On Thu, 22 Jul 1999 13:24:54 +0100, "Equiprawn" <equ### [at] tinetie> wrote:

>I went to see "The Mummy" last night (good film btw, lots of fun, very like
>an Indy Jones film), and I have to say I thought that the graphics were very
>very good. Throughout the film, we see lots of computer generated dust
>storms, sand formations, rocket trails, and other various vapour/cloud
>effects. After the film was over and I had turned my brain back on, I tried
>to work out how they did these specific effects.

  Be on the lookout for computer graphics magazines such as CGW (Computer
Graphics World) and industry trade journals that you might be able to find
at larger booksellers. Computer-generated effects in film get a fair share
of print space these days.

  ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) did the effects for "The Mummy". Some of
the software was proprietary such as I Sculpt, written by ILM employees for
use in "SW:The Phantom Menace", while other software is pretty much
straight-off-the-shelf like Softimage 3D.

  To give an idea of the processing power involved for "TPM", according to
an article in the June 1999 issue of CGW, ILM used eight to ten 32-processor
Origin 2000 workstations, each equipped with between 8 and 12GB of RAM. At
night they converted another 200 SGI O2 machines on the premises to the
render farm to aid in image generation.

  ILM uses a variety of software depending on the job at hand. George Lucas'
philosophy is to use the minimum effort at the cheapest cost to get the shot
completed, although this may be misleading since "TPM" was so ambitious that
the 'minimum' is better than most films' max effort :)

  George Lucas and LucasFilm, Ltd. were successful in their bid to acquire
the use of a parcel of property in the Presidio, the former U.S. Army base
in San Francisco, California. ILM is tentatively slated to be moved to the
proposed industrial park that will be constructed at this site. If LucasFilm
conducts tours of this facility after the move (may be several years away) I
will check it out and give a report, if anyone's interested. By that time,
they should be hard at work on Star Wars Episodes II and III.

-- 
Alan
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