Avid’s Liquid product line

ATI’s Radeon X1800 XT

Iridas’s SpeedGrade Onset

Services

Nice Shoes’s Nice Spots Web-based media exchange for project review and collaboration

Tech Viewpoint 8The Bleeding Edge

Workstation vendors push technological boundaries in order to get an extra step ahead of their competitors.

Portfolio 32Human Modeling

Review 34Luxology’s Modo 201

New+Improved 36

Backdrop 40Out of Water

Features

Cover storyLong Live the King 16FILM | Director Peter Jackson challenged Weta Digital to think big while creating the effects in King Kong. The studio answered with a breathtaking jungle setting, an authentic 1930s New York City, and Kong himself.

By Barbara Robertson

Let the Games Begin 22GAMING | By taking advantage of the industry’s latest breakthroughs, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console is changing the look and feel of game graphics.

By Karen Moltenbrey

A Draconian Test 26DIGITAL EFFECTS | ILM uses its digital magic to conjure up a fi ery dragon in the latest Harry Potter adventure.


Starting a Small Studio 28BUSINESS TRENDS | Want to be your own boss? Owning your own VFX studio can be rewarding...and challenging.

By William “Proton” Vaughan

On the cover:Pushing the technological envelope,

Weta Digital crafts the great ape

Kong in this epic remake. See pg. 16.

16

January 2006 • Volume 29 • Number 1

See www.cgw.com for a more

in-depth version of this article.

[email protected] story exclusives:

The Cutting EdgeProfessional media creators continue to embrace the Mac platform as acost-effective way to easily create highly stylized video.

Self-Promotion: Part 3This series for digital artists continues with getting noticed by way of users groups.

Trial By FireIndustrial Light & Magic creates the fi re for Harry Potter’s digital dragon, using a novel simulation engine that evolved from the studio’s collaboration with Stanford University.

Workstations with ‘The Look’Want more than just blazing-fast processing? We found workstations that offer cool components coupled with a stylized look that any CG artist will appreciate.

22

26

Image courtesy Weta Digital / Universal Studios.

28

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KELLY DOVE : Editor-in-Chief

[email protected]

KAREN MOLTENBREY: Executive Editor

[email protected]

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS:

Jenny Donelan, Audrey Doyle,

Evan Marc Hirsch, George Maestri,

Martin McEachern, Stephen Porter,

Barbara Robertson

SUZANNE HEISER: Art Director

[email protected]

DAN RODD: Senior Illustrator

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Computers & Electronics Group

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4 | Computer Graphics World JANUARY 2006 w w w . c g w . c o m

editor

’sno

teKelly DoveEditor-in-Chief

Kong is King, AgainAs I sit down to write this, it’s not quite 2006. In fact, it is exactly one day, 17

hours, 24 minutes, and 52 seconds before the premiere of King Kong. As you

might expect, I can hardly wait to get in line.

Academy Award-winner Peter Jackson’s highly anticipated remake of

the 1933 cult classic King Kong is set to take us, once again, into the mind

of a visionary fi lmmaker whose penchant for great storytelling and eye for outstand-

ing CG and visual effects brings back the Kong-mania moviegoers must have expe-

rienced more than 70 years ago.

The merchandising for Kong is defi nitely feeding the frenzy. Now, not only can

you carry Kong in your pocket in the form of a credit card, you also can download

Jackson’s offi cial behind-the-scenes postproduction diaries or buy them on DVD, and

purchase stop-motion armature prop replicas, in case you want to make your own

Kong-based creation someday. Game publisher Ubisoft is fueling the gorilla madness,

encouraging gamers on every platform imaginable to “Play as Man. Play as Kong,” in

Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Offi cial Game of the Movie.

This month, CGW does its share to spotlight Kong, as contributing editor Barbara

Robertson details the making and grooming of this magnifi cent CG creature in “Long

Live the King” on pg. 16.

Kong is but one of the many CG effects-laden fi lms debuting this holiday season.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which is being heralded in the media as the best movie

yet in the popular J.K. Rowling series is also featured on pg. 26 with a technology Q&A

with Tim Alexander, visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic, discussing

the creation of water and cloth simulation for the movie (pg. 40).

As CG continues to proliferate at the box offi ce, the desire for artists and animators

to break into the business of delivering visual effects for fi lm, games, and entertainment

continues to grow. Some may even be considering launching a small studio. Undoubtedly,

business ownership can be extremely rewarding, or heartbreaking-

ly defeating. This month, in the fi rst of a two-part series, William

“Proton” Vaughan offers advice to those interested in making the

leap. See “Starting a Small Studio,” pg. 28.

As we move through 2006, Computer Graphics World will

continue to deliver the award-winning behind-the-scenes cov-

erage of Hollywood CG that we’re famous for. We will feature

stories designed to help you get ahead in the business, technol-

ogy articles and product reviews, so you can make informed hardware and software

choices, and hands-on tutorials and how-to articles designed to inspire and guide

you through the creative process. And, if you haven’t been to CGW.com lately, you

really should visit. Each month, you’ll fi nd Web exclusive stories that you won’t fi nd

anywhere else, along with daily news and reviews that will help keep you current

on the latest CG happenings. CGW.com also features the Animation Mentors, where

top animators who paid their dues at high-profi le visual effects studios answer your

questions about making it in the CG business.

Drop in and visit us online, quiz the Animation Mentors, send us your artwork, or

just get in touch with us. In fact, you can reach me directly at [email protected].

And don’t forget to let me know what you think about Kong.

Outstanding

CG and visual

effects help fuel

Kong-mania.

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6 | Computer Graphics World MONTH 2005 w w w . c g w . c o m

spotlightC O M P O S I T I N G A D V A N C E M E N T S

P O S T P R O D U C T I O N

Your resource for products, user applications, news, and market research

PR

OD

UC

TS

SE

RV

IC

ES

Nice Shoes, a full-service postproduction and new media

facility specializing in commercial work, has launched

Nice Spots, a pay-as-you-go hosted Web-based application

for media exchange. Nice Spots allows users to exchange

media for review and collaboration on rough cuts and

fi nal edits regardless of a person’s geographic location.

