Visual Effects - Industrial Light & Magic

Industrial Light & Magic was founded in 1975 by George Lucas, and produced the special effects for one of my favourite films in my favourite film franchises; Raiders of the Lost Ark - and it seems they also produced the effects for The Avengers as well.

Their YouTube Channel appears to be official and features some comments from someone who works within the company, answering questions. I decided from now on I'll keep an eye on this channel as i could obtain some worthwhile insight into the industry, as I have found already.

'It's always helpful for a director to be knowledgeable about the visual effects process. Much of the time, visual effects is one of the first departments on a film and we stay on until the very end. Visual effects supervisors provide a number of services during that time from helping plan the shoots to educating the director to what he/she can expect to see at each stage of the post process, to making suggestions which may help guide the creative. VFX Supervisors have to wear many hats.'

Milestones:

·       1975: Resurrected the use of VistaVision; first use of a motion control camera (Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope)

·       1982: First completely computer-generated sequence (the "Genesis sequence" in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)

·       1985: First completely computer-generated character, the "stained glass man" in Young Sherlock Holmes

·       1988: First morphing sequence, in Willow

·       1988: Integrating 2D animated characters with live-action footage in Who Framed Roger Rabbit

·       1989: First computer-generated 3-D character, the pseudopod in The Abyss

·       1991: First partially computer-generated main character, the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day

·       1992: First time the texture of human skin was computer generated, in Death Becomes Her

·       1993: First time digital technology used to create a complete and detailed living creature, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, which earned ILM its thirteenth Oscar

·       1995: First fully synthetic speaking computer-generated character, with a distinct personality and emotion, to take a leading role in Casper

·       1995: First computer-generated photo-realistic hair and fur (used for the digital lion and monkeys) in Jumanji

·       1996: First completely computer-generated main character, Draco in Dragonheart

·       1999: First computer generated character to have a full human anatomy, Imhotep in The Mummy

·       2000: Creates OpenEXR imaging format.

·       2006: Develops iMocap system, which uses computer vision techniques to track live-action performers on set. Used in the creation of Davy Jones and ship's crew in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

·       2011: First animated feature produced by ILM, Rango

It's amazing how one company can be involved with so many films, although with it's beginnings with George Lucas and Star Wars it was sure to come a long way with a secure financial future. They have worked on some of my favourite films like Terminator 2. I can say that I find them inspiring for this work alone, but it seems that they have also made many advances in CGI as a whole.

·  richardknights100 
How much do you charge for your services?


·   
ILMVisualFX 
It varies depending on what we are being asked to do.


·   
richardknights100 
How high is the pixle rate you can do with your software? Are you prepared for UHD Quality?
·   
ILMVisualFX 
We're well beyond UHD.


o  
Oscar Rivas Poma 
How much harddrive space does all that rendered footage need?
·   

ILMVisualFX 
About 202Tb at any given time.




§ 
ImUrtastyflava 
How long does it take you to render a scene?


o    
ILMVisualFX 
Anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of week depending on the scene.




§ 
MrsMusicchan 
I've always wondered. Does working on the special effects for countless hours mean you don't want to watch the finished product or is it still fun to watch after you're done?


§   
ILMVisualFX 
Watching the final product of a year (or more) of work is very rewarding. Often it's the first time we see it complete with sound and all of the non-fx shots so it's a very different experience than what we see while working day to day.
Thanks!

Oscars and VFX

http://io9.com/5987131/why-the-visual-effects-industry-protested-the-oscars-and-how-the-academy-insulted-them-in-return


Bill Westenhofer, a VFX supervisor for Rhythm & Hues, delivered his acceptance speech, but just as he began to thank all of the VFX folks who worked so hard on the film and highlight R&H's financial woes, theJaws music played to usher him offstage, and eventually his mic was cut off. Now everyone who went over their allotted time got the Jaws music, but SF Gate notes that just 43 seconds elapsed between the time the winner was announced and when Westenhofer got the Jaws music, and 112 seconds between the announcement and the mic turn-off. Compare that to the 131 seconds spent on the Avengers cast setting up and announcing the award, and 158 seconds on Ang Lee's Best Director speech, with nary a minor chord sounded. On a day when the VFX community was asking for respect, many took this as a slap in the face.
Lee's Best Director speech, in which he failed to thank the VFX team or mention Rhythm & Hues also attracted significant ire. It didn't help that when Lee was asked about the Rhythm & Hues bankruptcy last week, he said, "I would like it to be cheaper and not a tough business." In response, the VFX community issued An Open Letter to Ang Lee, noting the many reasons the VFX industry is an expensive one and asking directors to pay attention to the financial conditions in which these VFX houses are attempting to survive.

