Author Archives: rdwilkins

The HMS Bounty And The Blockbuster That Was Never Made

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The Bounty in 2010. photo by Ebyabe

On October 29, as Hurricane Sandy bore down on the U.S. east coast, a distress call went out to the Coast Guard from the crew of the HMS Bounty. The ship was four days into a bid to avoid the ship being destroyed in harbor by the storm. The captain had decided that the best way to save the ship was to go to sea and sail around the hurricane. Now being swamped by 30 foot waves, the crew was forced to abandon ship. The captain and one of the crew were lost at sea before the remainder of the crew were rescued by Coastguard helicopters. Hours later I saw a photo of the ravaged ship as it went down, its’ mast tops shredded and its’ yards torn away.

The HMS Bounty goes down off the coast of North Carolina. Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Tim Kuklewski/ /U.S. Coast Guard via Getty Images

I looked at it and remembered climbing the shroud lines up to the main mast top and looking out to sea almost exactly 18 years before while surveying the ship for a film. It was to be a remake of the classic Errol Flynn pirate film, Captain Blood, and it would have been the most expensive film made to date. But the films fortunes were as bad as those of the Bounty turned out to be.

The HMS Bounty’s Rebirth

The ship was commissioned by MGM in 1960 for the 1962 film Mutiny On The Bounty starring Marlon Brando. Built in Nova Scotia, it was the first large vessel built using original ship’s plans. To make allowances for shooting and to hold a larger crew, the ship’s deck length was increased from nearly 91 feet to 120 feet with the beam, masting and rigging increased in proportion to the new hull length. Once the film was completed, the studio had planned on burning the ship but Brando protested and the Bounty ended up in Florida. It went through several owners before Ted Turner bought the ship and in 1993 donated it to an educational foundation where it was sent to a new home port in Falls River, Massachusetts.

dock in 1994

Bounty in dry dock in 1994

When we went to survey her in 1994, she was on the rails in dry dock, a number of her futtocks were in need of replacement but we were assured the work would be completed in time for filming. Three of us crawled all over the ship the entire day, taking measurements, hundreds of photographs and video to document the existing structure for as-built drawings. Since the story of Captain Blood takes place in the 1680’s, over 100 years before the original Bounty, the ship was to be converted to an earlier vessel which meant applying a different stern, rigging and bow.

The ship still had most of it’s original fittings including the brick oven and the hand grained paneling below deck. Other than the repairs on the futtocks, she seemed still intact after over 30 years of sailing.

View from the main mast top. Photo- R.D. Wilkins

View from the main mast top. Photo- R.D. Wilkins

The Bounty's brick oven. photo - R.D. Wilkins

The Bounty’s brick oven. photo – R.D. Wilkins

The crew mess area. photo - R.D. Wilkins

The crew mess area. photo – R.D. Wilkins

hand-grained partitions below deck. photo-R.D. Wilkins

hand-grained partitions below deck. photo-R.D. Wilkins

Survey photo of the fore bits. photo - R.D. Wilkins

Survey photo of the fore bits. photo – R.D. Wilkins

The great wheel and binnacle. photo - R.D. Wilkins

The great wheel and binnacle. photo – R.D. Wilkins

View of the stern from the main top. photo - R.D. Wilkins

View of the stern from the mizzen top. photo – R.D. Wilkins

Drawing done from survey measurements in 1994. R.D. Wilkins

Drawing done from survey measurements in 1994. R.D. Wilkins

Period rigging details

Period rigging details for Bounty conversion.

Captain Blood Sails Again

Back in Los Angeles, design work proceeded under the leadership of Production Designer William Creber, who had been nominated for Oscars three times before. The Set Decorator was Eddie Fowlie, David Lean’s right-hand man who had done props and sometimes effects as well for the classic films, Lawrence of Arabia, and fulfilled five different roles on Doctor Zhivago as well as other films. When asked by the studio which credit he wanted for Zhivago, he first replied he didn’t care but decided on a special effects credit since it had involved the most work. He later wished he had picked another title since the effects were so good they were virtually ignored. It appeared to all that the film was made in snow in winter when it was actually shot in Spain, with thousands of tons of cheap marble dust used as snow. The beautiful winter ice palace interior was actually carefully applied paraffin. He had come out of retirement to do the picture, leaving his home in Spain. We were all a bit in awe of both of them, particularly Eddie given his pedigree with Lean. The director had just had his last film explode at the box-office and was the hot ticket in town. The scripts scribes were equally hot commodities and had recent successes of their own.

