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Company Success Stories - Digital Pre-visualization in "Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones" Redefines the Art of Movie Magic
Digital Pre-visualization in "Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones" Redefines the Art of Movie Magic
Profile
Digital Pre-visualization in "Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones" Redefines the Art of Movie Magic
June 19, 2002
"Powered by AMD Athlon MP™ Processors, Pre-visualization lab workstations guide Lucas’ team from first shot "
George Lucas has earned an enduring place in the annals of Hollywood filmmaking. He has written and directed, or produced three of the top 10 grossing Hollywood films of all time, and created a following among "Star Wars" fans that, 25 years after the first "Star Wars" movie, is as passionate as ever.
Yet Lucas’ technical contributions to the film arts may leave an even greater legacy than the unforgettable films he has created. Lucas himself is known as a man who writes his film scripts longhand with a pencil. Yet in the career-long struggle to transfer his wildly imaginative mythical vision to the screen, Lucas has had a very large hand in redefining how movies are made.
Lucas turned his original "Star Wars" success into multiple companies, including Lucasfilm and Lucas Digital, which includes Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), considered to be one of the premier special effects companies in the industry, and Skywalker Sound, a recording studio that has become as highly regarded by the music industry as it is by filmmakers. ILM has been awarded 14 Academy Awards for Best visual Effects and Skywalker Sound has earned 14 Academy Awards. Lucas was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg award by the Motion Picture Academy for lifetime achievement.
In the last five years, digital content creation tools have evolved from a technique for adding special effects to a method that essentially redefines how movies are made. At the cutting edge of this change is another company: JAK Films, Lucas' designated pre-visualization arm for "Star Wars," Episodes "II" and "III."
Digital pre-visualization, also known as animatics, elevates the art of cinema storyboarding far beyond the traditional black and white drawings of the last century. With desktop computers powered by
AMD Athlon MP™ processors and readily available software, it is possible to bring animation, texture and mood to the earliest stages of movie production.
“Pre-visualization serves two primary purposes -- to sell a concept and save time and money,” said Daniel Gregoire, head of Lucas’ previsualization lab. “Our goal was to paint an accurate picture of what 'Star Wars Episode II, Attack of the Clones' would look like long before filming was even started. Our AMD Athlon MP processor-based systems are ideal for running the extremely powerful software we rely upon,” said Gregoire. “People who visit our lab can see how, using these systems, we are able to answer almost all of the creative questions from the start of shooting to the end of postproduction.”
The animatics team’s primary responsibility is to help Lucas convey his ideas and concepts. This allows Lucas complete creative freedom at the drop of a hat. When a film crew is on stage or the final effects work is to begin, Lucas's animatics team provides a clear picture of what must be done. No longer is the grand vision misinterpreted by bad communication or hindered by the multitude of daily questions that nag the artist executing a specific shot.
In years past, it was impossible to the see the final outcome of a special effects shot before it was fully shot and rendered. No one would know for certain if the shot was going to work until the film was developed. Understandably, many scenes or questionable shots were never attempted to avoid spending money on footage that would never appear in the movie. Lucas has found a way to permanently avoid that dilemma.
“Pre-visualization on 'Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones' has been a huge success not only in terms of cost savings, but more importantly, giving George the ability to fully realize his vision from the earliest stages of production.” said Rick McCallum, producer of "Star Wars Episodes I" and "II."
“We have pre-visualized literally every scene and shot in 'Episode II,'” said Gregoire. “As you can imagine, it’s expensive to have a hundred people waiting for a problem to be solved. Especially when we're wrestling with a conceptual issue or a camera angle that's hard to achieve using real world tools. Using a computer and our 3D representation of the set, we could sit down with Lucas and solve critical problems, sometimes within minutes. It’s much easier to move a camera in 3D virtual space than it is to move a film camera around a crowded set. Best of all, once you get the right angle it’s an easy task to show everyone involved what the director is talking about.”
With a special effects bonanza like "Star Wars", where literally every shot contains special effects, it can be difficult to tell if the movie is working. With the advantage of early digital pre-visualization the entire movie can be done in rough yet fully animated and textured form years before it releases.
“The nature of pre-visualization is fast and furious,” explained Gregoire. “If it’s not fast it’s losing its edge and it’s role as cheap problem solver.”
Yet for pre-visualization to maintain its edge, the technology that supports it must do no less. “As 3D tools become more powerful and hardware performance advances," said Gregoire, "we’ll see entire sets built as real time models and directors able to sit down and fly virtually through any set. That’s why we’re excited about the capabilities of AMD’s upcoming 8th generation processors, which we’re expecting to see next year.”
Such capabilities are the stuff of cinematic dreams. Imagine production directors using game controllers to fly through vast virtual worlds picking and choosing camera angles, shot compositions, time of day, and virtual actors complete with animations.
Skeptics of pre-visualization as a tool for the entire film industry often overlook one key point: the cost-effective benefits of pre-visualization derive from the fact that the software used is readily available. Costly software development or R&D; is quite simply overkill. Teams are no longer required to undergo 3-6 week training sessions on proprietary software. Each artist added to the team is likely to be familiar with the tools and able to jump into production. That was certainly the case at the JAK Films pre-visualization lab.