I can't help but feel that as an industry, people are prone to being exploited, but this is indeed quite terrible. Especially as I read an earlier story on this claiming that the reason the artists can't fight back is because there's a hundred dumb kids ready to replace them if they leave, as they would love the opportunity to work for Hollywood and the big film industry. I am probably one of those kids.
The problem lies in that the industry demands these artists to work extremely long hours for long at a time without paying them for the extra work. If the company don't do it, they are simply blacklisted by filmmaker groups and not used, and so they go out of business.
This is especially unfortunate for the case of Life of Pi, though, because it was so heavily reliant on CGI. Without the CGI, the film would be much, much less than it is, and so the artists are getting much less credit then they deserve. This is an unfortunate dark side to the realm of the filmmaking  / VFX industry, but one I think we should all be aware of.

After Effects

Introducing all the elements of my project so far in After Effects made it feel like my film was finally coming together. It was fairly simple to introduce my image sequences as I didn't need to do anything to them to integrate them into my backgrounds as there was no green screen effect to remove from them. I used the keylight effect to remove the green on my green screen live action film footage and it got easier every time I did it. I learned many shortcuts and on the whole I feel that it is a much much easier program to use than maya and I intend to use it as much as possible in the future.

It's similar to photoshop in the way it builds up overlapping layers and I even refer to it as photoshop for videos. There are many pre-set effects, such as footage, or filters like blurring, that make editing your footage to the exact way you want it achievable. I do have one problem with it though.

Unlike Final Cut Pro, you need to 'collect files', which is quite annoying. Files seem to go missing and it can mess with your time quite dramatically. Other than this though I think After Effects is a great program, at least for editing footage. For sound, Final Cut is definitely the way to go.

The effects I used the most, by far, were gaussian blur and radial blur. I used these a lot because with the settings there are many ways that radial blur can be changed to replicate numerous amounts of things, whereas I used gaussian blur to create field of depth in many shots.

I also used a lot of masking. For just about every piece of footage I had a mask to direct where I wanted it to go or what I wanted it to do - unless I wanted it as it was without a mask though there are fewer examples of that to note.

The scene in which I am beamed into the ship I am quite proud of. I used a radial blur to simulate the light being distorted through the smoke around me that forms after I appear on the ship. I also have those lights turn on one by one, and I appear to react to the lights turning on within the footage by turning to face them. As this happens I use some of the art I developed, reacting as a sort of precautionary / biological / smart science-word scanner thing. Afterwards a few alien letters appear above my head, which is basically to connotate that I am an accepted life form or that I am not dangerous, or something along those lines. I like this scene because so much seems to be going on when I'm on the ship and you can watch it several times and notice these things one at a time.

The scene which I had a lot of trouble with was the laserbeaming of the aliens, if only because it took a while to get the laser beam looking decently good and powerful looking. I did this through screen shake and the introduction of an explosion. You can also see the laser beam fly past the aliens, creating said explosion. So much happens within these last few seconds of the film it was a mix of trying to cram in as much as possible, leaving the audience caught off guard and wondering what exactly happened. At the same tine, I did not want to confuse them entirely and leaving them wondering what was supposed to have just happened.

All in all I feel I have learned a lot about After Effects in a very short amount of time, and I'd liked to have spent more time using it.

Filming Day

I came back to Leeds from holiday break on a Thursday to do my shots for the film, as well as be filmed for anyone else who wanted to film me. Luckily, it seems that everyone was keen on using Tim.

This was the first time I had done green screen filming for myself. I would usually want to be behind the camera but as I wanted to act, it meant being in front of it - but I don't mind doing that either. I had to remember to bring the same clothes as I had worn for the previous shot. This practically meant just wearing my usual jacket, boots, and the same pair of pants. I had to remember not to put my glasses on during the shot.

