Star Wars From Puppets To Pixels: Digital Characters In Episode II Documentary

having different levels of the character, cool, so here's this little piece that, again, is not finished, it's just the first rough thing, yeah, but you get it. an idea of ​​what it looks like and I think it will work very well, what do you think? Hey, all new Yoda, that's the sauce working on Doku

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, it's still a work in progress, it's still very difficult, but we want to show it to you. an idea we're having, so he's flying in the air, we'll make him land

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ly on two feet, okay, he'll appear in a match in Oh, in live action, keeping his head digital, okay, let me show you his speed .

It's still very difficult, but I want to make sure you're okay with the idea. Okay, it's pretty hard to get that to work, but we'll do them. I want to make sure we're on the right path. Yes, this is the big problem. Here, this is the render with Dexter without the clothing simulation still done correctly and the substitute rough animation model for Obi-Wan to figure out and place. Well, I've been talking to John Knoll and what. What we're going to do is use a human head and replace everything else with the CG version of Obi-Wan, so you'll end up animating the arms in the hands so you know exactly where.

They are, so you'll have to be careful with examples like where Dexter's hand and Yuan's elbow pass each other because we'll have a collision object for that hand, so yeah, probably in that case you'll have to lower Dexter's hand because once they turn it into a collision the clothes will ripple so you know it won't be able to pass safely George, I'm Warren hi, are you in one of our clothes leaders and he made this movie for me to show you what? this is still a work in progress he's been doing a great job on Yoda's clothes throughout the movie with James Tooley but he's still working on it but this is taking Tim's last action and putting clothes on them and I was Gotta afraid that it will fly out of them, but actually, it's okay, it's good to stop to go to the last frame.

This is a really revealing moment, here we go, they are, is there a way? And it happens at all times so that this increases. a little bit and not wrap them up in an ugly way like you do, sure, I mean, if you come back, I mean, you'll see if what we did is here, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. There, this plays like catching the wind, it's a much more romantic version than the reality version, when we can still keep some of this reality, but when he makes a quick move or jumps, he'd rather have the thing.

It kind of goes up above your head, it sort of goes out there, so we need a little bit as much as any other kind of artistic animation that's not technically correct, which is romantically correct in the first film. The

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we were animating for the most part were pretty broad. This movie for us was more of a challenge in terms of having a lot more dramatic acting coming from the

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rather than just comedic acting or just action plus trying to be. Very naturalistic and subtle with the performances, we have all the realism issues of fabric and weight etc to deal with with the Camino, they are tall and elegant and it's tricky to do that and at the same time have a sense of weight and substance. so they don't feel completely floating ko Jeju 19 cities work on the road, you know, I would love to have those hands further apart.

I love how you're putting them together, so we read that there's less good, yeah. I would love to have that other hand just half a hand width or a hand width away, so you need to read that and you would know that you have them like this if your camera I put it in this other hand more like that. This is because what we originally struggled with is that you know he's using the Force to get his way and we've never seen a Jedi use two hands and I just don't want it to look like he's doing this to get it.

What I want to be really clear about is that he's reaching out to grab the lightsaber and it's just for balance. I don't know what that is, you know, but if you put it like that, it seems so simple. Same thing, yeah, but change shape, but just and then take it out here, yeah, well, I want it like through the fingers described a little bit and then I want you to close the hair. I want you to go like this. You know, what I love is this. little micro acting moment that's happening right here with his face, he's like looking out, yeah, it's happening, oh, that's not right, it looks like look at this, the Saber passes by, oh, that's cool, that's cool , destroy the dog store, god, that's cool, so there everything is perfect until the end okay, the last 25 frames are okay for the fools, the fools, yeah, go back to the last frame for you, okay , that's the last round, yeah, a little too happy, a little too happy, okay, the cocky one, okay, made up for, came too soon, a stroke, oh, so we.