The plan was to do a remake of the popular Errol Flynn film from 1935, even though the common thought at the time was that pirate movies didn’t make money, (Jerry Bruckheimer would prove this wrong a few years later.) Popular yes, profitable no, This was mainly because of the cost involved in making them. Besides being a period film, it would involve creating a huge 17th century battle, creating at least four different period sailing ships and recreating a large section of the town of Port Royal. The initial projected budget suggested that it would be possibly the most expensive film made to date. That being the case, there were only a few stars that the studio was willing to gamble their money on, and the first choice was Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Proposed artwork for a promotional poster for the film.

Proposed artwork for a promotional poster for the film.

I was eager to quiz Eddie about his time with David Lean but he seemed a bit aloof and obviously did not suffer fools gladly. So, I thought I would offer something he would find useful. I brought in a rare out-of-print set of books from my library of which part was an inventory of ships of the period. One section listed every piece of equipment you could find aboard with illustrations and measured drawings, a Set Decorators dream. He looked up at me over the top of his glasses when I entered his office. “Eddie, I thought these might be a good reference for you”, I said as I laid the books open in front of him.

His jaw dropped slightly as he silently thumbed through them for several minutes. Without looking up he said, “Where did you get these wonderful books?” Then he said it reminded him of how he had done the props for Lawrence Of Arabia. He had an illustrator do a drawing of each piece he needed. The he posted them on his wall and would bring the various local artisans to his office, point to the drawings and indicate how many he needed.

I realized why you could never make a film like Lawrence today the same way and why the Art Departments of the period were so small. Today something like a camel’s saddle would be drawn in multiple versions by several illustrators, modeled in Rhino or Modo by as many as three different set designers, rendered, redesigned, remodeled, re-rendered, finally approved by the director, and only then would a set of working drawings be made. Eddie just found a person who understood what it was he wanted, gave him a sketch and told him how many he needed. But this was a time when directors hired people they trusted and let them do their job. They understood that THEIR job was defining the story and script and concentrated on camera placement and performance and didn’t involve selecting drawer hardware.

After that Eddie would chat about he times with Lean in the afternoons at tea time, which didn’t involve tea for Eddie, who preferred beer. He’d found a local shop in Santa Monica that carried imported beer, so each day when we’d walk to lunch, ( those were the days when we actually stopped for a proper lunch and didn’t eat hunched over our desks ) we would buy him two cans of his favorite beer.

drawing for 18 pounder cannon tubes. At over 9 feet long, these were even shorter than the largest guns.

Drawing for 18 pounder cannon tubes. At over 9 feet long, these were even shorter than the largest guns to be made.

drawing of gun equipment

drawing of gun equipment

One day one of the producers was talking about the ship cannons and I showed him a mock-up of the cannon shot for the large 32 pounder cannon. He frowned as he took the 6 1/2 inch diameter ball and said it seemed puny. I walked him around the corner to where I had taped a full size silhouette of the gun that fired it, which was over 10 feet long and more than 4 feet high. He was shocked. It was then that I made the mistake of mentioning that the opening battle scene was based on a real battle, the Battle of Sedgemore in 1685. He looked surprised and said, “you’re kidding?” I said that not only was that based on history but the main character was also based on a real man named Henry Pitman. “That’s fantastic!” he said. I’m sure in his head he could see that sought-after card ‘based on a true story’ in the title sequence at the front of the film.

This revelation caused a lot of excitement and they asked me to do a little presentation for the director and producers about the real events behind the film. A few days later when I began the presentation, the enthusiasm quickly died. As I told them the real story it became readily apparent that serious liberties had been taken in Sabatini’s original book and worse, the events portrayed in the script didn’t match the real story either. The carefully crafted battle scene that took place at night in the swirling snow had actually happened in the middle of July where heatstroke would have been more a likelihood than frostbite.

It was then that I realized two important truths about the film industry;

1. – Working on a film about a subject you know a lot about is usually a very frustrating and ultimately disappointing experience.

2. – If someone, other than the Production Designer, says they want to know what it really was or looked like, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll change what they already have in their mind.