Nice Spots can be used for every phase of the audio

and video creative process, including archiving and

retrieval, viewing and commenting on casting tapes,

location scouting, and dailies. When postproduction is

complete, Nice Spots archives the fi nished master, result-

ing in a stored fi le that can be used for dubbing or broad-

cast. QuickTime and Windows Media fi les are provided

for viewing and download. The service allows agencies to

avoid the costs and hassles of sending electronic data via

commercial delivery services or in a backpack strapped

to a bike messenger.

Nice Shoes, Nice Spots

D2 Software, a division of Digital Domain, has enhanced its

Nuke compositing system once again. Nuke V. 4.5, which

is now shipping, supports Linux, Irix, Windows, and Mac

platforms, and includes a lengthy list of upgrades such as

an image-based keyer, a new UI mode, support for Mac

OS X and OpenFX, and more. The new image-based keyer

gives users more fl exibility when pulling high-quality keys,

allowing artists to work on each color channel individually.

The keyer includes specialized tools to improve matte edges

and reduce the halo effect, which is common in bluescreen

and greenscreen footage. Nuke V. 4.5 also introduces a new

user interface work fl ow, the ability to save layouts, and a

new control-panel bin to manage window and property dia-

log boxes. Support for OS X and the OpenFX plug-in archi-

tecture allows artists to use plug-ins from companies such

as The Foundry and Primatte. Nuke is priced at $4495; addi-

tional render nodes cost $745 per seat.

New Ways to Get Nuked

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w w w . c g w . c o m MONTH 2005 Computer Graphics World | 7

B E N C H M A R K I N G C O L O R G R A D I N G

N O N - L I N E A R E D I T I N G

PR

OD

UC

TS

PR

OD

UC

TS

PR

OD

UC

TS

Avid Technology’s new Avid Liquid

product line is a suite nonlinear edit-

ing software and hardware offerings for

event videographers, government and

corporate video producers, and high-

end enthusiasts.

Drawn from editing products

formerly developed by recent-

ly acquired Pinnacle Systems,

the Avid Liquid family includes

new versions (V. 7.0) of the Avid

Liquid and Avid Liquid Pro sys-

tems. Both systems offer new fea-

tures for users who want a single

application for the creation and

delivery of either tape, DVD, and

streaming media.

Avid Liquid builds on previous

Liquid features, including native HDV

editing, GPU-accelerated effects, back-

ground rendering, Dolby Digital 5.1 sur-

round audio with AC-3 encoding, DVD

creation directly on the video-editing

timeline, and I/O hardware. New fea-

tures include custom music creation

capabilities directly inside the applica-

tion; native editing of popular codecs,

including WM9, DivX, and MPEG-4 for

repurposing and output of content to

the Internet; effects such as Timewarp,

Stabilize, Dream Glow, and over

50 plug-ins from the Commotion

effects suite; native HD and SD edit-

ing on the same timeline without

transcoding; and Preview HDV in

SD with Avid Liquid Pro.

The Avid Liquid family runs

on Windows XP, and pricing for its

various incarnations range from

$499 to $11,995, with discounted

upgrade paths for users of Pinnacle

Liquid products.

Avid Flows Forward with Liquid

ATI’s Radeon Gets OverclockedIn October, a group of overclockers in Pori, Finland, made

history by pushing a graphics processor engine to clock

levels over 1 GHz on the recently-announced Radeon X1800

XT graphics processor from ATI Technologies. The total

speed of the processor reached a clock speed 1.003 GHz

and a dual data-rate memory speed of 1.881 GHz, all with

system stability and no visual artifacts. The team kept the

rig cool using a custom-built liquid nitrogen system that

chilled the graphics

system to minus 80

degrees Celsius.

ATI expects users

to see the potential of

the company’s new

memory controller

design that comple-

ments the GPU’s shader engines with additional memo-

ry-clock scalability when faster GDDR-4 memory arrives

The Radeon X1800 XT’s clock-scaling capabilities are made

possible by the use of a 90-nanometer semiconductor pro-

cess technology, a new ultra-threaded Shader Model 3.0

architecture, and a 512-bit ring-bus memory controller.

SpeedGrade OnSet Goes ProIridas, a company delivering non-destructive color-grad-

ing technologies for the fi lm industry, is offering a new

edition of SpeedGrade OnSet. Along with a number of

interface enhancements, SpeedGrade OnSet Professional

Edition includes mask tools, split-screen modes for A/B

comparisons, image scrubbing, and scene-based shot

organization, among other new features. The Professional

Edition also introduces support for calibration LUTs and

will be offered with the new CineSpace OnSet application

from Rising Sun Research. The idea behind the product

is to allow cinematographers to develop creative looks in

a fully calibrated environment.

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Kathleen Maher is a senior analyst at Jon Peddie Research, a Tiburon, CA-based consultancy specializing in graphics and multimedia, and editor in chief of JPR’s “TechWatch.” She can be reached at [email protected].


Tech

view

poin

t

By Kathleen Maher

off-the-shelf components, add workstation-specifi c features such as custom cooling,

massive amounts of RAID and ECC memory, and advanced graphics boards for sell-

ing products branded as workstations for considerably less money than RISC- and

Unix-based alternatives.

Windows-based workstations are the most common on the market today, which

is where a majority of the innovation is taking place. According to Jon Peddie

Research’s Workstation Report, Windows-based workstations account for 92.6 per-

cent of the workstation market. But there is a lot of room for differentiation with-

in the classifi cation of a Windows-based workstation. The brief dominance of x86

processors is giving way to the X86-64 processors, and single processors are losing

ground to dual-core alternatives. In fact, AMD is planning to introduce quad-core

processors in 2007.

