David Gregg

Roger that. I find the software to be amazing. Having painfully done more wild tracks without the benefit of such a dead-on lock down, my hats off to the developers! I just wish the sales staffs wouldn't push the "auto tracker" until it learns the difference between good corners, intersecting planes and reflections. All it takes is one bad track point to mess up a perfectly good week. my trip to mars

If I was putting money or a production schedule on the line, I'd design any post motion tracking show with lots of parallax. Otherwise, things could get complicated and maybe even painful. Been there. Done that. Some fun with Match Mover

In practical terms, there isn't enough parallax in simple pivotal pan to my experience. Most of the 3d tracking software does have the ability to add secondary views from other angles as "helper" files to give it depth data. I only known Maya's (RealViz) Matchmover, but it is happy with most any "helper" file even if it comes from an entirely different camera and lens. Pretty amazing stuff. In any event, I wouldn't recommend counting on a pan for 3d motion tracking. Dolly shots are great though! I wouldn't count on the auto-trackers either. My link

With the advent of 3d motion tracking a dozen or so years ago, it really became practical to do a lot of shots with realistic animation inserted and interacting with the scene. I have to presume that 3d motion tracking is the primary method (that and a lot of great animation). I've worked with Real Viz's Match Move (now Maya's Match Mover). Match Mover and related software products are amazingly accurate for calculating and deriving the camera, its lens and its motion path. If done right, think 1/4 pixel accuracy. The key is that there has to be enough depth information in tracking points for the software to figure out where the camera is. That information usually comes from orbital, trucking or dolly shots since a single stream track has to have enough parallax to figure out the 3d camera and its path. The tracking software is amazing and works even on something like an unregistered film camera. (I was once playing with some old stock film footage on video that had the fields reversed and some screwed up 3-2 pull-down, but the darn thing still tracked it and derived the camera!) The high-end systems allow for stills or other secondary shots taken from different angles to be used to provide depth information. Amazingly, most of the software systems can use most any camera's alternate angle to add depth data for tracking. A digital still camera can be mixed with an HD video or film camera for example and it still works. About the only thing that won't work is a simple pan from a tripod head or a lens zoom. There is no parallax in a pan or simple zoom so there is no depth data (unless you have "helper" shots of the same scene from other angles). My link

It is possible to do it with speed ups in After Effects and generated/animated light streaks. Real Smart motion blur will provide some of the basics for cars getting blurred, but I think not so much the greatly extended light streaks. Particular from Trapcode could post create the streaks. It is used to do a lot of the streaky light effects seen in high-end graphics, commercials and such. Particular demo reel Since most of the time-lapse shots are static, it should be possible to essentially "paint" the effect or even lift some of it from stock footage. If it moves on an orbital boom/dolly, it would have to go to 3D motion tracking as a post effect or a serious mechanical setup. With trepidation at showing my age, years ago I set up a Bolex 16mm with an Atari 800 computer and a solenoid frame release trigger. That was a fun toy to shoot with at night (extension cords required!). It can be done in graphic effects with maybe even a fresh look, but depending on the real requirements, budget, etc., it might be easier to do time-lapse. http://www.davidgreggassociates.com

An excellent source of detailed history of special effects indeed. Pictures from my trip to Mars

Tough question these days since so many software packages are highly developed almost to the point that they are ready for a structural rewrite. Any of the majors are good. I'd just recommend staying with the most common of the majors specializing in whatever area you want to work. Photorealism in CGI is still mostly a matter of the animators eye and artistic talent. My trip to Mars

You might try Cinefex back editions. Great in depth looks at special effects and how they were done. Playing with a few lights, an aquarium and an HD camera can be a fun place to start your own cloud chamber short of heavy particle CGI. Mars

There are a couple of AE plugins for the flash-frame, dirt and scratches old film look. The picture itself looks like it was processed using a little blur combined with "median" noise reduction. Could be any number of filter plugins though. My link

Not big on theme parks as my tastes are jaded about such things and some of the stuff is really old-hat. Besides I'm getting too old to ride roller-coasters all day. I did really enjoy the Spiderman ride at Universal in Orlando. Nice combination of CG stereoscopic scenes tied to riding a motion controlled rig and set work that supported it. 35 years of stuff

The key to any efficient production is to pick the right tool for the right job. Some of the worst stuff done is where producers get enamored with a new toy, CGI or otherwise, and its effects and go "ga-ga" over it. Titanic worked in part because the massive amounts of CGI was more like slightly romanticized, photorealist paintings that captured the flavor of the era than literal realism. Practicals, physical models, or CGI, it is still the art that drives the success of the result. The CGI in Avatar worked because it was a beautifully painted, realistic-looking fantasy world. I can't imagine that being done any other way, though it was certainly a practical mixed mode production. Of course, I'm biased and have been for a generation ;O) Mars

While I've been doing this for a long time, it has been getting increasingly difficult to tell CGI from real no matter how practiced the eye. Of course, there is plenty of low-budget, low-end or unskilled CGI out there too, but there is also a lot of stuff that just gets accepted as real (especially when it is not some kind of wow-me move that gives it away). Mars

Would CGI have made this better? It certainly wouldn't have made it better at the time! It's a great sequence that holds up very well across these decades of change. The art is still art no matter what the tool. My link

Modeling spaceships in CG is one of the easier things to build and you can move it just about any way you want. Render times these days are fast. The lighting kit is really big too ;O) Making it look realistic, if that's your goal, is the only tricky part. 35 years of stuff

Yes, that scene still holds up well. Can't say the same for those titles though! I like practicals and models and I like CGI. Both can be done brilliantly or badly and have their place. I'm sure CGI has hurt physical modeling a lot as well as stunts. Mars