lilmac Posted August 4, 2014 Share Posted August 4, 2014 I found these comments enlightening. Link 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CloneWars Posted August 4, 2014 Share Posted August 4, 2014 I found these comments enlightening. Link Poor planning and communication. Yup. That probably explains a lot. This is probably why the Marvel movies have stayed relatively in control budget-wise but why films like POTC went way overboard. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baumer Posted August 4, 2014 Share Posted August 4, 2014 That's awesome lilmac. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eXtacy Posted August 4, 2014 Share Posted August 4, 2014 Nice find, 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goffe Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 awesome, just awesome find Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jandrew Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 I figured thats what it was. No one is willing to spend 2 weeks of their time in a cubicle just animating a mustache for free. And animations take so long you just have to have many people, which means more to pay. It really is fascinating how complex animation is. Even an episode of Rugrats took 9 months to complete. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Futurist Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 When you deal with very high complex things live VFX or NASA, of course it is difficult to plan and communicate, you are basically doing R&D all the time VFX cost a lot because movies are full of them and as each year passes on, they get more photo real, complex and intricate. The things you can do in 2014 were impossible in 2004, look at some you tube videos and you will see how many layers VFX images have nowadays it is kinda crazy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 I figured thats what it was. No one is willing to spend 2 weeks of their time in a cubicle just animating a mustache for free. And animations take so long you just have to have many people, which means more to pay. It really is fascinating how complex animation is. Even an episode of Rugrats took 9 months to complete. Just makes you think how much work goes into smth like TF, TH or Pirates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Futurist Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 Just makes you think how much work goes into smth like TF, TH or Pirates. I saw a picture of the server farms at Weta Digital and you would swear you are at Nasa and the cooling system is scary too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 I saw a picture of the server farms at Weta Digital and you would swear you are at Nasa and the cooling system is scary too. Yeah, I watched some of PJ's Youtube videos about making TH. Really makes you appreciate things more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dashrendar44 Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 (edited) When you realize the amount of time it takes to make one photo-realistic frame: Basically, each element in the frame is broken down into multiple render pass that are later combined by compositing it into one single frame, it saves time and allows specific tweaking than trying to render all at the same time making the render farm CPUs explode. For exemple, if you want to render a still image of a damaged red car in a street, after modelling the car and the street, for each modelling elements, you will have 1) a color/diffuse pass (the red texture paint of the car for exemple), 2) a specular pass (how much the car paint bounce lights on it, the more specular you put the more brilliant and shiny you'll get) 3) a reflection pass (to simulate the reflection, if the car reflect the environment a lot like a mirror you got an environment pass as well to simulate the environment seen onto the car paint), a refraction pass as well is needed if you simulate realistic glass for hence. 4) a bump pass (the amount of depth on the texture to simulate cracks, imperfections and volume you didn't model for realistic purposes), 5) a transparency pass (how much the material let light going through it, obligatory for glass rendering) 6) A Global Illumination/Final Gather/Ambient Occlusion pass (Simulate ultra realistic light bounce effects on the objects like a real sunlight, of course you got to tweak it depending the settings of the scene, interior/exterior/Day/night etc...Im sure you already saw it in making-offs when they show the CG character/environment with a grey/white texture like this, that's called "clayrender") 7) a depth pass (Establish the depth of field of the scene) 8) a shadow pass (You render the shadows separately) That's the basis you learn, I'm sure there are like many more parameters that warrant a proper render layer. All of these layers are rendered separately for absolute control and composited afterwards. That's just for one still frame. For characters, it's ten times harder. You got to add: Creating skeletons/Muscles simulation/skinning, subsurface scattering (to simulate the translucency of the skin), fur and hair (that needs their own render passes as well), clothes simulations, collisions simulations etc... You have particles passes (for smoke/explosions/debris/whatever elements simulations), water/fire simulations (those are constantly evolving so it's a major R&D field like hair simulation) etc... then you add animating the objects/characters + simulations + tracking in order to put CG elements seamlessly onto live action shoots plates as those elements interact or not with real actors, rendering and compositing them at 4K or more for Imax, 24 times to get one second of footage (48 images for 3D release because you got to render each eye POV)...One frame can take 25 hours of rendering depending on the render pass complexity. Yeah, this is mind bogglingly complex and time-consuming (when the director can't make up his mind), still big studios are complaining people in that field are too expensive not realizing that those people are highly skilled engineers AND artists creating the tools and using them to create all those spectacular visions that fill and attract audience to see their crappy tentpoles products. Edited August 27, 2014 by dashrendar44 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Futurist Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 When you realize the amount of time it takes to make one photo-realistic frame. Basically, each element in the frame is broken down into multiple render pass that are later combined by compositing it into, it saves time and allows specific tweakings than trying to render all at the same time making the render farm CPUs explode. For exemple, if you want to render a still image of a damaged red car in a street, after modelling the car and the street, for each modelling elements, you will have 1) a color/diffuse pass (the red texture paint of the car for exemple), 2) a specular pass (how much the car paint bounce lights on it, the more specular you put the more brilliant and shiny) 3) a reflection pass (to simulate the reflection, if the car reflect the environment a lot like a mirror you got an environment pass as well to simulate the environment seen onto the car paint), a refraction pass as well is needed if you simulate realistic glass for hence. 