The 4-bit Itanium is hanging in there, and for some people, Itanium workstations

defi ne bleeding edge. The Itanium has a place in server systems and high-perfor-

mance computing, but as the successor for RISC/Unix workstations, it has failed to

fi t the niche it was once designed for. It seems customers and developers alike real-

ly took to the idea of X86-64. The 64-bit platform lets customers transition to 64-bit

applications as their applications are ported; and developers will port applications as

soon as there are enough customers using the X86-64 platform.

AMD has the biggest advantage at the moment. Not only did the company get

a head start with its X86-64 processors, but the company’s DirectConnect architec-

ture puts the memory controller on the processor, while its HyperTransport technol-

ogy lets the processors share and access memory between controllers. Data gets to

and from memory faster—and for many applications, especially graphics—that’s

extremely enticing. To counter AMD, Intel has relied on HyperThreading. The com-

pany announced plans for a processor architecture similar to AMD’s, but those plans

have been delayed, giving AMD some breathing room. Intel in fact, had to rush its

Is there any term more accu-

rate than “bleeding edge” when

talking about workstations? It

seems there is bleeding going

on everywhere in the industry.

Vendors, locked in fi erce com-

petition, are pushing technology just to

get a few benchmark points ahead. And

certainly, graphics professionals battling

deadlines and escalating pixel resolu-

tions are bleeding all over the place.

The workstation has

undergone a profound

evolution in the last

decade. Once the unas-

sailable domain of Unix/

RISC systems, the work-

station classifi cation now

includes machines based

on processors from Intel,

AMD, IBM/Apple, Sun,

Hewlett-Packard, SGI-

MIPS, and even Alpha,

the fi rst 64-bit processor,

is still being put to work.

The list of operating

systems includes Unix,

Linux, Irix, Windows,

Mac OS, and Solaris.

In the past, vendors

such as SGI, Sun, HP,

IBM, and Fujitsu built

highly-tuned and opti-

mized workstations

with proprietary compo-

nents including proces-

sors, chipsets, graph-

ics subsystems, and

operating systems. Alas,

those days have ended

with the rise of com-

modity strategies that

allow companies to buy

Workstation

vendors are

locked in

fierce battle

to get a few

benchmark

points ahead.

The Bleeding Edge

SGI’s fl agship Prism visualization machine redefi nes workstation technology with scalable

modular bricks for high-performance processing and graphics.

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Introducing

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InspireYou are the creator. You look for inspiration everywhere. You want your work to inspire others. You constantly desire something that will take your designs to the next level, keep you competitive. Productive. You want to lead, not follow. Something great is here now.

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Paxville dual-core Xeon processor to mar-

ket in order to counter AMD’s Opteron. In

November 2004, the fi rst dual-core Xeons,

the Xeon 7000 line, started shipping

for servers. Intel plans to introduce the

Glidewell platform for workstations based

on the Dempsey processor this year, and

the word is that Intel is working furiously

to get them out the door.

About the Graphics

The three primary graphics suppliers

are ATI, Nvidia and 3dlabs. The intro-

duction of PCI Express (PCI-e) technol-

ogy enables motherboards to accommo-

date two graphics boards. ATI’s Crossfi re

and Nvidia’s SLI technologies are avail-

able, allowing two GPUs to work together

on an application. Meanwhile, 3dlabs’s

Wildcat Realizm 800 is a single PCI

Express card with multiple GPUs, com-

bining a graphics processor with a Vertex

Scalability Unit (VSU) to act as the traffi c

cop for data being sent by multiple graph-

ics processors to and from the memory.

Programmable shaders have actu-

ally leveled the playing fi eld for graphics

providers. The development of OpenGL

2.0 and Microsoft’s DirectX 9 defi nes

APIs through which the hardware can

accelerate software functions. Software

developers no longer have to depend

on hard-wired graphics functions and,

instead, can create their own effects.

Graphics processors now differentiate

themselves based on performance and

capabilities such as anti-aliasing, aniso-

tropic fi ltering, and image and video

scaling and fi ltering. In general, 3Dlabs

is defi ned in the ultra-high end, while

Nvidia and ATI battle for market share in

every other area of workstation graphics.

The Windows Boxes

Workstation manufacturers are locked

in a competitive race to increase system

performance, provide fl exible confi gu-

rations, and reduce the costs of owning

a professional graphics workstation, all

the while literally upping the coolness

factor of system designs and customiz-

able system alternatives.

Some of the many high-performance workstations currently available from

companies such as Alienware, Boxx Technologies, Hewlett-Packard, and Monarch

Computer include multi-core processing options and customized cooling solutions

that qualify their systems as bleeding edge.

Alienware

Alienware, well known for its lineup of

extreme gaming machines, has a series of

high-performance workstations that incor-

porate inventive noise reduction and cooling

technology, including its new liquid-cooling

solution. Its easy to recognize an Alienware

system by the distinctive creature face adorn-

ing the front. Its deskside workstations have

two fans: an intake fan that pulls in fresh air

to help cool the internal components and a

rear exhaust to eliminate the hot air. The liq-

uid-cooling alternative eliminates the need

for a secondary fan with a small, strategically

placed low-noise fan that cools the components

surrounding the processor, reducing decibels

and providing temperature reductions of up to 30 percent more than conventional air-

cooling methods. The addition of liquid cooling adds $202 to the base price.

Boxx Technologies

Boxx specializes in high-performance workstations for digital content creation and

video and audio editing, with custom-designed machines having single-, dual-, and

now quad-processor confi gurations.