Most people just want research that is going to confirm or validate what they already have in the script or the image they have in their head. Maybe that’s human nature but it’s the same reason composers hate the temp music used during editing. After months of hearing a tune connected to a picture the director will end up wanting something “just like that tune”. It’s almost routine for a director to question a designer’s design choice by demanding to see research. And then when the image which validates the design is produced, the director will insist, “well, I still want my version instead.” Research that doesn’t validate their own ideas is worse than useless to them because it just points out their own ideas are many times based more on Hollywood clichés than reality.

Everything was proceeding nicely when we be can to hear rumblings that Schwarzenegger was thinking about pulling out of the movie. It was rumored that he had an extended ski trip planned that conflicted with the schedule. Someone else suggested that he was worried he would look ridiculous in 17th century knee breeches. For whatever the reason, a week later it was confirmed that he had pulled out of the picture. The momentum slowed to a crawl. With a picture this large, particularly a picture partly shot at sea, the weather plays a large role. If the schedule was pushed we would be into hurricane season in the tropics and that was something the studio didn’t want to contemplate. Another actor would have to be found and fast.

Because of the estimated budget, the studio sent a list of just five other actors that they considered to be enough of a box office draw to make the film feasible. I leave it to you to guess who those five were. As the week went by, each actor on the list passed until there was just one who had yet to decide.

In my naiveté, I had regularly been collating and forwarding research from my library that I though would be useful but never got a response about it. As each script revision happened it became apparent that it was being tailored to Arnold’s action hero persona with ever greater feats of daring and super-human agility. That last Friday, I got a call from the director’s assistant. She asked if I could send her additional copies of the all the research I’d been sending over to the director saying that the originals had been ‘lost’. The director was scheduled to leave on a plane for Paris that evening and wanted to take the research with him. It turns out the actor who was the film’s last hope was interested, but only if it was going to be a historically motivated picture. I wasn’t sure how they were going to explain why the script was so different from the research.

I don’t think I need to tell you what the actor’s decision was.

Using Models For Discussions

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This short clip is a great example of how important models can be in pre-shoot meetings. In this short video a Production Designer meets with the Cinematographer to discuss a problematic lighting situation for a large scale built set.

It’s hard to imaging how these important decisions could have been reached without the help of the scale model as a visual talking aid.

Understanding Model Scales – A Comparison Study

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Comparative Scale Figure Diagram – You can download a pdf copy of this diagram below.

Even with the large number of computer 3D modeling programs available to designers, there is  (and I think always will be)  a place for physical scale models. Although the modeling programs continue to produce more and more realistic looking images, they are still only a 2D image that utilizes correct perspective. And even the programs or systems that are ‘true 3D’ are really only offset 2D images meant to trick the mind into thinking it’s seeing a dimensional physical shape.

Some of the advantages of a physical scale model are:

-The physical size of a set are much easier to grasp than from a digital model where you can zoom in endlessly.  I once built a model of an area of geography that the producers couldn’t seen to understand exactly how big an area it was until I put in the final piece, a model of the 260 foot ship they planned to use for a crew base. The huge ship measured only 3/16″ in the model scale. They got it instantly.

-A number of people are able to simultaneously view the model and discuss it. A lot of revelations often come from being able to look at a model from many different angles at once.

-The brain isn’t spending effort trying to do the mental tricks required to process fake 3D images. The model is somehow “more real”, because it is.

The Diagrams

I created the chart above as well as the list below from many years worth of notes and scribbles. The calculations are mine so any mistakes are solely mine as well. The visual chart will give you an easy way of determining the size of figures in the various scales that will be most common to concept models.

The list describes what I think are the most useful model sizes  from 1:700 to 1:6 with inch equivalents for each scale as well as the length of a linear foot and meter for each as well. The last column gives the common uses for the scale to help you determine what products exists for purchase. The Size Chart also lists the most common Imperial and metric drawing scales so you can find the model sizes that most closely match.

Determining The Size Of Your Model

Your first calculation will probably be how large the overall model needs to be. You’ll want the model to be as detailed as possible but probably won’t want it to take up and entire room. Using the Size Chart, multiply the overall actual size of the area you need to cover by the foot or meter equivalents and then determine which scale is best for the space you have available. Also note that 1/32 and 1:32 refer to the same scale.

Next, determine what model items exist in that scale. For the most variety in objects and vehicles, stick with the train gauge scales. If you need a lot of detailed plastic trucks or cars, 1/24th scale is going to probably be best, which is also the same as 1/2″ to the foot and is close to the German “G” train gauge.

