American Cinematographer - September 1992 - 30

have

vastly better tools than they
a fraction of the price. Al¬
though [the effects for] that film were
done on a Cray X-MP supercom¬
puter (then worth a cool $15 million),
that was nearly ten years ago, and it
was a
pretty valiant attempt for its
time. I'm quite sure that if you added
up the amount of processing power,
memory, and advances in rendering
algorithms that have been made over
those ten years, you can say today's
system is more powerful overall than
the Cray."
"We're doing at least a mil¬
had, at

CINE SYNC EC-2 TC
COUNTER
A universal

footage/frame,

time/frame counter that displays

footage in 16mm, 35mm, total
frames and time at 24,25, and 30
frames/second. Time code

output drives the Dcode TC Maxi
under

screen

switchable

displays,

input rates to

accomodate most

d
checking true filr

rates, and speed

the

of the time code

output. Tt

and down at 24

fps. The tin

>de

user
runs

bits
up

constant 30

fps forward cod

arty

a

reader

will read it.

Count
internal

Speed:Counts up to 500 fps.

Memory: Holds count after turn-off.

Automatic Zero Stop: Stops system at zero.
Frame

Blanking:

Below Zero Reverse Cc
|
'

negath/e numbers.

take, go to the optical department,
pull mattes off it, do line-up, wedge
tests, etc. It's archaic that people still
that technique for
The Next Generation

TV. Star Trek
really started
to make video work by going to the
Post Group to composite their min¬
iature effects using video techniques,
which cut down a lot on opticals.
Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica
were
comping all of this stuff to film,
and it became outrageously expen¬
sive. You've immediately lost a huge
amount of your overhead budget
and a certain amount of complexity
use

well. [With the

Toaster,] you can

entire shot, complete
with its background and camera
moves, check that it's okay, render it
preview

an

-

A

v

at 170 ma. or!

frpm the CINE SYNC K-2 Interlock)
Inputs: Bi phase S v logic.
Rates include: 0.5, 1,2, 4,

5, 8,10,20.:

40, 50, 80, 100, 160 pulses per I

v

at 100 ma.

Time code out Differential 1

v.

Running at 30 fps.
+5

v

encoder power.

Remotes: Hold and reset Low resets and
'

...

holds count.
Size: 1.75*

x

6"

x

5*

Weight- 1.2 lbs.

so

that

an

animation's

perspective and or¬
thogonal views can be previewed
and modified right in front of the cli¬
ent. This allows for interactive trans¬

lation, rotation and scaling of objects
with the supplied mouse. LightWave

ings.

and it's done."

Power 9-24

with real-time feedback

complexity, the ambitious shots
we're planning would almost be im¬
possible to do by traditional means.
"After you've sent your
scene to be rendered, it's
very satis¬
fying to see it come back [in a matter
of hours] fully comped," Thornton

as

Speed: Displays film speed to t/10 fps.

can commence

3D also permits the user to create de¬

-

xle out is

physical production
with stage one, the
drafting operation. Wireframe mod¬
els of the spaceships are made using
the Video Toaster's LightWave 3D
program. This does a fine job of ma¬
nipulating the wireframe objects
upon,

lion dollars worth of effects," says
Thornton. 'Taking into account their

adds. "You don't have to do your
model passes, go to dailies, pick a

;are<

Once a creative approach is

agreed

Typical Shot
Basically, there are five fun¬
damental steps involved in any
Toaster scene generation: the draft¬
ing stage; the lighting stage; the tech¬
nical direction stage; the rendering
stage; and the final compositing to
tape or film. Each step results in a
sub-product, with the final taping
process establishing the final com¬
posite which is delivered to the client.
Each must be completed from a pro¬
duction point of view before one can
continue to the next step. With more
than

one

computer workstation,
in parallel.

these steps can run

tailed

storyboards from these draw¬

One flower-shaped space¬
ship in Babylon 5 metamorphosizes
as its
huge petals blossom to enact a

deceleration device. The inside blue
texture is animated as thrusters open
and close and little jets of flame spit
out. To achieve this effect, Thornton
created several versions of the
model. "First, a key version is con¬

structed; then

we

create metamor¬

phosed targets. You undergo a pointto-point morf, so that points or edges
of polygons move from their original
positions in the key model to the
positions of the morfed targets." One
can measure the
approximate
amount of scene detail by the num¬
ber of polygons (minimum units of
detail used by the computer to re¬
member surfaces). An average frame
in Tron had 7,000 polygons with a
peak of 15,000. The Last Starfighter
boasted 350,000 polys with peaks of
over four million. With this
poly-intensive capability, computer-gener¬
ated objects can be given far more
intricate detail and movement.

Next, textures are added.
Each surface is named according to
the axis it faces, which determines the
necessary degree of detail. Variable
surface attributes include color and

luminosity, highlights for simulated
metallic surfaces and smooth shad¬

ing. Texture-mapped attributes can
include surface color mapping and
bump mapping to simulate waves,
pitted or dented surfaces or other
raised surface textures. The texture

map features can place images on flat
surfaces or wrap them around cylin¬
ders

or
spheres. The Toaster offers a
negative image option - as well as
procedural checkerboard, grid and

dot textures and fractal noise,

marble, wood and ripple textures.

$1,250
Denecke, Inc. (818) 766-3525

September 1992
American Cinematographer - September 1992

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - September 1992
