I’m not sure what to think about the details that Variety blogger David S. Cohen wrote about on the announced partnership between George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic and Paramount to make Rango, its very first animated film.
It’s going to be animated by hand but! it’s going to involve a modification to the process that ILM used to create the animated special effects in Pirates of the Carribbean 2 and 3 but! it’s going to be rendered photo realistically but! they’re also going to be stylized, according to director Gore Verbinski’s will.
It sounds like a mish-mosh of contradictions, and I’m having trouble visualizing what that’s going to look like.
Since it’s not roto-scoping, I know it’s not going to look like Heavy Metal, and I’m fine with that. It’s purported to be better than the mo-cap used in Beowulf, and since I liked Beowulf, I’m disconcerted by that. I was a little freaked out by the creature animation in Pirates of the Carribbean 2, and since this new technique is derived from that one, I’m swinging back into be concerned.
It’s enough to make one yearn for the days of Stan Winston, Phil Tippett, and puppet animation.
DJ Purkis says:
Here’s some stylised CG artwork, photorealistically rendered:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=672493&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=cgchoice&utm_term=672493&utm_content=thumbnail&utm_campaign=20080915
I wouldn’t really call it a contradiction. It’s just an aesthetic deviation. There’s nothing really confusing in the article, just a lot of vagueness regarding the technology involved. Well, that and the inexplicable “no word on whether it’ll be in 3D” bit. Ummm…”4) That world will be rendered photo-realistically, in keeping with ILM’s background in creating photo-realistic CG visual effects”
Erm…I think it’s pretty safe to say it’s in 3D. ‘Render’ has a pretty narrow field of usage in the animation industry, and disregarding that altogether, you can’t render something photorealistically in animation (in practical terms, anyway) without it being in 3D.
DJ Purkis says:
whoops, my bad for the long link. Should’ve tagged that shiz up.
BlueNight says:
I’m thinking along the lines of Gollum or King Kong. You know, body movements digitally captured, but the face hand-animated with face video as reference. Those two characters did not tweak my Uncanny Valley at all.