Boxx’s new Apexx4 workstation, which is scheduled to be released this month, is

targeting VFX and animation professionals creating large scenes and complex spe-

cial effects with a need for accelerated work fl ow. The workstation incorporates four

dual-core AMD Opteron 875 series processors, making it a true quad workstation,

with eight CPUs and up to 128GB of memory. With a $25,000 price tag, the Apexx4

sits comfortably between a high-end server and an uberCG workstation. Boxx has

designed a special chassis that allows for maximum airfl ow, to accommodate the

special cooling requirements of the high-CPU confi guration, keeping the noise level

low enough to sit on a desktop. The system is scalable, offers Nvidia FX4500 GPUs,

includes two PCI Express graphics boards, and supports up to 10 data drives at 500GB

each for up to 10TB of local storage. SLI confi gurations are also available, and Boxx

plans to offer Apexx4 workstations with ATI graphics cards.

Hewlett-Packard

The top-of-the-line workstations for HP are the xw9300 series, based on single- or dual-

core AMD Opteron 200 series processors. HP systems offer a great deal of expandabil-

ity with fi ve internal and three external drive bays. And, probably where HP soars

above the crowd is in the work it has done to certify systems with ISVs. HP is target-

ing the fi lm industry and continues to develop certifi ed systems for 3D modeling and

animation, special effects, and rendering. HP also offers optimized systems for science

and visualization, CAD, and earth applications such as oil and gas exploration.

HP machines feature a chassis with noise dampening, a tool less upgrade, and a

Performance Tuning Framework to increase performance for commercially available

applications by up to 25 percent. The Performance Tuning Framework analyzes the

Alienware’s Liquid Cooling

reduces noise levels and lowers

temperatures.

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NYU’s Programs in Design, Digital Arts, and FilmA new world of art and technology has given visual artists a palette without limit. NYU’s Programs in Design, Digital Arts, and Film are “hands on” – from working on state-of-the-art equipment, to forming professional-level teams with instructors and fellow students. Our unique courses and programs in animation, television, and fi lm; digital design; graphic design; and much more combine your creativity with real-world experience. Discover why so many of our students and graduates fi nd places at top studios and are on the leading-edge of new opportunities in the fi eld. Visit our website to view a gallery of student work.

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system and its applications and checks

an online database for the most current

drivers. HP’s utility supports Inventor, I-

deas, Pro/Engineer, Catia, Unigraphics,

SolidWorks, and 3ds Max, all running

under Windows 2000 Professional or

Windows XP Professional.

Monarch Computer

Monarch, famous for its Hornet gam-

ing boxes, applies the do-it-yourself

model to workstations, offering systems

with every confi guration conceivable.

Among its top-of-the-line systems are the

Monarch Accela workstations built with

Intel Xeon processors with an 800MHz

front-side bus or Empro systems with

AMD’s Opteron processors. The base sys-

tem ships with two AMD Opteron 275

Dual-Core 2.2GHz processors. The Empro

cases are serious looking but they incor-

porate the see-through panel inspired

by gamer machines and have built-in

heat-reduction features. Monarch also

ups the power supply, adds ECC mem-

ory support for up to four hard drives

with RAID options, and offers a lineup

of graphics options. The base system,

which is priced at $4564, ships with

ATI’s FireGL V7100 with 256MB DDR3,

and Dual-DVI. Monarch also offers a

ULB, Ultimate Linux Box (ULB), a highly

customizable system based on Opteron

processors from the 1.4GHz Opteron 240

to the 2.4GHz dual-core 280. Graphics

options run the gamut and include

3dlabs, ATI, and Nvidia boards. The

ULB pricing starts at less than $2300.

The Portables

The idea of a workstation compressed

into a notebook confi guration is a dream

for overworked artists. While the sys-

tems don’t accommodate multiple graph-

ics boards (at least for now), and add-

ing monitor displays tends to defeat the

whole purpose of being mobile. But the

power of today’s processors and mobile

graphics makes a notebook computer a

logical option when working out of the

studio or in the fi eld. Practically every

workstation manufacturer offers note-

book workstations and, as you might

expect, their features line up fairly

similarly. The truth is notebooks

are built by a handful of companies

based in Taiwan.

Nvidia helped launch the mobile

workstation category with its Quadro

FXgo series of graphics boards.

Eurocom has so far pushed the

category the furthest with its

D900K F-Bomb notebook. Available

with a menu of options including

AMD dual-core and FX or Intel Pentium 4 Prescott processors (performing at speeds

of up to 3.6GHz), and a choice of ATI or Nvidia graphics subsystems. The workstation

can be confi gured to include RAID, an optical drive, internal TV tuners, DVI-I for

dual-monitor support and an internal PC camera for video conferencing. The systems

are available with 17-inch wide displays with resolutions of 1680x1050 or 1920x1200.

F-Bomb system pricing starts at approximately $3000.

Edgy Alternatives

Apple G5

Artistic professionals are drawn to Apple’s sense of design, ease of use, long list of

installed media software, and fabulous accessories like the Cinema display.

Even as Apple has announced plans to move to the Intel platform for future

products, the company has introduced a new PowerPC-based G5 built on dual-core

PowerPC processors in dual and quad confi gurations, with one and two dual-core

processors, respectively. Moreover, Apple has stepped up to true 64-bit processing

and now supports 16GB of addressable memory.

The new Power Mac G5 workstation with

dual-core 2.5GHz PowerPC processors could

be considered just another dual-core worksta-

tion until it’s paired with an Apple Cinema

HD Display. These workstations are the fi rst

Apple machines to take advantage of Nvidia’s

Quadro graphics, and they’ve gone all the way

with the Quadro FX 4500. Apple has added

support for PCI Express, allowing users to add

up to four graphics cards driving eight Apple

Cinema HD Displays.

Apple has also added to its PowerBook

line up. These machines are based on G4

PowerPC processors, but Apple has cut the

prices on the new systems, increased the bat-

tery life to about 5.5 hours, and added its Superdrive DVD burners to the entire line.

The top-of-the-line, 17-inch notebook is available with ATI Mobility Radeon 9700

graphics with 128MB of DDR for $2499.

Silicon Graphics, Inc.

SGI doesn’t even call the Prism, its fl agship visualization machine, a workstation.

