Digital Actors in Rings Can Think

Wired News ^ | 12-13-02 | Courtney Macavinta

[LadyDoc]

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- In a sparse, sunlit loft, programmer Stephen Regelous quietly works alone every day to the hum of his laptop. But what he's really doing is leading the masses.

Regelous created Massive, the special-effects program behind the colossal battles in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Using Massive, the Oscar-winning Weta Digital team pulled off anticipated scenes for the latest installment, The Two Towers -- such as the battle at Helm's Deep -- by digitally generating smart crowds to supplement the live action.

[LadyDoc]

for LOTR and special effects fans

[ecurbh]

Ring Ping!!

[ovrtaxt]

Hmmm. Huge crowds of synthetic, artificially sentient individuals, all generally the same with slight individual variations. Sounds like Democrat Underground.

[Lil'freeper]

LOL! Too true. I enjoyed the effects on the screen and had a hard time discerning the real Uruks from the "Massive" Uruks. I love a movie where you can forget about all the CGI because it is so seamless and natural.

[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

I saw a similar version of this story a few weeks ago; I forget the source. It might have been via a Slashdot link. Anyway, it was pretty funny, in an early version of the software, Regelous and Peter Jackson watched the Massive program start a battle scene, and some of the fighters on one side appear to decide to desert and run away. Pretty darn funny; apparently "rational" behavior from very simple AI programs.

[BibChr]

I'd heard about and seen about this for months. Yet with both viewings of the movie, I basically forgot even to look for it in the battle scenes. They are so essentially unflawed that you don't think, "Wow, is that well-done!", you think, "Wow, how can the good guys survive that?!?:

Dan