As it turns out I did change shirt but as my jacket was done up it didn't really matter as you couldn't tell. Although I did learn that being filmed in front of very hot lights makes you very very warm. I got several shots so I had plenty of choice in which shots I wanted to use. The whole day involved a lot of mucking about from the early hours until lunch break, and a lot of cramming until 4pm which was as late as we could go until we needed to leave. Luckily I made sure I got all the footage I need. I got some shots using the crane, but I had never planned on using it and so lost nothing of value in not using it.

Overall it was quite a fun day and again it reminded me that my enjoyment is still divided between film, games, and animation. I'm hoping I can narrow it down soon. I took three or four takes of each scene, though as they're only about ten seconds long at best, it didn't take long. About a minute in total of footage of me just looking around making scared or unimpressed faces, and three or four takes of me blasting an energy beam out of my mouth - which I enthusiastically provided sound effects for as I did it.

In the meantime I helped around with other people's shots when not being filmed or filming, myself. I held up extra green screen for scenes that required a wider shot angle, and generally assisted as I imagine a set assistant might. I have to thank my local barber shop for closing early a few days before I left as I didn't get my hair cut before coming back to Leeds - otherwise I would have had to come up with an explanation as to why my hair had suddenly gotten shorter after being beamed onto the ship. I'd forgotten about that potential continuity error.

I was a bit worried about the shadows on the green screen  I would rather the green be as consistant as possible. In the end though I think I can make the footage we have work quite well. The scenes are all very well lit and my clothes are just about as opposite as possible. 

Building Environment

Building my environment was simple in comparison to the pyramid. It was fairly simple, an indoor stadium with a black, grey, and silver colour palette. I had the design of it covered from many different angles in my concept art. Four beams in a + shape reach around the dome shaped roof, with lights attached to them.

The dome is a sphere cut in half. I made a custom texture for it but the lighting is so focused in the middle and not around the outside that you can barely tell. I used the same metallic texture for the underside of the ship as I did for the floor here as it reflected nicely off all the light. I made the dome into a separate layer which I could turn off and on in maya, to make it easy to work inside the environment without having to dramatically adjust my perspective camera.

I had many cameras set up to replicate all the camera angles I could possibly want. I was advised not to import hundreds of my character animations into the environment as it meant it would take a long time to render. Instead I would take one image sequence of my alien and drop many image sequences into a single rendered frame of my environment, which meant the amount of rendering I did was greatly reduced - although I did have to do many renders from many angles for the alien. This included the scream and idle poses from three angles - six renders in total.

I still made use of the cameras though as it meant I didn't have to line up many shots, as I had already done so before hand. It was just a case of looking at which angle I needed, because it is just about the same from any angle you look at it (e.g from the north or south, east or west), rendering out a frame and having it ready for use in After Effects.

Building the Pyramid

I built the pyramid in stages. I made a simple pyramid shape, inserted edge loops to create more faces, and pulled edges out symmetrically, increasing or decreasing the width of the pyramid in sections, to create the 'levels' of the pyramid, e.g the floors inside.

I only used a few textures; the red metal texture, a grey metal texture, and the shiny metallic scale surface. Between these three most of the pyramid is complete, though I don't think this is a drawback as only the underside of the ship is really seen, so that is where most of my concentration went. I could have spent more time with more textures and such, but I didn't want the pyramid to be a complex rig of many textures and parts. Even in the concept art, I wanted it to be a smooth, seamless machine that glides through the air. Only a few parts underneath move.

After redefining the shape of the ship some more I set to work creating the underneath according to my concept art. Four panels which stretch towards the center from a ring. In the centre, the gun that fires the transporter beam would descend from the interior of the pyramid. I also parented lights so that the lights would follow it as it spin.

I then added the four rings in the middle. I couldn't get these to spin as well but realised even if they did, it would hardly be noticed. 

I decided to add an outer ring and extrude some of the faces to create points. This would rotate the opposite way. It also has panels that stretch towards the center. You can also see the gun which comes down from the middle, which fires the beam that beams me up to the ship. It slowly descends into position throughout the animation.

With high quality on and the lights reflecting I think it looks fantastic and I am very pleased with what I could do with the bump maps, textures, lights and a simple rotating animation. I didn't want to make it too fantastical as it would only be on screen for a few seconds and I wanted anyone who saw it to be able to understand what it was supposed to be - in which case, you're only supposed to be sure that whoever built it isn't human and that this technology far surpasses anything that we have.