Manipulating the pupil of an eye →

Dumpduck post on forums.thefoundry.co.uk:

Hi, I'm working with footage of an eye and I'm trying to dilate the pupil ever so slightly. The challenge for me is getting the iris to look as it is contracting accordingly. By rendering out a normal shader from Maya (one channel from top to bottom, one from right to left and one with facing ratio) and using it with an IDistort (same method as this guy fakes refraction in Nuke: vimeo.com, I've managed to push the pixels around the pupil. It works to some extent, but doesn't seem like a good way of achieving this.

Good problem solving.

Tent-Pole

Did Disney pick up Lucas Arts for ILM? Nope.

I'm still thinking Disney sees and knows buying huge(Star Wars) story concepts are the way of the future. Many of the big studios are making huge 200 million and above films hoping they clean up at the box office. Most of these are rehashes of older stories that are remade with todays technology.They will then buy smaller movies hoping for a huge payout base on production costs. Many of these smaller movies are targeted at the older demographic. The huge tent pole VFX movies are targeted at the younger generation.

Bases covered? Maybe.

Have a look at whats happening with World War Z and R.I.P.D. Even comedy productions are having the same trouble as the big VFX movies.

A birdie tells me that an up coming comedy is in reshoots and is struggling with the VFX shots that are already on the books. These are not game changing shots these are the regular car comps and production fixes that are more and more becoming part of the film process. The schedules have become so compressed and the films release dates decided even before production starts. No time to move that production van. The scary thing is most of the people working on these films have experience. This is not there first BBQ.

Visual effects is slowly becoming as big a part of making a movie as editing or set design. I would argue sometimes more important than talent. There is a reason ILM gets a title card all to itself. There are saying we are very important.

It's not a mistake Disney just picked up one of the best companies at doing this. John Knoll talked more at last years VFX bake off about how difficult the rig removals were in the last "Mission Impossible" than than anything else. I remember a question "how did you do that". " oh we shot that practically". The shots weren't about amazement but getting that BMW back on the road. Get the story told.

I am hoping Disney sees that you need a good visual effects house to tell the stories they want to make. Along with franchises, you also need people who can execute. Lucas Arts has proven they can.

I hope others take notice.

I wonder what they are going to do with the Indiana Jones Franchise?

David S. Cohen writing for variety.com:

Disney topper Robert Iger offered assurance on an investor call Tuesday, saying "We want to let Industrial Light & Magic remain as is," and saying it would continue to work for other studios, even as ILM management was working the phones to reassure its studio clients.

Disney Buys Lucas Mark Mayerson writing for mayersononanimation:

That takes money and oxygen away from original projects that potentially could become as big as Star Wars or the Marvel Universe. The company is clearly committed to milking existing intellectual property and acquiring more of it than creating new intellectual property. And so much of what Disney is buying is from the last century.

At the end of the day all this is just a way to make money. Goerges rate was 4.05 billion.

Beast

Remember when Disney did their first computer animated shot? I believe it was "Beauty and the Beast". The overly smooth camera, gave it away.

Part of me is thinking Disney buying Lucas Arts is a good thing for visual effects and its artists.

Disney now means business. Visual effects wise. Will ILM only work on Disney movies? No. But Disney can now do what Lucas did with ILM in the past. Disney now has complete control over ILM. For the visual effects industry that might be good. There has always been talk of the studios buying up vfx companies and then being self contained. As a artist you would move from studio to studio simular to how the camera operators and set lighting technicians do. This is how the rest of the movie industry works.

Disney had a really good post house called "Secret Lab". A lot of the really good painters came from there. If "101 Dalmatians" makes you anxious you know what I'm talking about. Disney decided to close it. Many think that was a mistake.

I hope Disney is saying Lucas Arts is very important. 4.05 billion important.

Disney buys Lucasfilm and thus ILM →

Mike Seymour writing for fxguide.com:

Today ILM for the first time in its history was sold, as part of a deal by Disney to buy LucasFilm. fxguide spoke directly to ILM today who commented only that “for ILM and Skywalker Sound it’s business as usual.”

Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm for $4 Billion - ABC News →

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) announced today that it has agreed to acquire Lucasfilm Ltd. in a stock and cash transaction valued at $4.05 billion.  Lucasfilm is 100 percent owned by Lucasfilm chairman and founder, George Lucas.

I wonder how the ILMers feel about this.

Nuke 7 Getting up to Speed →

Get the low down. If you are in London. A birdie says Nuke 7 Release latter this month.

Any chance of this in Los Angeles?

Indecision

The idea that you can make a movie in post is crazy. As you look around at the big tent pole movies being made all of them have gone into reshooting parts of there movie. I have read reports that shooting started even before some of the final decision have not yet decided. Even comedies are such a mess that then need to go and reshoot.

Making a movie is hard. Some think it is easy. Get a camera, point it in the general direction of the action and you got a movie. This simply is not how it works. It takes planing and asking questions.

Let’s not make it harder by not making decisions and talking it out first. Sometimes all it takes for me to solve a problem is to go talk it out with someone. I had a supervisor that would sometimes explain how he would do it on a optical printer. This made the process much more simple.

Putting talent in a green suit doesn’t make him disappear. Putting tracking markers all over a iPhone doesn’t generally make a better shot. Making movies is about the small stuff.

“Smaller brush, Michael. I want to feel it not see it”

Ask us questions and listen to us. We are a group of really smart people who can do almost anything. Trust us.

Indecision might be the most expensive part of visual effects.