Download The Files Here

Comparative Scale Figure Diagram

When you print this diagram, be sure that you print it at 100%. Check the inch and metric scales to be sure it is at full size for an accurate representation.

Other Articles

For more information, you can refer to the following articles:

List Of Scale Model Sizes

Combining Figures With Models

Converting Scale Ratios

Finding The Right Scale For Your Model

The Motion Picture Art Director – Yesterday And Today

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Back in the 1940’s the Art Director’s Guild, known then as the Society Of Motion Picture Art Directors, created a chart outlining the exciting responsibilities of an Art Director, which is posted below.  In 1994 I created a revised version which, I thought, seemed like a more accurate representation of the job. Looking it over today I think a newer version is in order. Your suggestions are most welcome.

The responsibilities of the motion picture Art Director of the 1940’s.

The Art Director of “Today”

The Future Of Sketchup

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On Monday morning I, along with about 280 others, packed into the Boulder Theater in downtown Boulder, Colorado in the hope of finding answers. It was the first day of Sketchup Basecamp, a semi-annual event that attracts Sketchup users from around the world for a three-day conference that’s more like a cross between a family reunion and a college party than a traditional industry conference.

When it was announced on April 26 of this year that Google was planning to sell Sketchup, a lot of people ( myself included ) got more than a little nervous. Sketchup is the sole piece of software I use for modeling sets and creating working drawings. Since purchasing the program in 2006, Sketchup has become the most-used modeler in the world with it’s user base growing to over 30 million people. The program was obviously very successful, so why was Google selling it off when it normally doesn’t divest itself of products. The last time they had sold a product investment was in 2009. A Sketchup blog article by Product Manager John Baucus on the same day helped to allay fears but there were still a lot of unanswered questions and concerns.

Google had purchased Sketchup’s parent company, @Last Software in 2006 to provide content for Google Earth. The idea was to provide a free 3D modeling package that would allow people to create buildings for use in Google Earth. Even with a paid version of Google Earth it seems that Earth was never a profit generator for them and with the introduction of a new system which allows Google to now create models from auto-generated 3D mesh buildings from photo-grammatical data gathered from satellites and unmanned aircraft, it seems that they no longer saw a need for a 3D modeling program. There was speculation in the engineering industry that the company would be sold to Dassault Systemes, but when the announcement was made it was revealed that Sketchup would be purchased by Trimble Navigation.

Trimble Who?

So, who is Trimble Navigation and why did they buy Sketchup? It turns out Trimble is a billion dollar company located in Sunnyvale, California and is a leader in developing systems which use GPS technology for the surveying and construction industries. They have offices in over 30 countries and have over 1,800 patents relating to GPS systems. Sketchup is just just one of a number of acquisitions Trimble has made this year, including Tekla, a BIM modeling program from Europe. On Trimble’s website they describe the company as having integrated  “a wide range of positioning technologies including GPS, laser, optical and inertial technologies with application software, wireless communications, and services to provide complete commercial solutions. Its integrated solutions allow customers to collect, manage and analyze complex information faster and easier, making them more productive, efficient and profitable.”

Far from dumping the software in a fire-sale, Google wanted to make sure Sketchup went to a good home. Google had a previous relationship with Trimble having used their GPS systems in developing Google Earth.

Trimble Vice President Bryn Fosburgh was there in Boulder at the opening session to explain how they saw Sketchup’s position in the company’s structure. Having established itself in the engineering and construction side of the industry, the acquisition of Sketchup is seen as a way of extending the firm’s footprint into the design phase of the industries as well. He said they saw the modeling company as becoming seamlessly integrated with the other companies’ software and hardware products and said his only surprise after the purchase was getting used to the unusual dog-rich environment of the Sketchup offices.

Users of their products like the Robotic Total Station will be able to bring the file from a Sketchup model of a house into the device and have it’s laser lay out the corners of the building with 1 centimeter accuracy.

More Tasty Sketchup Biscuits To Come

A problem most companies have is learning when to leave acquisitions alone. Much like biscuits, where over-handling the mix leads to leaden,  inedible lumps. Trimble seems to have a record for buying quality companies, integrating them into the family, and then leaving the work to the people that know best how to implement it.

Joined on stage by Sketchup Product Manager John Baucus, Product Evangelist Aidan Chopra and a number of others from the company, the group quickly explained the plans Trimble has set for the 3D modeler: the program is going to stay simple to use, and it’s going to get a lot more complex as well. The company sees Sketchup as a platform as well as an application.