Built to be immensely scalable with modular bricks for processing and graphics,

the Prism is built around Intel Itanium 2 processors and is available in four confi g-

urations: deskside, power, team, and extreme. Starting at $8500, the base system

Eurocom’s D900K F-Bomb offers dual-core

Opteron processors.

Apple G5 Quad taps into PCIe

architecture for the fi rst time.

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a very affordable price.Designers throughout the world use Dimension Printers to significantly lower production

costs, reduce expensive revisions and get products to market faster for better results to the bottom line.

TWO DIMENSION 3D PRINTERS TO CHOOSE FROM.

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includes two Itanium 2 CPUs, one or two

ATI FireGL CPUs and up to 24GB of mem-

ory, scaling up to 256 Itanium 2 proces-

sors, 16 ATI FireGL graphics accelerators,

and 3TB of memory.

The Prism is designed for hefty

graphics challenges. For instance, it

was recently demonstrated with Pixel

Farm’s PFPlay system and Sony’s proto-

type SXRD 4K projector for digital inter-

mediates, digital cinema, and people

working in 2K (2048x1556) and even 4K

(4096 x 3112) space.

Up and Coming

Even as most of the market moves

toward standardized parts, there is new

work being done that may change the

workstations of the future. Just out on

the horizon, Mercury Computer has

announced plans to build systems for

compute-intensive tasks in medical

imaging, military applications, oil and

gas exploration, etc. using Cell BE processors, the same technology developed by

IBM, Sony, and Toshiba for the next generation Sony Playstation console. The compa-

ny has introduced a two-processor blade server based on the Cell, and most recently

Mercury demonstrated the Cell processor going to work on CT (computed tomogra-

phy) image reconstruction. The company claims that the Cell is capable of orders-of-

magnitude faster processing for high-performance applications in medical imaging.

At one time, Sony’s Ken Kutaragi, the father of the PlayStation, opined that Cell pro-

cessors would be used to build workstations for game development. That hasn’t hap-

pened, but experimentation continues on several fronts. The combination of 64-bit

technology and the ability to build processors with multiple cores has inspired new

designs—two of which, were showcased recently at the Fall Processor Forum spon-

sored by In-Stat. Fujitsu showed off a new Sparc processor the dual-core Sparc64 VI,

and a new company on the scene, PA Semi, is using the IBM Power architecture to

build new multi-core processors that deliver high performance at low wattages.

In the future, unless humankind drastically changes for some unforeseen reason,

graphics professionals still will be pushing the edges of what is possible, and dead-

lines will still threaten their sanity. But, if it’s any consolation, workstation designers

are working just as hard to produce systems that rise to unreasonable challenges.

CGW OnlineVisit www.cgw.com this month as Kathleen Maher identifi es workstations that take

customization to an extreme in “Workstations with ‘The Look.’”

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. . . . Film



People walked out of the world premiere of

King Kong in 1933, horrifi ed by a spectac-

ular effects scene: The star, a monstrous

gorilla, shook a group of sailors off a log

and into a pit, where they were devoured by

giant spiders. As a result, director Merian C.

Cooper cut the shocking scene. But, direc-

tor Peter Jackson reprised that sequence for

his remake, Universal Pictures’ King Kong,

and, with the tastes of 21st century audi-

ences in mind, he not only fi lled the pit

with giant CG spiders, he attacked digital

sailors with huge grasshopper-like insects

and had gigantic slimy slugs swallow them

whole. It’s one of many sequences during

the three-hour epic in which Jackson pays

homage to the original 90-minute fi lm by

adding a blend of spectacle and emotion

that he mastered so successfully for The

Lord of the Rings.

To tell Kong’s story, Jackson relied on

state-of-the-art visual effects, as he did for

LOTR, and as did Cooper in 1933 for Kong.

Weta Digital, the three-time visual effects

Oscar-winning studio (for the LOTR tril-

ogy), worked on more than 3000 shots for

Kong that were whittled down to approxi-

mately 2500 in the fi nal cut.

“We created more creatures for Kong

than for the entire trilogy,” says Joe Letteri,

senior visual effects supervisor for Kong

who has garnered two Oscars (The Lord of

the Rings: The Return of the King and The

Two Towers) and one Oscar nomination (I,

Robot) while at Weta. More than 40 types

of digital creatures act in the fi lm, from

the creepy pit denizens to Kong himself:

The giant gorilla is always digital.

Letteri singles out four areas in which

he believes Weta pushed the state of the art

for King Kong: Kong himself, Skull Island’s

digital forest (created with miniatures and

3D plants), the ocean simulation, and a

reproduction of 1933 New York City. Kong

fi ghts for survival in the fabricated jungles

of Skull Island, wades through CG water

with blood and mud sticking to his fur,

and crashes through the streets of a vir-

tual New York. Unlike LOTR, which was

shot on location in New Zealand, Kong’s

world is largely digital. To push the state of

the art, Weta developed new software and

plug-ins for Alias’s Maya, Apple’s Shake,

and Pixar’s RenderMan, the three major

tools used for the fi lm.

A Star is Born

Animation director Christian Rivers

began working on Kong by supervising

a small, tight group of animators who

“fl eshed out a lot of the gorilla’s charac-

ter,” as he puts it. Using Maya, the group

started with the fi lm’s famous climax in

which the beleaguered gorilla clings to

the Empire State Building as he’s attacked

by biplanes. Next, they worked on Kong’s

fi ght with three T. rex dinosaurs, and

then moved on to other key sequences.

“[Jackson’s] way of working was to

discuss ideas in a story meeting and

send the animators off to create little

vignettes,” Rivers says. Eventually, the

animators created Maya animatics for

the shots Jackson deemed best so that he

could use digital cameras to design cam-

era moves in the 3D environment.

For his part, Rivers moved on to

supervise and direct Kong’s performance

and, working alongside animation super-

visor Atsushi Sato, that of the creatures

interacting with Kong. A team of approx-

imately 50 animators and actor Andy

Serkis, who had been motion-captured

for LOTR’s Gollum, created the star’s per-

formance—a blend of motion-captured

data and keyframe animation. “We cap-

tured Andy for many Kong sequences,

excluding the crazy stunts,” says Rivers.

