Amazing special effects require modest hardware and software, but you'll need an extraordinary imagination
Grant S. Boucher
In the pilot episode of United Paramount Network's flagship show
Star Trek: Voyager
, the sleek state-of-the-art starship pursues a Maquis vessel into the deadly plasma storm-ridden Badlands. Navigating through this space hazard, the U.S.S. Voyager's crew suddenly encounters a large, fast-moving energy wave of unknown origin. Terrifyingly, the Voyager is swallowed completely, its hull searing in a sea of white-hot fiery energy, and swept to the other side of the galaxy, never to return home.
It may surprise you that this scene was not created at a cost of $20 million, using hundreds of Silicon Graphics computers running expensive software costing more than a house.
Instead, Amblin Imaging, Steven Spielberg's CGI (computer-generated imaging) special-effects facility, used desktop computers running off-the-shelf software to create the swirling Badlands, the cyclone-like plasma storms, the galactic wave, and even the Voyager itself as it was swallowed by a digitally created sea of fire.
Amblin Imaging's current platform of choice is NewTek's LightWave 3D ($995 for IBM, Mips, and Silicon Graphics computers) running on 275-MHz Digital Equipment Alpha-based Carrera Computers PCs running Windows NT 3.5. Previously, Amblin also used LightWave 3D running on a Commodore Amiga 2000/040 ($2500) equipped with NewTek's Video Toaster ($2395) desktop video hardware and software (which includes LightWave 3D).
By the time you read this, NewTek will be shipping LightWave 3D 4.0 for IBM PCs, all Silicon Graphics computers (including the popular Indy and Indigo lines), and, of course, all Amigas. In short, any machine that has a Digital, Intel, Mips, or Motorola CPU or that ca
n run NT can now create the kinds of effects shown on TV series such as
Star Trek: Voyager
,
SeaQuest DSV
,
Sliders
,
The X-Files
,
Babylon 5
,
VR.5
, and virtually every other science fiction-related TV show. Somewhere, somehow, LightWave 3D is involved.
Planet Construction 101
For one
Star Trek
episode, Amblin Imaging created a Saturn-like planet with rings composed of planetoid-size asteroids (
see the images
). Below is a list of the steps Amblin uses to create realistic 3-D planets.
op, adjust the contrast, color, and gamma (i.e.,
the ratio of lights to darks) until the desired planet is obtained.
-- Save the image (called the "texture map") in Targa format from Photoshop.
-- Load a planet (i.e., any default sphere object) in LightWave 3D.
-- Load the saved texture map.
-- Use a spherical map to paint the planet with the texture. In
addition, superimpose another sphere with a transparent cloud texture
on the planet-surface sphere, creating realistic atmosphere.
-- Position the planet in the frame. (You can even make the planet
rotate slowly during the sequence by selecting a beginning and ending
rotation angle; the computer calculates all positions in between.)
-- Light the planet. A light to the upper left of the planet
simulates the sun shining down.
-- "Render" one test frame. Complex mathematical formulas
determine how lights interact with objects and create a digital
photograph of the virtual scene.
Depend-ing on the complexity of the
scene and the speed of the computer, a single frame can take seconds
or hours to render. Adjust any incorrect features and render another
test frame until the planet looks perfect.
-- Render the entire animation or sequence of individual frames.
-- Compile all the rendered frames on a DPS PAR (Digital
Processing Systems Personal Animation Recorder). Use specialized
hardware and software to record them frame by frame to an expensive
VCR, or compile them into a QuickTime or Flick animation for easy
viewing.
Amblin previews all CGI animation by using the DPS PAR, a real-time video display card for PCs and Amigas that stores and plays rendered animations. Its superb out-put, which is suitable for TV or VCR, can even be used for final output or for on-air broadcast. At a recent NAB show, DPS announced a successor to the DPS PAR, Perception Video, which has even better image quality, runs on a PCI (Periphera
l Component Interconnect) bus, and uses SCSI-2 hard drives and NT-compatible software, all for the same price as its predecessor ($1995 without a SCSI-2 drive).
