Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Cool Article
After filming the first "Star Wars" movie with special effects far from special, George Lucas spent millions to develop a complete digital editing system to populate his sequels with armies of X-wing fighters and Gungan warriors.
Then, he virtually gave it away.
"We were 10 years ahead of the commercial reality," said Bob Doris, co-general manager of Lucas' computer division during the mid 1980s. "He inspired some very worthwhile ventures ... but the innovations weren't close to paying for themselves."
So Lucas sold many of his technologies for cheap -- technologies that would later appear in home stereos, cell phones, medical imaging devices and virtually every Hollywood studio, driving billion-dollar companies and employing thousands of people.
.....
Emeryville-based Pixar used RenderMan in 1995 to release the first entirely computer-animated film, "Toy Story," and then five more hits.
Other studios used RenderMan or software inspired by it to make the form-changing cyborg in "Terminator 2," the massive waves in "The Perfect Storm" and even the computer-generated smoke and fire in the final installment of the six-film "Star Wars" saga, "Revenge of the Sith," which debuts May 19.
In all, the software has helped studios win 33 of the past 35 Academy Awards for special-effects. - Technology Review
33 hours, 14 minutes until Revenge of the Sith.
I'm not nerding out or anything....no, really.
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