“We used his ideas for the dramatic emo-

tional scenes. But to create the weight

and physics of a 25-foot gorilla, we also

had to keyframe him. And sometimes the

director wanted performances that were

more practical to keyframe.”

On set, Serkis wore arm extensions and

a Lycra suit padded into a gorilla’s physiol-

ogy. To act with Naomi Watts, who plays

Ann Darrow—the Fay Wray role in the

original fi lm—he was lifted 15 feet off the

ground in a cherry picker. When he roared,

a mike dropped the frequency of his voice.

When Serkis duplicated his perfor-

mance on a motion-capture stage, his

fa cial expressions and body movements

were acquired simultaneously. Rivers notes

that data from the areas around his eyes

and brows was most useful. Rule-based

“facial action coding” software developed

at Weta turned the data from Serkis’s

emotional facial expressions into gorilla

expressions. “We could take [Serkis]

straight in, body and face, or we could

animate Kong, or use some combination

of the two,” says Letteri.

Hair Today

Kong’s appearance was as crucial as his

performance. The fi lmmakers imagined

him as the last of his species, living alone

long

Actress Naomi Watts’s greenscreen image (left)

was composited with the digital gorilla in front of

a digital New York City for this sequence.

Pho

to cou

rtesy Pierre Vin

et / Un

iversal Stud

ios.

All im

ages co

urtesy W

eta Dig

ital / Un

iversal Stud

ios.

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Film. . . .

l ive the KING

Peter Jackson’s retelling

of the cinematic

legend King Kong pushes

Weta Digital to supreme

heights . . . and depths

In the fi lm, the craggy, bloody,

battle-scarred gorilla with mud

in his fur is always digital.

His performance was

created with a blend of

keyframe animation and

motion-captured data.

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. . . . Film

in the jungles of Skull Island. “No one was around to groom

him, so he was a matted, dirty creature,” says Martin Hill, 3D

sequence lead. “The fi rst maquette was made of yak hair.”

To create Kong’s digital fur, Weta developed a proprietary,

deformer-based system that allowed various departments

to work with different elements—guide hairs, expressions,

and so forth. Each hair was a RenderMan curve. Groomers

started by painting texture maps in areas where they wanted

the fur to grow. The maps, vertex data, or expressions speci-

fi ed hair density, length (number of CVs), and thickness. “At

this stage, we had a porcupine-looking monkey,” says Martin

Preston, fur software developer. Texture maps also defi ned

the fur’s color.

To style the hair, groomers specifi ed the frizziness with

deformers that controlled where particular hairs would bend. A

pelting system, also controlled with deformers, grouped the hair

into clumps. “We had 30,000 to 40,000 clumps on Kong’s head

alone,” says Preston. “It isn’t a solid mass of hair.”

The stylists positioned the clumps by placing points on the

model’s surface, by painting maps, and by having software ran-

domly distribute a number of clumps. “We have a whole collec-

tion of plug-in deformers to control layers of clumping, groom-

ing curves, and so on,” says Preston. “On his arm, there are 10

levels of deformers.”

To wedge blood, mud, and tree trunks (the gorilla is huge, after

all) into Kong’s thick hair, the fur team used instanced geometry.

“We had 2000 leaves and 2000 bits of mud and dried blood in

Kong’s hair,” says Preston. Because these elements were gener-

ated at the same time as the hair using the same methods, they

traveled along with the moving hair. Maya dynamics animated

the hair; the simulation crew used a separate set of deformers and

scripts to push the fur around when Kong moved.

“What they were all building is a program that executes in

RenderMan,” says Preston. “It has all the instructions for grow-

ing the fur.” The program, a dynamic shared object (DSO) they

named Bonobo, took charge once the lighting TDs had set the

lights and applied the shader. “It happens at the end, so at any

point in memory there is a limited amount of fur,” says Preston.

“It grows, on average, four million hairs to cover Kong.”

Because Kong appears in lighting conditions ranging from

the hot, tropical sun to nighttime New York City, the shading

team wrote one overall hair shader that incorporated shader

algorithms for any type of hair, including that for Naomi

Watts’s digital double.

“We started by implementing, in its entirety, a 2002

SIGGRAPH paper written by Stephen R. Marschner and oth-

ers called ‘Lightscattering from Human Hair Fibers’,” Hill says.

Previously, CG shading models dealt with primary highlights

on hair, Hill explains, but the Marschner paper added two ele-

ments: light that refracts into the hair and comes out the other

side, and light that goes into hair, refl ects, and comes out the

same side it went in. “It more accurately models the math for

what happens to a light ray entering a hair strand rather than a

cylinder, refracting and refl ecting inside it,” he explains.

This math produced what Hill calls “shampoo commercial”

hair, perfect for Watts. For Kong’s coarse, matted hair, the crew

added displacements and noise. Also, deep shadows, ambient

occlusion, and refl ection baked on a per-groom level helped give

the hair depth and volume. “Each groom has a 3D occlusion map,”

says Hill. For specular lighting, math representing an isosurface

around the hair clumps provided a layer used to render highlights.

“Fur is very dependent on the groom that defi nes the surface,”

notes Letteri. “You can’t separate the shader from the fur. That’s

what was hard—fi guring out whether [a problem] was due to

the shader or the groom.”

Kong’s fur had to react to the environment around him, so

the team tweaked the shader depending on his surroundings.

For example, they gave Kong’s matted, dirty hair a watery sheen

at the end of the capture sequence. Also, for shots of Kong on

the refl ective Empire State Building, the shading crew added

a refl ection component to the hair and used a different refl ec-

tion occlusion version for the fur. “We couldn’t use the same

methods as we did for the building,” Hill says. “Because you

see through his fur strands, we needed more volumetric refl ec-

tion occlusion.”