One problem with the PAR is that the JPEG algorithm used to compress rendered images onto the PAR's dedicated display drive makes stars appear too large and bright--a bad thing when showing tests to
Star Trek's
producers. This inherent JPEG artifact, caused by the mathematics used to reduce the size of the image, has nothing to do with DPS's superb product.
Virtual Starship
For shots that are impossible to achieve using the actual 5-foot Voyager model, Amblin Imaging created the 3-D, CAD-like "virtual Voyager" for the pilot, using the construction blueprints, photographs, and much hands-on study (
see the image
). Every part of virtual Voyager's surface was textured using high-resolution digital-image texture maps from 4- by 5-inch negatives of the actual Voyager model, scanned
by a service bureau. No expensive 3-D digitizing (wherein a laser records the shape of a physical object as data) was required.
When it was completed, the virtual Voyager had no limitations on the distance it could travel, its rotation or camera angles, or its moving parts. It's also possible to burn, blow up, or duplicate this Voyager without damaging the original: Just make a copy, and then modify only the copy. In one episode, virtual reflective mirrors inside a cave all around the Amblin Voyager reflected the ship realistically, but the LightWave "camera" was invisible. With the real Voyager model, real mirrors would have shown the lights, camera, and crew: most undesirable. Also, because this Voyager is actually 1000 feet long (inside the computer, that is), close-ups of the hull and the passing of cameras through the windows are now possible--a feature the producers of
Star Trek: Voyager
hope to take advantage of in the future.
Past, Present, and Future
Mi
crosoft's purchase of RenderMorphics and Apple's announced QuickDraw 3-D standard mean that both vendors might include 3-D extensions right in their OSes. Word processors will be able to display 3-D animations as part of a document, for example. The ambitious idea is to make 3-D operations as simple and as universal as icons and cut-and-paste operations are now.
Making movies with new animated graphics standards, including MPEG, QuickTime, Video for Windows, and VTASC (from NewTek), will keep getting faster, easier, and less expensive. Graphics accelerator cards that support these standards and the new Silicon Graphics-sponsored OpenGL format are already arriving for the desktop computer. Of course, not everyone needs to create 3-D computer-generated special effects every day, but with the increasing power of desktop hardware and software, the capability exists to do just that.
WHERE TO FIND
Adobe Systems, Inc.
Mountain View, CA
(800) 833-6687
(415) 961-4400
fax: (415) 961-3769
Apple Computer, Inc.
Cupertino, CA
(800) 776-2333
(408) 996-1010
fax: (408) 996-0275
Carrera Computers
Laguna Hills, CA
(800) 576-7472
(714) 707-5051
Commodore Business Machines
West Chester, PA
(610) 431-9100
fax: (610) 431-9156
Digital Equipment Corp.
Maynard, MA
(800) 344-4825
(508) 493-5111
fax: (508) 493-8780
Epson America, Inc.
Torrance, CA
(800) 289-3776
(310) 782-0770
fax: (310) 782-4455
Microsoft
Redmond, WA
(800) 426-9400
(206) 882-8080
fax: (206) 635-6100
NewTek, Inc.
Topeka, KS
(800) 847-6111
(913) 228-8000
fax: (913) 228-8001
RenderMorphics, Ltd.
London, U.K.
+44 171 251 4411
Second Glance Software
Laguna Hills, CA
(714) 855-2331
fax: (714) 586-0930
Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Mountain View, CA
(800) 800-7441
(415) 960-1980
fax: (415) 961-0595
screen_link (52 Kbytes)
A wireframe model of an asteroid is created in LightWave (left) and draped with a texture map (top right) to produce a complete rendered asteroid (bottom right).
screen_link (20 Kbytes)
A side view of the wireframe model of the Voyager starship, as seen in LightWave 3D.
Grant S. Boucher is supervising animator at Amblin Imaging in Los Angeles. You can contact him at
[email protected]
in this quadrant of the galaxy.
Desktop Hollywood F/X