Here’s the abbreviated breakdown:

– There will always be a free version of Sketchup available and the basic program will     never be more complicated to learn.

-The Pro version will continue to be developed and you will see a continually greater difference between it’s abilities and those of the free version.

-They will continue to support 3rd party developers in creating compatible software and plugins to work within Sketchup. Over 45% of users have and use 3rd party plugins with Sketchup and they want to continue to support the creation of useful additions that they would never develop in-house, hoping that each industry will take the initiative in creating plugins for specific needs.

-They will continue to support “everyone else” as well. Since the program is used in so many varied industries and vocations, the company wants the software to be truly useful to anyone who uses it to create.

-They plan to continue to make the software run bigger and more complex models as fast as possible by any means they can.

-The company is ramping up their team size and is currently looking for new talent. Trimble is pumping a lot of money into the company, especially in Layout, their software for creating construction drawings from Sketchup models. They plan on continuing to improve the drawing program to equal any CAD package out there.

-Starting in 2013 with the release of the next version, the company will now go to annual updates instead of the random release dates we’ve become used to. Another sign that the software’s development is going to proceed at a much faster rate than it did at Google.

Also, there are plans to overhaul the 3D Warehouse. The Warehouse now contains over 2 million models with over 1000 new models added each week, many by major manufacturers. They plan to update it to make it easier to use and easier to find content.

And, it was announced that the company has developed an STL importer/exporter for creating model files for use in stereolithography and 3D printing. Now that companies like Makerbot have made desk-top 3D printers available in the $2000 range, 3D printing may soon become as common as paper printers.

They have licensed STL plugin code from three outside developers, streamlined it and offer it as a free plugin. You can download it here.

All in all, the switch to Trimble ownership looks like a much better fit than it did with Google. Although as John Baucus will say, plenty of good things came from the Google purchase. It was at Google that the free version of the software was launched and the 3D Warehouse came into being. And, kudos to Google for making sure the company went to a good new home and wasn’t just cut loose.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that I left the conference relieved. It looks like Sketchup has a very long and productive future ahead. Aidan Chopra joked at the opening session, “Sketchup 17 is going to be awesome!”

A Short Lesson In Perspective – Mandatory Reading

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I think of myself as a pretty thoughtful, conscientious  person. Or I did until this week when I realized I had forgotten my wedding anniversary. The only thing that saved me was that my wife had forgotten it too. In our mad dash to keep our careers on track we sometimes let milestones pass us by without noticing them until they’re way back in the rearview mirror of life.

This article, A Short Lesson in Perspective, is by former advertising Art Director Linds Redding. The work conditions he describes are a near mirror image to those in the film and television industry today. The siren song of technology has allowed us to do things much faster and easier than we could have years ago. But that speed and efficiency has come at a big price, and one you sometimes don’t notice right away.

Redding was diagnosed with esophageal cancer several years ago and it took that to make him realize that he was letting his job eat him alive. When he realized what his creative advocation was costing him, he began to ask himself, ‘when is the cost for having a creative career not worth it anymore ?’

Stop what you’re doing. Read this. Is this you?

A Short Lesson In Perspective

The Best Chair You’ve Never Heard Of

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On campaign during the Boer War, 1900. Major-General R. Pole-Carew , right, is seated in a Roorkhee campaign chair. National Army Museum, London

It’s all our fault. America and India, that is. When the British Empire was at it’s height of power it was sending troops to three continents. It would have been an extreme hardship for the officers, gentlemen in a class above that of the common soldier, to have traveled to these far-off places without the comforts and trappings that they were used to at home.

That meant that the campaign tents that were pitched in the American wilderness and the jungles of India had to be filled with proper furniture. Soon the best furniture makers in London, including Thomas Chippendale were turning out pieces which were designed specifically for, well, camping. To maintain the prestige of the British Army the furniture they brought with them had to be practical, portable and stylish.

A suite of Victorian walnut campaign furniture from 1863. From the book British Campaign Furniture by Nicholas Brawer

These were more than just a few choice pieces which were tossed into a cart. Some officers, when ordering their camp furnishings at the British Crown’s expense, selected nearly 50 pieces including beds, chests, writing tables,  bookcases and chamber pot holders. The size of some of the tents they inhabited while on campaign would have rivaled the size of the average room in a fine country estate. Not to mention the caravan of wagons and horses necessary to carry it all from place to place.

