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For live action: ILM already has basic CG models of the prequel actors for digital stunt work, and so it'd be an easy enough—if time-consuming—process to wire-frame roto live action footage and apply an ACTUAL 'bump map,' rather than just masking and applying gradients.
Well, that's just not going to happen.
Was an edit, made it separate since Gregory posted in between:
Part of it depends on who's actually doing the conversions. I read one article that says that Lucas plans to hire the most experienced 3D conversion houses, and another that claims ILM is handling it in-house.
If ILM handles it, then it certainly could turn out very nice, at least for the prequels, since they can get the accurate depth passes for the CG and do a complete stereo recomposite from the ground up, and have that probably even turn out to be cheaper on the big shots than doing it the usual way.
I was going off the announcement I read, which is that he was farming it out.
For live action: ILM already has basic CG models of the prequel actors for digital stunt work, and so it'd be an easy enough—if time-consuming—process to wire-frame roto live action footage and apply an ACTUAL 'bump map,' rather than just masking and applying gradients.
Well, that's just not going to happen.
Other things Lucas certainly wouldn't do:
1. Completely redo the Trench Run
2. Add a CG Jabba to a deleted scene, then completely redo the Jabba 8 years later
3. Use a crappy puppet for Yoda, then replace him with a CG model 13 years later
4. Digitally remove walls from the Cloud City set
5. Cast Boba Fett's father 20 years later, and then have that actor redub all of Boba's lines
6. Recast the Emporor, and then have that actor film a scene for a movie that was released 20 years before
7. Put Hayden Cristensen in Return of the Jedi
Those are all bullshit artistic choices made because he's insane.
Painstakingly rotomating the entire movie for the purpose of having slightly better 3D data for people who are pretty thin when compared to the depth of any particular shot is going to be more expensive and time consuming than having an intern trace it. You already have to be good at Maya to even do that, let alone quickly - whereas you could train up a newbie on the roto tools in a week or less.
Also:
Maybe I am deluded, but I figured they'd just go ahead and redo all of the effects.
They almost certainly won't.
Assuming they have the project files for the SEs locked in a vault, it'll be an easy enough (if time consuming: notice how they're doing the OT last, and haven't announced a release date) process to re-render in 'true 3D,' in 4 or 8K, like, say, a Pixar movie.
Okay, two things.
1) You bring up Pixar. When Pixar decided to re-release the TOY STORY films in stereo 3D, they didn't do a conversion, they went back to the original files, made artistic depth decisions shot-by-shot, and re-rendered the films from scratch. Doing this required that they take several months to rewrite and reverse engineer their current code to be backwards-compatible with 15-year-old assets. ILM will likely have to do the same to update the SE assets. Assuming that they can just drag and drop those assets into their current pipeline is...not a fair assumption.
2) Almost every film you have seen since the advent of digital post was mastered in 2K or below. Sometimes they scan film higher than that for really complex shots, but the final master that is printed to film was 2K. NO film has EVER mastered 8K. The highest scans done on THE DARK KNIGHT, for the IMAX work, was 5.6K. AVATAR was shot (what parts of it were actually shot) and mastered at stereo 1080p. AOTC and ROTS, too, have a 1080p negative. I highly doubt that they are going to go back to the negative for the OT -- the idea, remember, is to get the MOST bang for the buck. That means dimensionalizing what's already there, not rebuilding the movie from scratch.
Again to look at Secret History, the SEs cost $10 million, and that's not just the new Trench Run, that's the full restoration and sound remix as well.
Then -- and I acknowledge this is a tangent, but -- fuck Lucas again for claiming that simply restoring the originals to BD quality would be prohibitively expensive.
Do we have any reason to suspect that Fox, which just made a ton of money off of Avatar, isn't going to put as much if not more money into the 3D versions of Star Wars, especially considering that if reviews say the same thing that Airbender's reviews said, no one is ever going to watch them?
Assuming that the standard relationship is still in effect, Fox has no say. They'll distribute what Lucas gives them and like it.
And rotomation will not happen. As Teague mentions, a person doesn't really have that much depth, certainly not enough to make the difference between full rotomation and a gradient roto worthwhile. Especially when, between the ubiquitous bluescreen keys and roto already in place to accomplish the existing comps, that work is already mostly done.
Maybe -- maybe -- they'd do it for really dynamic close-ups (the immolation comes to mind; that's probably rotomated in the first place for the burning effects) but not for an entire film.