To test the shaders, the team shrunk the digital gorilla into

a realistic size, rendered that Kong, and put him into nature

fi lms to see how well he fi t into natural environments—particu-

larly dappled light fi ltering through trees, as it would on Skull

Island, and early-morning light to emulate Kong’s big scene on

the Empire State Building, which takes place at dawn.

A Jungle Out There

Jackson’s Weta Workshop, which created models, miniatures,

props, and so forth for the fi lm, designed Skull Island to imi-

tate matte paintings from the 1933 fi lm, not as a real jungle.

Nearly half the shots, including a Brontosaurus stampede, a

fi ght between Kong and three T. rex dinosaurs, the spider pit,

Kong has around four million hairs on his body that Weta Digital

rendered using a new shading model that executes in RenderMan.

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.. . . . Film

and Kong’s capture, take place on this island. “Nearly every

Skull Island shot is a combination of elements fi lmed on a min-

iature set with digital enhancements,” says Eric Saindon, digital

effects supervisor.

To create Kong-sized digital trees, the crew used the same

hair system as it did for the gorilla’s hair. “We started with a sin-

gle hair for the trunk, grew hairs off that for branches, and con-

tinued until we had enough to create a canopy,” says Saindon,

“and then we did the same thing with leaves.” For interac-

tion between characters and jungle elements, the team often

used Maya Paint Effects to create the environment, rendering

it with custom software that fed the output mesh straight into

RenderMan. Maya’s hair solver handled the dynamics.

“When Kong and the T. rexes come down through the vines

and land in a swamp, we have a montage that’s similar to

the 1933 movie in which Kong cracks the T. rex’s jaw open,”

says Saindon. “We didn’t have any plates. We built the walls,

ground, plants…everything in 3D, and used Paint Effects for

most of that sequence.”

Weta’s custom Maya plug-in named Putty helped with surface-

to-surface collisions, particularly at the end of the Brontosaurus

stampede in which dinosaurs and sailors all land in a pile on top

of one another. “We also used it for things like footprints and

trees,” says Saindon. “It doesn’t do the collisions; it just tells the

system when to look for collisions.” For example, rather than hav-

ing a tree branch constantly checking to see if it is colliding with

a creature, the plug-in told the system when a creature was near.

For shots on Skull Island that didn’t require much camera

movement or creature interaction, compositors created the jun-

gle using fi lmed elements of miniature trees. “[Jackson] wanted

to give Skull Island a sense of life,” says Erik Winquist, digital

compositing supervisor. “So, all the elements were shot with

wind. Hopefully, it looks like a living place.”

Using a custom 3D interface that Weta created for Shake, com-

positors built virtual dioramas: They imported rough geometry

for the scene and the camera used by the TDs, and then placed

cards with the fi lmed tree elements into the 3D scene. “We had a

100-square-foot set,” says Winquist. “Everything beyond that had

to be created by somebody.”

Oceans of Fun

Similarly, shots of the boat on which the protagonists travel to

Skull Island and later return with the captured Kong were cre-

ated from a mixture of elements—plates fi lmed on stage using a

full-scale model, water created from color-corrected fi lmed ele-

ments that were warped by compositors, and with a blend of 3D

and 2D digital water simulations.

“We mainly used a Tessendorf-style of water simulation as a

starting point to get calm water simulations,” says Ben Snow,

visual effects supervisor, referring to Jerry Tessendorf’s SIGGRAPH

2001/2004 papers titled ‘Simulating Ocean Water.’ “Then, we devel-

oped water-simulator deformers in Maya that we implemented as

RenderMan shaders and Shake plug-ins so we could put the same

values into all three and get the same patterns.”

For rougher seas, the crew further developed the tools. “In

previous fi lms we used a single wind-speed characteristic, but

as we refi ned the tools, we added off-axis wind direction, which

gave us a great deal of complexity,” says Christopher Horvath, 3D

CG supervisor. Using data gathered from buoys in the northern

Atlantic, the simulation team added turbulence to surface waves

in the ocean, pushing smaller waves differently than big ones

and having waves moving parallel to the wind

as well as perpendicularly.

For the most diffi cult water scene, however,

in which Kong is captured while splashing in

waist-deep water, the crew composited fi lmed

elements. “Even with ridiculously full-blown

sims, the photos looked better,” Horvath says.

“So we concentrated on giving compositors tools

to place fi lmed elements where the splashes

would be, and added CG splashes behind to

beef up and tie the elements together.”

Rather than creating tools that plug

together in Maya, Horvath’s team created a

development suite with tools that use Maya

controls. “We built new tools on the fl y from

various components and would recode and Weta extended the small Skull Island jungle set with fi lmed elements of miniature trees on 2D

cards, matte paintings, and 3D plants. The dinosaur is one of 42 digital creatures in Kong.

New water-simulation tools that allowed wind to blow from more

than one direction and emulate cresting foam helped create a CG

ocean as well as the interaction of the water around the boat.

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Film. . . .

recompile on a shot-by-shot basis,” Horvath says. “We have

libraries of fl uid tools written in C++ that we can reassemble

into new tools quickly.”

One such tool was written by 3D digital water TD Chris

Young, who had not written code before this project. His tool

creates cresting foam—the sharp bits at the top of waves that

gradually decay and move with the waves. “It’s the most evolu-

tionary in terms of pushing CG water technology forward,” says

Horvath. “It has 100 controls, and the resulting foam is magnif-

icent. In the past, we used particles or hand painted the foam.

This has a real feel to it because it’s based in science.”

New York, New York

When Kong is captured, he is taken to New York, where he’s

exhibited on stage. He escapes, tears through Times

Square, crashes through the city all night looking for

Ann, and then, at daybreak, climbs the Empire State

Building. Although Watts was fi lmed running in an

interior set piece, and other parts of the city were built

for the actors, most of the city was constructed of 3D

models with a 360-degree matte painting in the far

background. “In 40 percent of the shots, there is some

piece of a set—storefront windows, for example,” says

Dan Lemmon, digital effects supervisor. “But, we did

digital set extensions above that level. For the rest, we

created everything from scratch.”