I first learned about campaign furniture while I was working on The Patriot in 1999. We reproduced some Georgian campaign chairs like the one below and I was struck by the ingenuity of the design. Some of the comfort may have been compromised but not the style. Sure the stretchers were flat and mostly featureless but the overall lines were there.

George III caned mahogany folding chair, 18th century. Christopher Clark Antiques, Ltd., Glos., England

Three years later I came across Nicholas Brawer’s book, British Campaign Furniture 1740 – 1914. It still remains, amazingly, the only book on the subject. Brawer explains that the real explosion in campaign furniture came after the Napoleonic Wars, when a brisk increase in travel both on the continent and abroad created a huge market for portable and functional furniture.

In 1899, the British Army experienced an entirely new type of war. The Boer War in South Africa changed the way people thought about modern conflict and the idea of a ‘Gentleman’s War’ was gone. The over-designed and over-stuffed campaign furniture of the Victorian Era was unpractical for the new hit-and-run tactics which demanded something lighter and more austere. The Roorkhee Chair came out of this need for a chair that was both simple and still robust enough to stand rough treatment. Weighing between 11 and 13 pounds, the chair was usually covered in canvas with leather straps for arms and easily broke down for travel. The design also had the advantage of allowing the chair to sit with all four feet level no matter how uneven the ground was. The name of the designer is lost to history, but the chair was named in honor of the Indian Army Corps of Engineers in Roorkhee, India.

Roorkhee chair fitted with canvas seat and back. From British Campaign Furniture by Nicholas Brawer.

Chair disassembled for travel

another style of leg

Victorian Mahogany campaign chair from the 1870’s. The ancestor of the Rorrkhee chair, it wasn’t as robust even though it could break-down as well. The pieces were carefully numbered to match their corresponding pieces to make assembly easy for anyone.

Unfortunately Brawer’s book has been out of print for years, so if you find a copy you should grab it. There are reproductions being made including some very nice ones by Lewis Drake & Associates.

If you’re handy with tools, you can try making your own. Christopher Schwarz, contributing editor at Popular Woodworking Magazine, and living patron saint to hand tool woodworkers everywhere, has done an article on making a Roorkhee you can find here. And you can download his Sketchup model of the chair here.

Whipping The Inner Dorftrottel

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The German expression ‘dorftrottel’ roughly translates as ‘village idiot’ or ‘small-minded villager’, but the expression can have a much more nuanced meaning than it’s English equivalent. The term can also refer to a state of intellectual isolation and mental obduracy rather than just a matter of geography.

It’s easy for those of us here in Los Angeles to drink the media Cool-Aid and believe our own press. For many here, Hollywood is still the big engine pulling the train, still the driving force and font of inspiration for all the other entertainment industries. To a great extent that’s still true, but if you peek into the next room,  you’ll see that other entertainment communities are laying their own track, and we need to know where they’re headed.

I was invited to speak at a 3D and Virtual World conference at the Macromedia Hochschule Für Medien Und Kommunication in Stuttgart which was given a few weeks ago. While the primary focus of the conference was on the world of gaming, the theme also touched on the designing of virtual worlds and all the possiblilities that encompasses. For me, the conference was a glimpse into the other entertainment industries which are helping to expand the meaning and directions in which the 3D digital world is taking us and how it will affect our future as designers of those environments.

Creating Games With Drama

Dr. Michael Bhatty

The keynote address was by Dr. Michael Bhatty, professor of media and game design at MHMK campus in Munich, who spoke about the new breed of game designers. He believes games are a media and art form all their own and that the potential of them as story-telling devices is yet to be truly tapped. His courses are geared toward creating designers who are ‘directors’ as well as authors of these virtual worlds, and he means ‘worlds’ in the real sense. As the lead designer of the popular game SACRED, Bhatty believes most games fall short of creating a fully fleshed out environment. “You need to know everything [about the games world] from history, religions, deities, cultures, geography etc. The list goes on and on so let’s just say – a good game director is interested in everything when envisioning a new world as her or his playground,” Bhatty said. “I develop backgrounds for research, because most developers make the mistake of not being thorough and rely only on trivia and clichés they know from movies, pulp magazines or other games.”

