ILM and SGI Continue JEDI Collaboration, Further Advancing Special Effects
And Animation Technologies
NEW ORLEANS, SIGGRAPH Booth 1019, July 25 /PRNewswire/ -- SGI and Lucas
Digital Ltd. LLC, whose divisions include Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and
Skywalker Sound, today announced the third generation and continuation of
the Joint Environment for Digital Imaging (JEDI) alliance -- JEDI III. Since
its inception in 1994, the JEDI and subsequent JEDI II and JEDI III
agreements have brought together resources from each company: SGI(TM)
high-performance computer and imaging technology and ILM effects and
animation production expertise. These agreements resulted in a model
production environment for state-of-the-art, cost-effective digital imagery
development for ILM projects, including the recently released The Perfect
Storm, as well as past visually-rich films, Star Wars Episode I: "The
Phantom Menace" and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Utilizing the latest SGI
computer systems, the environment is being used at ILM's San Rafael facility
to host a broad spectrum of motion picture and commercial production special
effects activities from character animation to post-production processes.
With the original JEDI agreement of 1994, ILM became one of SGI's largest
entertainment customers. This first JEDI production environment was used
both as a think tank and a model for how visual effects, animation and other
motion picture technologies might be accomplished. The JEDI II and JEDI III
environments leverage the result of earlier research efforts. With the
continuation of JEDI, SGI visual workstations and servers continue to be ILM's
UNIX(R) platform for visual effects creation and distribution.
"SGI has been our long-term partner in providing the most advanced digital
tools that allow us to consistently innovate and take visual effects to the
next level -- shaping the way digital filmmaking is done," said Jim Morris,
president of Lucas Digital Ltd.
"As the result of our JEDI agreements over the past six years, ILM
continues to influence and challenge us early in the design cycle of our
products," said Greg Estes, vice president and general manager,
Telecommunications and Media Group, SGI. "ILM has been a great partner in
pushing us to make the impossible possible."
Visual effects created at ILM during the previous JEDI agreements have
already won industry recognition for technology leadership. Most recently,
ILM's contributions to the film, Star Wars: Episode I: "The Phantom Menace"
were recognized with an Oscar(R) nomination for the best achievement in visual
effects category by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
By harnessing Silicon Graphics(R) O2(R) visual workstations to powerful
SGI(TM) Origin 2000(TM) servers, ILM was able to create an astounding 2,000
visual effects shots combining 3D characters and environments, with miniatures
and live-action photography -- enough for 10 average-size films -- in two
years, on time and on budget.
According to ILM's Andy Hendrickson, director of Systems and R&D, "Our
complete production environment -- from desktop visual computing to
fileserving and rendering is currently built around the SGI platform. We run
large-scale SGI Origin systems and RAID arrays under our file server backbone,
allowing our character animators, compositors, and everyone else to have
access to every shot, every sequence, every frame. The fileserving environment
also serves our render farm, which consists of upwards of 1,500 SGI
processors. What's significant is that during the creation of Star Wars:
Episode I: 'The Phantom Menace,' we were accessing the same SGI pipeline for
several other projects, including Wild Wild West and The Mummy.
"We are pleased to play such a pivotal role in ILM's success over the
years and are inspired by their creative vision," said Bob Bishop, president
and CEO of SGI. "The 140-foot waves shown in The Perfect Storm were an
incredible blend of science and entertainment and raise the bar within the
special effects industry."
This year, ILM will use SGI technology to deliver special effects in many
releases, including The Mummy Returns, Steven Spielberg's A.I., Jurassic Park
III and Pearl Harbor, that will exhibit advanced digital imagery and digital
production techniques resulting from the JEDI III agreement. The visual
effects in this summer's blockbusters The Perfect Storm, Space Cowboys and The
Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle were created by ILM teams working with SGI
workstations and servers.
The Perfect Storm
The tides turned over the July 4 weekend, when ILM unleashed a wet and
wild digital Armageddon on the high seas in director Wolfgang Petersen's The
Perfect Storm, based on the real-life saga of the fishing boat "Andrea
Gail," which was caught in a deadly storm in 1991. Petersen's visual effects
supervisor was Stefen Fangmeier, who was nominated for an Oscar for creating
Twister's killer tornadoes. But ILM's weatherman was reluctant to tackle The
Perfect Storm, and even less willing to reveal how the film's nemesis was
created. All Fangmeier would venture about creating those massive walls of
water was that ILM used SGI Origin 2000 servers to create something called
fluid dynamics, a sophisticated computer simulation of real-life phenomena.
But he's not reticent about discussing how complicated replicating Mother
Nature can be. "Aside from the big rolling waves, we had to create the
little 2-foot and 3-foot waves that actually build on top of those 80-foot
waves. Then over that, all the white spray had to be simulated. We couldn't
just take static textures and slap them on our waves. Everything had to move
with the ocean, which made it very difficult."
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle
For The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, ILM used 3D computer animation
and Silicon Graphics(R) Onyx2(R) systems to bring the beloved Jay Ward moose
and squirrel characters into the real world. That distinction created some
equal but opposite challenges for ILM animators, headed by visual effects
supervisor Roger Guyette (Saving Private Ryan) and animation supervisor Dave
Andrews (Mars Attacks!), as they took the digital revolution into the heart
of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? territory for the first time. But director Des
MacAnuff had some very firm ideas of his own. "Des was very keen on having
ink lines around the characters, like you'd see in traditional cel
animation," Guyette recalls. "He was also very enthusiastic about giving the
characters more dimension than a traditional animation cartoon would have,
because Rocky and Bullwinkle are reacting to the real world, but less than
traditional CG characters."
Guyette and his ILM team eventually decided to take a 21/2D approach to
creating The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, which presented some
challenges since they were working with 3D CG models. They finally realized
that the key was all in the shading of their 3D models. Ultimately, a
complex series of custom-built shaders enabled ILM's animators to create the
21/2D look they were after. "We had to cue into things that made people feel
like Rocky and Bullwinkle were simple, shaded cartoons," Guyette says. "So,
we had a huge group of people just smoothing things out on our characters.
It's an interesting problem, but much more complicated than I ever imagined
it would be."
About ILM
Located in San Rafael, Calif., ILM is a division of Lucas Digital Ltd.
LLC, which also includes Skywalker Sound. Formed in 1993, Lucas Digital Ltd.
is dedicated to serving the digital needs of the entertainment industry for
visual effects, commercial production and audio post-production.
About SGI
SGI provides a broad range of high-performance computing and advanced
graphics solutions that enable customers to understand and conquer their
toughest computing problems. SGI's entertainment, media and broadband
Internet solutions enable customers to expand their business
in Media Commerce(TM) -- transacting content over a vast range of networks.
Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., with offices worldwide, the company
is located on the Web at http://www.sgi.com.
Silicon Graphics, O2, Onyx, and Onyx 2 are registered trademarks, and SGI,
Origin, Media Commerce and the SGI logo are trademarks, of Silicon Graphics,
Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries, licensed
exclusively through X/Open Company Limited. All other trademarks mentioned
herein are the property of their respective owners.
SOURCE SGI
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CONTACT:
Lisa Pistacchio of SGI, 650-933-5683, or
pistacchio@sgi.com; SGI PR, 650-933-7777, or fax, 650-932-0737;
or Miles Perkins of ILM, 415-448-2172 or miles@ilm.com
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