To build 1933 New York, the crew started with a

low-resolution polygonal map of modern-day New

York that gave them the skyline for the entire city.

Using a dataset of modern New York that had infor-

mation about the year each building was constructed,

they culled all the structures built after 1933. Then, referenc-

ing a set of photographs from an aerial survey in the ’30s, they

added the buildings that had been torn down. “We created all

of Manhattan, the shoreline of New Jersey, and the shoreline of

Brooklyn in 3D,” says Lemmon. “We built historically accurate,

low-res building models in a format that would be sympathetic

to a script that 3D CG supervisor Chris White was writing to add

architectural elements.”

Although modelers constructed such signature buildings

as the Empire State Building by hand, most of the buildings

were constructed using White’s script, called CityBot-Urban

Development Software (or, ’bot for short), and a library of his-

torically accurate architectural elements.

“I wrote rules based on the reference photos from the ’30s that

told the ’bot what to put where,” says White. The ’bot added appro-

priate architectural details such as windows, ledges, and door-

ways, and, thereby, created the mass of the city. The city planners

then populated New York with 3D vehicles and people. Massive

Software’s crowd-simulation software managed the vehicular and

pedestrian traffi c unless the shots required hero animation.

When the camera was at street level, the crew dressed the side-

walks and alleys with mailboxes, fi re hydrants, trash cans, bits

of paper, and so forth. For street-level set extensions, they used

White’s CityBot with additional rules for such elements as stair-

wells and fi re escapes.

To texture the buildings, 3D lighting TD Michael Baltazar

wrote software that made rough guesses for material types

based on luminance values in black-and-white photos. To

render the resulting 90,000 buildings, 3D sequence lead Jean

Matthews created a system to bake buildings into textures.

“The ’bot would build a building, and all the details would be

rendered into textures for displacement maps and so forth, so

the building was rendered with textures rather than 3D geom-

etry,” explains White. “We probably have 400,000 textures.” A

procedural weathering system added rain and snow.

Gigantic Potential

Film critic Roger Ebert writes that the sophisticated effects created

by Willis O’Brien and others for the 1933 Kong “pointed the way

toward the current era of special effects, science fi ction, cataclys-

mic destruction, and nonstop shocks…movies and countless other

stories in which heroes are terrifi ed by skillful special effects.”

Letteri believes the work Weta did for Kong could also lead

to new types of fi lms. “Creating a title character like Kong, who

has such a complex performance without dialog, means we can

make creatures that people have not been able to think of before,”

he says. “And, if you can build a city like New York, you can

build any city—past, present, future—on any planet. [For Kong]

we turned the camera down a street, told the software what kind

of neighborhood or architecture to build, and it constructed the

city for us. We didn’t have to texture every building by hand.”

Letteri adds, “Having these come together opens up inter esting

possibilities for what we might be able to do in the future.”

Barbara Robertson is an award-winning journalist and a contrib-

uting editor for Computer Graphics World. She can be reached at

[email protected].

Weta extended the New York City set and built a digital replica of 1933 Manhattan

with a rules-based system that handled architectural details and textures.

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X22 | Computer Graphics World JANUARY 2006 w w w . c g w . c o mOn November 22, 2005, the look of comput-erized gaming in North America changed radically. That’s when Microsoft released its Xbox 360, the fi rst in a trio of expected new consoles to hit the market within the next several months. (Because Microsoft came late to the console game, the 360 marks the company’s second hardware release, while competitors Sony and Nintendo are prepar-ing their third systems.)Far more than a game console, the Xbox 360 is a video game and digital entertainment system that, in addition to fueling high-def gaming, lets users port music to the hard drive, watch pro-gressive-scan DVD movies “right out of the box,” and instantly stream and store digital video and other media, including digital photos. Unveiled on MTV in May 2005, the Xbox 360 is touted as placing the user at the center of the experience, anytime, any-where. The machine is always connected (through its Xbox Live feature that allows a person to play with others in any loca-tion), always personalized (with a cus-tomizable interface), and always plays in high def (at 720p or 1080i resolution). The machine—by taking advantage of the industry’s latest breakthroughs—represents a dramatic leap forward in high-def gaming and entertainment (see the table on pg. 24). As a result, gaming experiences are more expansive, dra-matic, and lifelike than ever before: Epic worlds spring to life with unprecedented detail, while extremely intelligent char-acters display a depth of emotion never before associated with gaming. Realism emerges not only in the advanced tex-turing and lighting effects of the graph-ics, but also in the way the settings them-selves respond to characters’ movements. For instance, if an enemy hiding in brush makes a sudden move, the player will hear and see leaves rustle, alerting them to the character’s presence.Powering UpAccording to Chris Satchell, general man-ager of the Xbox Game Developers Group, the 360 provides a true generational leap in every aspect of the system’s hard-ware, software, and services for advanc-ing gameplay graphics. For example, the cutting-edge custom GPU offers innova-tions such as 48 parallel-processing ALUs, Shader Model 3.0+, and real-time auto-matic scheduling of system resources, allowing every game to run at either 720p or 1080i resolution. Microsoft has paired the GPU with a custom CPU running at 3.2 GHz and fea-turing three symmetric cores. The CPU offers huge processing power for large-scale, complex worlds. To provide stor-One of the most popular gifts this past holiday season was Microsoft’s Xbox 360. For those lucky enough to have unwrapped one, there is little question as to why this relatively small gift box was on so many wish lists. The fi rst of the new gaming consoles to be released by the big-three vendors, the machine was met with great fanfare as hopefu

Contents Zoom In Zoom Out For navigation instructions please … · 2013. 8. 1. · on the latest CG happenings. CGW.com also features the Animation Mentors, where top animators who

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