Coming from a film and art background, Bhatty is very concerned with the cinematic elements of a game, and believes games should have the same ability to move people in the dramaturgical way that films do. Bhatty is convinced that the ‘game’ concept can be extended much farther than the limited definition we have of it, and creating virtual worlds can enhance many other fields such as education.

The Benefits Of A Well-Planned Design Process

Producer Tom Kubischik

Tom Kubischik, game designer and Producer at Morgen Studios in Berlin, spoke about the process of game design and ways to avoid the pitfalls of not following a rigorous design and development process, something a lot of film production companies could benefit from. He also mentioned that many game development companies, rather than wait for interest from the Hollywood community,  have struck out on their own into the world of feature films and television content.

The “Gamification” Of Society

Dr. Steffen Walz – photo by Ivo Näpflin

Dr. Steffen Walz of Karlsruhe, Director of the Games and Experimental Entertainment Lab at RMIT University in Melbourne, spoke about Gameful World Design in a humorous lecture on how the world around us is being “gamified”. You can watch his lecture here (in  English) from an earlier conference at LIFT11. He talked about how nearly everything in life is becoming game related or is being influenced by gaming concepts. The end result of this being, I think, that people will expect future communication, learning and entertainment to be more visually based.

The Virtual Reality Re-revolution

While a lot of my lecture involved 3D modeling for feature films, the main topic I covered was virtual reality systems for viewing those models and how I think it will influence both game design and film set design. Virtual reality isn’t really new, it’s been around since the 1800’s when panoramic paintings became popular. Even crude vehicle simulators have been around since the 1920’s.

It’s only with the recent improvements of computer processors that VR systems have become a more viable option for designers. VR systems have been used for over 10 years in other industrys and are now standard for aircraft and automotive manufacturers who are dealing with critical space considerations and find that modeling and designing in full-size 3D cuts large amounts of time. The German company IC.IDO has developed a VR system that is in use by most major car companies and their VDP software allows the system to use a model from nearly any other modeling software program. Watch the videos below to see a simulation of how you soon may be designing.

Is The Home-Holodeck Around The Corner?

I mentioned that as the appetite for digital models grows so does the size of Art Departments at the studios. And as these models become bigger in size and quantity, and if the trend toward more detailed models with fully textured surfaces continues, how long will it be before some producer or someone in studio management realizes they are sitting on thousands of dollars of nearly video game-ready digital assets? Is it so far-fetched to think that someday as kids leave a theater they will be able to purchase an access code that will allow them to “play” the movies in their ‘virtual reality playroom’ when they get home?

I spoke in vague terms about a VR system I have experienced at a company (who’s name I can’t mention) which would make such a thing possible. Once you experience true full-immersion 3D, watching something on a flat screen, no matter how good the 3D is, is just not satisfying. This system could be adapted to various interior spaces and become a sort of present day Holodeck for commercial or home applications.

The upside of all of this is that no matter what the tools or media are, and they will continue to change at a dizzying pace, they only increase the need for designers. Whether the worlds are physical or virtual, they still need to be designed. It’s interesting to note that most of the speakers at the conference were either architects or had studied architecture at university.

The challenge will be in keeping from being seen as an ‘operator’ of these ever more complicated systems, and to continually convince the companys / studios / producers that the truly important factors are the designer and the design, not the high-tech tools themselves.

P.S. – Your Rendering Software Is Obsolete

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An article at PC Magazine.com last November talked about how real-time rendering is changing the movies, mainly in terms of how it affects the workflow and the time involved in creating animated films. Because of the advances in processor speeds and the continuing evolution of software programming, animators are beginning to be able to animate in real time. The giant rendering farms of the Far East may soon be a thing of the past.

Creating renders, at least for me, is a tedious affair that ends up eating hours of time while processing images, and renders ( pun intended ) my computer a slave to the rendering engine, useless for working on anything else.

The new wave in rendering software is for real-time execution with full motion and lighting effects as well as physical atmospheric effects like water, fog, etc.

While not cheap, there are a number of real-time, full motion options that cut the normal still-image render time from hours to seconds.

LumenRT

The least expensive option I’m aware of is LumenRT. This is a real-time rendering engine designed for use with Sketchup, but is currently being developed for use with other modeling software. Unlike the other programs I’ll discuss, there is a calculation process involved that does take more time but the advantage of this is that you can output what is called a LiveCube, which is an executable file you can send to anyone that they can navigate in and explore the model without the need for any software. Pretty neat. The downside is that once this is done, if you make any changes you need to recompute everything.