4) a bump pass (the amount of depth on the texture to simulate cracks, imperfections and volume you didn't model for realistic purposes), 5) a transparency pass (how much the material let light going through it, obligatory for glass rendering) 6) A Global Illumination/Final Gather pass (Simulate ultra realistic light bounce effects on the objects like a real sunlight, of course you got to tweak it depending the settings of the scene, interiror/exterior/Day/night etc...Im sure you already saw it in making-offs when they show the CG character/environment with a grey/white texture like this, that's called "clayrender") 7) a depth pass (Establish the depth of field of the scene) 8) a shadow pass (You render the shadows separately) That's the basis you learn, I'm sure there are like many more parameters that warrant a proper render layer. All of these layers are rendered separately for absolute control and composited afterwards. That's just for one still frame. For characters, it's ten times harder. You got to add: Creating skeletons/Muscles simulation/skinning, subsurface scattering (to simulate the translucency of the skin), fur and hair (that needs their own render passes as well), clothes simulations, collisions simulations etc... You have particles passes (for smoke/explosions/debris/whatever elements simulations), water/fire simulations (those are constantly evolving so it's a major R&D field like hair simulation) etc... then you add animating the objects/characters + simulations, rendering and compositing them at 4K or more for Imax, 24 times to get one second of footage (48 images for 3D release because you got to render each eye POV)... Yeah, this is mind bogglingly complex and time-consuming (when the director can't make up his mind), still big studios are complaining people in that field are too expensive not realizing that those people are highly skilled engineers AND artists creating the tools and using them to create all those spectacular visions that fill and attract audience to see their crap tentpoles products. And Canada fucked the entire Los Angeles VFX industry by giving insane tax credit incentives, remember the poor guys who did Life of Pi who tried to tell about their problems at the oscars but got silenced by the oscar music director .... Even ILM has offices in Singapour now if you can believe it, called ILM Singapour. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baumer Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 And Canada fucked the entire Los Angeles VFX industry by giving insane tax credit incentives, remember the poor guys who did Life of Pi who tried to tell about their problems at the oscars but got silenced by the oscar music director .... Even ILM has offices in Singapour now if you can believe it, called ILM Singapour. That's business. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Wiseau Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 (edited) the average salary of a CGI artist is 50,000 $ a year let's say we have 500 artists..working for a whole year..that's 25 mil $+5 mil $ on software (80% and 20%) formula 30 mil $ are the costs of a year work of CGI..that's not much..I thought in some movies..the CGI costs could reach 80-100 mil $ am I missing something here? question:is there a way to know the roughly costs of a single CG shot? Edited August 21, 2014 by Johnny Wiseau Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cookie Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 the average salary of a CGI artist is 50,000 $ a year let's say we have 500 artists..working for a whole year..that's 25 mil $+5 mil $ on software (80% and 20%) formula 30 mil $ are the costs of a year work of CGI..that's not much..I thought in some movies..the CGI costs could reach 80-100 mil $ am I missing something here? If it's a big blockbuster we're talking about a team of 500 people is seriously low-balling it (most have VFX teams at least double that number). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Wiseau Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 If it's a big blockbuster we're talking about a team of 500 people is seriously low-balling it (most have VFX teams at least double that number). for example How to Train your Dragon 2 had a team of 500 people..a movie which is full CGI Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plain Old Tele Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 Don't forget tighter turnarounds, since everyone's racing to meet predetermined release dates now. Tight turnarounds mean deadlines mean longer hours (especially towards the end), so overtime/extra time pushes the salary cost way higher. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Wiseau Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 Don't forget tighter turnarounds, since everyone's racing to meet predetermined release dates now. Tight turnarounds mean deadlines mean longer hours (especially towards the end), so overtime/extra time pushes the salary cost way higher. hey Tele..for example..how much did the CGI cost in The Avengers for example in your opinion? just curious! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plain Old Tele Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 hey Tele..for example..how much did the CGI cost in The Avengers for example in your opinion? just curious!I don't even know if I could hazard a guess. I know next to nothing about number of VFX houses working on it, let alone approximate number of artists, length of project, etc. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Wiseau Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 I don't even know if I could hazard a guess. I know next to nothing about number of VFX houses working on it, let alone approximate number of artists, length of project, etc. lol it's ok and apologies for any disturbance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
