'Popular Mechanics' Article About Special Effects in Transformers Movie--Best Ever?
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 5:31PM CDT
Categories: Movie News, ReviewsPosted by: Tigertrack Views: 24,009
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Nick Mokey from the magazine 'Popular Mechanics' sent us a heads up and link to an article about the Transformers Movie effects and how they were created.
Here's the link to the article.
A couple small excerpts:
"We start with the end result first, then work backwards from there," says animation supervisor Scott Benza. "We'll start Bumblebee standing up in his pose in the composition of the shot, then collapse him down into something of a car shape, where we fold his arms in and hover him down close to street. And then we deal with what we have to fill in the in-between."
"When that crucial "in-between" involves over 10,000 hand-modeled parts pulled out of actual auto body — as Optimus Prime did (his old-school toy had a mere 51 components) — there's a bit more "filling in" to do. "It's hugely complicated," says visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar. "It's no different than going out and machining these parts [in a real car]. Every one of those things has to be connected and travel in the right direction when an animation occurs."
Enjoy this article and watch out for the occasional spoiler which may be entrenched, if you have not seen the movie yet!
Here's the link to the article.
A couple small excerpts:
"We start with the end result first, then work backwards from there," says animation supervisor Scott Benza. "We'll start Bumblebee standing up in his pose in the composition of the shot, then collapse him down into something of a car shape, where we fold his arms in and hover him down close to street. And then we deal with what we have to fill in the in-between."
"When that crucial "in-between" involves over 10,000 hand-modeled parts pulled out of actual auto body — as Optimus Prime did (his old-school toy had a mere 51 components) — there's a bit more "filling in" to do. "It's hugely complicated," says visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar. "It's no different than going out and machining these parts [in a real car]. Every one of those things has to be connected and travel in the right direction when an animation occurs."
Enjoy this article and watch out for the occasional spoiler which may be entrenched, if you have not seen the movie yet!
Credit(s): Nick Mokey, Popular Mechanics Web Editorial Intern
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Re: 'Popular Mechanics' Article About Special Effects in Transformers Movie--Best Ever? (197724)
Posted by Maju Garzett on July 3rd, 2007 @ 5:44pm CDT
Posted by Maju Garzett on July 3rd, 2007 @ 5:44pm CDT
This is one of the reasons most people were psyched about the TF movie... very believable CGI, and from what I've seen in the movie, It's all of the same quality... unlike that one Playstation2-Calibur scene in Spiderman 3 (Movie)'s final fight where Monster Sandman Rises in front of Spidey.
Re: 'Popular Mechanics' Article About Special Effects in Transformers Movie--Best Ever? (197857)
Posted by 1337W422102 on July 3rd, 2007 @ 6:26pm CDT
Posted by 1337W422102 on July 3rd, 2007 @ 6:26pm CDT
ILM FTW. 'Nuff said.
The blend of CGI and RL was mostly seamless. Some parts were noticeably fake though (like the longshot of Shia and the statue plummetting) but overall, it was incredible.
The blend of CGI and RL was mostly seamless. Some parts were noticeably fake though (like the longshot of Shia and the statue plummetting) but overall, it was incredible.
Re: 'Popular Mechanics' Article About Special Effects in Transformers Movie--Best Ever? (197869)
Posted by Tigertrack on July 3rd, 2007 @ 6:29pm CDT
Posted by Tigertrack on July 3rd, 2007 @ 6:29pm CDT
It was certainly more believeable than the old CGI relatives: Jurassic Park, and so forth...
Plus, with the way they are designed, it is simply amazing, I forgot to be scrutinizing and just enjoyed the movie!
Plus, with the way they are designed, it is simply amazing, I forgot to be scrutinizing and just enjoyed the movie!
Re: 'Popular Mechanics' Article About Special Effects in Transformers Movie--Best Ever? (197876)
Posted by i_amtrunks on July 3rd, 2007 @ 6:31pm CDT
Posted by i_amtrunks on July 3rd, 2007 @ 6:31pm CDT
Nice article.
It would have been an absolute nightmare to create those transformations from scratch, especially seeing as they also had to look exactly like their real car counterparts.
It would have been an absolute nightmare to create those transformations from scratch, especially seeing as they also had to look exactly like their real car counterparts.
Re: 'Popular Mechanics' Article About Special Effects in Transformers Movie--Best Ever? (198761)
Posted by Sideshow Sideswipe on July 4th, 2007 @ 12:59am CDT
Posted by Sideshow Sideswipe on July 4th, 2007 @ 12:59am CDT
YES! just saw movie - so amazing!
Re: 'Popular Mechanics' Article About Special Effects in Transformers Movie--Best Ever? (198898)
Posted by Starscream_8_my_Dog on July 4th, 2007 @ 2:35am CDT
Posted by Starscream_8_my_Dog on July 4th, 2007 @ 2:35am CDT
I have to say this, was I the only one kind of let down Prime let Sector Seven beat up on Bumblebee like they did. I know he told Jazz there wasn't anything they could do, but it just seems out of character, specially for Prime.
Anyway, other then minimal Decepticon voices and no explanation for what happened to Barricade and Scorponok, BEST MOVIE OF THE SUMMER, other than Diehard!
Anyway, other then minimal Decepticon voices and no explanation for what happened to Barricade and Scorponok, BEST MOVIE OF THE SUMMER, other than Diehard!
Re: 'Popular Mechanics' Article About Special Effects in Transformers Movie--Best Ever? (198956)
Posted by Stormrider on July 4th, 2007 @ 4:00am CDT
Posted by Stormrider on July 4th, 2007 @ 4:00am CDT
I don't get it. They are saying that it was a challenge to make 10,000 moving parts fit together. So why were they working with so many moving parts? No one put a gun to Michael Bay's head and said you need thousands of moving parts. In fact, many people wanted something less.
Re: 'Popular Mechanics' Article About Special Effects in Transformers Movie--Best Ever? (198997)
Posted by another tf fan on July 4th, 2007 @ 4:51am CDT
Posted by another tf fan on July 4th, 2007 @ 4:51am CDT
"When it came to breathing life into characters such as Bumblebee, the protective Autobot, ILM needed to think backwards to fill in the blanks (and the junk in the drunk) between finished robot sketches and real-life GM cars."
...junk in the drunk?
...junk in the drunk?
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