The program boast very accurate lighting and reflection effects and this affects the render speed. The company’s site advises that you may experience slower processing speeds if your model exceeds 40,000 square feet or 500,000 polys.

Normally price at $295, the program is currently on sale for $195 at their site. You can watch a promo film below, and read a review of it here.

 

 

Lumion

The next option is a program called Lumion, which was designed based on the object-oriented analysis approach of Quest 3D, a virtual reality program designed for 3D fly-throughs and simulations.

Lumion’s interface

Lumion is a true real-time rendering engine that can import nearly any 3D model. Instead of using ray-tracing technology like most other renderers, it uses a system more like those found in gaming systems to simulate light effects. This would seem to suggest that the specular effects and reflections are not accurate but a viewing of several sample videos of the product seems to suggest otherwise. Because of the way the program operates, objects in the background are rendered at lesser resolutions meaning it can handle models with millions of polys without bogging down.

The program is touted as having a short learning curve and is able to generate full motion renders in a fraction of the time it once took to do them in programs like Maya.

Lumion isn’t cheap by any means. The price of the basic program is about $1,900 with the pro version running about $3,700. There is a free version, which is limited and there is a trial version as well. It also runs only on the Windows operating system. Check out the amazing promo videos below and read the reviews here and here.

Lumion quick overview from Lumion on Vimeo.

Waterfall Lumion techpreview from Lumion on Vimeo.

Lumion demonstration from Lumion on Vimeo.

Twinmotion 2

Twinmotion 2 bills itself as “the render killer”. It was developed by an architectural film as an in-house application but was made available to the public. Like Lumion it is capable of handling huge models because of its Level Of Detail technology that renders distant objects with less detail and increases the poly count as you move closer to them.

Twinmotion 2 interface

Twinmotion seems to have more accurate geo-locating controls as well as sun controls, but Lumion is constantly changing so that may no longer be the case. Twinmotion does create excellent renders as seen below in this side-by-side comparison of a render to actual film of the location.

At $2900, Twinmotion 2 is in the same range as Lumion. Plus, there is a $850 annual subscription fee, similar to Revit. It’s hardly a purchase one could take lightly.

So what does this mean for the Art Department? Do we need full-motion renders? Considering that renders are becoming more and more common at each step of the design process, creating full-motion renders that can be done in a fraction of the time of traditional renders might become the norm.

Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe they could provide a good transistion step into the pre-viz process. Or maybe they’ll bring some of the pre-viz work back into the Art Department.

What do you think?

“Where’s That Submarine Research?” – Cataloging Your Stuff

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I took the big file of submarine research, surveys and photos and tossed it in the trash. Then I stopped to think about it. Was I really ever going to use this information again? I’d done three sub movies before, what were the chances of ever doing another one. I looked at it sitting on the trash pile and then scooped it back out, just in case.

That’s been my constant dilemma, what to do with the dozens of boxes of files from past film projects. I finally decided that if  there was no way to easily put my hands on a file, I might as well toss all of them.

I’ve been in the midst of trying to catalogue and organize my collection of +2000 books and decided the research needed to get catalogued the same way.

The thought of trying to manually type in the info of all those books kept me from even starting the project until I found Delicious Library. When you open the program you are presented with a virtual bookshelf.

This is the way your books appear on the virtual bookshelf

You just wave the barcode on the book in front of the screen and the program searches the internet and within 3 seconds it loads a photo of the cover of the book onto the shelf. The window along the side records the publisher, date, value, reviews and a lot more. There are multiple ways of organizing and viewing the items including by Dewey decimal system, author, title, location or value.

If the book is older and doesn’t have a barcode, you can enter the ISBN number and it will log it. You can also input older books by inputting the title and author and it will search for all the books editions.  If, like me, you have a LOT of books, or DVDs, when you purchase the program you can also purchase a handheld barcode reader that allows you to scan about a hundred items at a time. When you plug the scanner into your computer, the program will download and record the items onto the ‘shelf’.

The program is also a great way of cataloguing anything else, including research. I created a system of boxes and have the various files noted as to which box they are in so I can do a word search in the system and an icon of the file and its location pop up.

The only downside is that Delicious Library is  for Macs only. For PC users, the nearest similar products which work similarly are  Librarian Pro 2, or All My Books.