AMD Athlon MP processor-based systems certainly complemented this vision by providing an economical platform to deploy dual processor solutions that kept pace with the artists as they pushed the limits of the pre-visualization software.
"We are fast and inexpensive problem solvers," said Gregoire. "But a key to that is using off-the-shelf tools available to anyone. This eliminates the need for an army of programmers to support our efforts. Gone are the days where the only way to get something done was to write it yourself.”
While several companies currently use computers to develop simple moving storyboards that could be called animatics, the difference may be qualitative. “For some companies, pre-visualization is gray plastic looking 3D models," said Gregoire. "We add texture and lighting including shadows. We add digital characters complete with animation. We fully develop the look and feel and mood that help to convey the entire message that Lucas wishes to convey.”
JAK Films began when a couple of individuals at ILM used animation to convey the essential point of particular shots. Lucas saw the benefit and expanded the department for "Episode I" and again for "Episode II." With this growth came better software and hardware and artistic talent and the ability to push the envelope. At the start of the production of "Episode II," animatics had only progressed a little past what was done on "Episode I."
“By the end of the final sequence a year and a half later we were doing projects with full digital physics simulations, digital character animation, digital fog and smoke simulations—exactly the kind of effects you would usually associate with a high end effects house doing final shots for a movie,” said Gregoire.
In a year-and-a-half period the animatics team worked on "Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones" they produced over 4000 shots with a staff of no more than eight. For reference, only 1800 shots appear in the movie. The team created a 100% digital environment behind its principal actors, who were filmed completely on blue screen with no live reference. Since the shots typically revolved around the actors, it was the job of the pre-visualization team to fill in the blue.
The footage, which had been difficult to edit and follow, suddenly became clear in its intended purpose. Actors talking to air were now talking to computer-generated characters or reacting to a beautiful environment or even an invisible peril well before any final effects work was done.
“Because our group is constantly pushing the limits in terms of what can be done in a certain amount of time it is a constant challenge to get hardware that is up to the challenge," said Gregoire. "Every artist in our group has at minimum two computers on their desk, one for doing 3D work and another for 2D work. That’s why we’ve been so happy to have AMD working with us and providing processors for the systems we rely upon. We have to keep pushing the envelop, and we're confident AMD will be there with us, pushing the art of movie magic to even greater levels."
© 2002 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved.
AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, AMD Athlon, and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other product names used are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.
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Quote provided June 2002 by Rick McCallum, producer of "Star Wars," Episodes "I" and "II."
1 “Pre-visualization on "Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones" has been a huge success not only in terms of cost savings, but more importantly, giving George the ability to fully realize his vision from the earliest stages of production.”
Quotes provided June 2002 by Daniel Gregoire, manager of JAK Films previsualization lab.
1. “Pre-visualization serves two primary purposes -- to sell a concept and save time and money. Our goal was to paint an accurate picture of what "Star Wars Episode II, Attack of the Clones" would look like long before filming was even started. Our AMD Athlon™ MP processor-based systems are ideal for running the extremely powerful software we rely upon. People who visit our lab can see how, using these systems, we are able to answer almost all of the creative questions from the start of shooting to the end of postproduction.”
2. “We have pre-visualized literally every scene and shot in ‘Episode II’. As you can imagine, it’s expensive to have a hundred people waiting for a problem to be solved. Especially when we're wrestling with a conceptual issue or a camera angle that's hard to achieve using real world tools. Using a computer and our 3D representation of the set, we could sit down with Lucas and solve critical problems, sometimes within minutes. It’s much easier to move a camera in 3D virtual space than it is to move a film camera around a crowded set. Best of all, once you get the right angle it’s an easy task to show everyone involved what the director is talking about.”
3. “The nature of pre-visualization is fast and furious. If it’s not fast it’s losing its edge and it’s role as cheap problem solver.”
4. “As 3D tools become more powerful and hardware performance advances, we’ll see entire sets built as real time models and directors able to sit down and fly virtually through any set. That’s why we’re excited about the capabilities of AMD’s upcoming 8th generation processors, which we’re expecting to see next year.”
5. "We are fast and inexpensive problem solvers. But a key to that is using off-the-shelf tools available to anyone. This eliminates the need for an army of programmers to support our efforts. Gone are the days where the only way to get something done was to write it yourself.”
6. “For some companies, pre-visualization is gray plastic looking 3D models. We add texture and lighting including shadows. We add digital characters complete with animation. We fully develop the look and feel and mood that help to convey the entire message that Lucas wishes to convey.”
7. “By the end of the final sequence a year and a half later we were doing projects with full digital physics simulations, digital character animation, digital fog and smoke simulations—exactly the kind of effects you would usually associate with a high end effects house doing final shots for a movie.”
8. “Because our group is constantly pushing the limits in terms of what can be done in a certain amount of time it is a constant challenge to get hardware that is up to the challenge. Every artist in our group has at minimum two computers on their desk, one for doing 3D work and another for 2D work. That’s why we’ve been so happy to have AMD working with us and providing processors for the systems we rely upon. We have to keep pushing the envelop, and we're confident AMD will be there with us, pushing the art of movie magic to even greater levels."
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