He went from sinister to smug yeah, well, these, he needs to be worried, okay, you need to have a worried look, okay, okay, it doesn't look like we're dulling the horn and you imagine there's a light on. the ceiling somewhere and I just wanted to get something that looked like a specular highlight through some of that and see you know the speaker isn't super bright it would be a pretty wide highlight okay and maybe just move it a little bit okay, so maybe something like that, oh, I think you might have to be a little further away, it's just that I want to highlight more on the flat part and less on the edge, here we go, okay, come back. around just a little bit, okay, now it reads like a specular highlight and it's in the right place, well, I think it looks good now that in this shot we've

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ted calling Widowmaker, okay, I can't wait to see this , this is so innocent with my program like an innocent little thing, the clone war has

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ted, come on guys, how difficult is it, I don't know, the little war has started, the director approved it a couple of times and then. the unapproved back is always difficult when you say master obi-wan no victory the shroud of the dark side has fallen this clone war has started ha oh come on guys no that's pathetic I know I'm trying to make it as pathetic as possible really, but It's okay, sad, look how bright, yes, it is, yes, I know it's sad, it's very sad, sad because I keep getting these notes.

It has to be a little sad, it has to be a little sad, so I said: sorry dad, it's okay, zamak, sad. It's not the writing so I had the right reaction well sad is not the right word um look house yeah poor little Yoda poor little Yoda uh we need to have done it before a dry year and they did it before are these Is it reflective? He is worried as if he is upset. It's okay, he's not angry. It's just like mmm. You know it has to be inevitable. This guy walks too slow. Yeah, it looks like he's onto something.

I can't quite remember which part of the city in this damn city looks like me. I know I live here somewhere. These guys look good. This guy, well, you should get home twice as fast, yeah, okay, but other than that. looks great, this looks good, he's moving around here, which looks great, next up is Kevin Martel, I'm fine, George, you've met Kevin before. I think he's the one working on the Widowmaker photo. Widowmaker huh, so you haven't. brought uh yeah yeah we just wanted to share the love with Kevin bear so Kevin front and center please okay this is called acting this is where Kevin brought it through the Shroud of the dark side has fallen started this clone war Ha uh- uh, I'm just wondering about his ears, okay?

How far do they fall at the end? Yeah, yeah, we're good, okay, great, okay, that's a struggle, what was that meeting to get a performance from a normal actor? It just takes a lot more time to get there, a couple more takes, that's why they'll say digital actors will take it over, I don't believe that somehow when they talk about digital actors they don't realize you exist, okay, he's digital, but I do, why can't Christopher really fight Kenny, yeah, that looks great, my god, amazing, okay, look at that, Christopher. Lee, very good, five weeks and counting, we are doing very, very well, we only have 24 shots left to give to the animators, just excellent, we only have 12 match moves waiting, so we are in a very good place, just we need 16 files. a week and we did 45 this week, so we are doing very well.

I hope you all saw the letter Frank Oz sent to me and all of you this week. He was certainly moved by what we did and I am very grateful that he took the initiative. It's time to write the letter and I wanted to make sure you thought that way. I want to share it with you because it's the group effort of everyone here and all the great TDs and songwriters that made it look as cool as it is, that's how I see it. That's a win on our behalf, so I hope the fans like it as much as Frank and George, so I take my hat off to you, hug mm-hmm, it looks great, well, his hands are animated, yeah , jeans, well, this his head is real, yeah.

This looks like just a part of him that they were examining well, but it looks great, it's amazing, it's pretty convincing mm-hmm, nothing looks good, yeah, much better, the costume looks great, the feature looks great, yeah , looks great. I'll make a whole movie here beautiful, yeah, this. looks good, looks good to me, looks good to me before, okay, okay, that's it for HD, here we go, that's it. Thanks everyone, do you want to do another one, hey Rob, you know it's fantastic work, there's no way around it. Theatrical filmmaking as we know it is storytelling, so technology is used to tell a story and that's the point: it's really the filmmaker and how well they are able to tell the story that counts.

In the end, digital characters are what I need. really tell the Star Wars movies so I could have a story more like what I came up with in my head. The animators working on the film are supporting actors and it's the director's job to say it's a good time. It's not a little, lower the tone, reinforce it faster, more intense, everything is acting on you.