When Pixar decided to re-release the TOY STORY films in stereo 3D, they didn't do a conversion, they went back to the original files, made artistic depth decisions shot-by-shot, and re-rendered the films from scratch. Doing this required that they take several months to rewrite and reverse engineer their current code to be backwards-compatible with 15-year-old assets. ILM will likely have to do the same to update the SE assets. Assuming that they can just drag and drop those assets into their current pipeline is...not a fair assumption.
I'm not assuming they're going to 'drag and drop.' I said it would be a difficult and lengthy process. Here's my exact point: Pixar did it. Why would I assume LFL wouldn't?
Almost every film you have seen since the advent of digital post was mastered in 2K or below. Sometimes they scan film higher than that for really complex shots, but the final master that is printed to film was 2K. NO film has EVER mastered 8K.
Totally, totally. I added the '8' into my post in a particularly hopeful edit. It's much more likely to be 4K, at least for the OT. If they don't take the time to remaster, then they're missing out on the most important reason for doing this.
AVATAR was shot (what parts of it were actually shot) and mastered at stereo 1080p. AOTC and ROTS, too, have a 1080p negative
The fact that AOTC and ROTS were shot at 1080p still pains me to this day, but, thanks for bringing it up. Ow. So painful.
Avatar was shot at 1080p because he just didn't have any other options. The tech just wasn't there to do the live image-processing he needed. But that's not an argument that 1080p is 'optimal.' Avatar 2 will almost certainly be shot in 3D 4K.
Why wouldn't ILM, if they're going to be re-rendering the prequels' effects anyway, just render them at 4K? It's not like the detail isn't there in most shots.
Gregory Harbin wrote:Again to look at Secret History, the SEs cost $10 million, and that's not just the new Trench Run, that's the full restoration and sound remix as well.
Then -- and I acknowledge this is a tangent, but -- fuck Lucas again for claiming that simply restoring the originals to BD quality would be prohibitively expensive.
I completely agree.
Gregory Harbin wrote:Fox is going to put as much if not more money into the 3D versions of Star Wars as they did the SEs
Assuming that the standard relationship is still in effect, Fox has no say. They'll distribute what Lucas gives them and like it.
Fox paid for the SEs, I expect they're paying for this conversion as well. Lucas may be frugal, but—remember that this is the guy that REDID Jabba for the DVD release of ANH—he spends money when he needs to make it look right. I'm saying, Fox isn't going to say 'no, George, that's two million more than you need.'
And rotomation will not happen. As Teague mentions, a person doesn't really have that much depth, certainly not enough to make the difference between full rotomation and a gradient roto worthwhile.
Tell that to Sam Worthington's stubble.
Especially when, between the ubiquitous bluescreen keys and roto already in place to accomplish the existing comps, that work is already mostly done. Maybe -- maybe -- for really dynamic close-ups, but how many of those can you think of?
I don't know, I can imagine quite a bit.
Last edited by Gregory Harbin (2010-09-30 00:57:46)
That's weird, I disabled the questions.
I would just like to add...
YOU LIIIIIIIIE!!
I agree with some points here. I don't want to go into excruciating detail, but yeah, like Gregory, I'm betting they will do it right. I'm not claiming they'll remaster the OT again in higher resolution, but I'm willing to go as far as saying they will do the best job they can with the conversion. Sure, I've heard that most films you(Dorkman) brought up looked terrible in 3D, which is why I opted out of watching them that way, but Harbin's right. They're announcing it now(or a few months back), and that it won't be ready until 2012.
We've no guarantee that they're not rushing all 6 films, releasing them on an annual basis nonetheless, but I'd like to think there's a tiny spark of hope in Lucas, and I trust him to do the best conversion possible.
That being said, I'll gladly eat those words in 2012, or, if we ever get to it; 2013.
Anyways, here's why I think the series will work in 3D.
Good points. I've only seen a little bit but i'm not a 3D fan. It's too early right now anyway.
Article: "Despite the fact that I could get it working well on four of the six Blu-ray 3D Discs available to me, producing the sterling 3D images described above, it wasn’t entirely free of glitches on any of them."
And that's an expert using an $85,000 projector.
I don't know why anybody's surprised by the 3D thing. Star Wars is Lucas' ho and it's gotta earn. There were even multiple releases on the niche laserdisc format. 3D is now what HD was a few years ago, in a few years it'll be something else.
edit: Oh, i just read Teague's blog. I thought it was being released on 3D bluray. Silly me.
Last edited by beldar (2010-09-30 16:46:09)
And any format where i have to look like this to watch it...
...is asking too much.
That dude looks like an evil genius preparing to take out a small city with his new laser cannon if his demands are not met! 
I don't think you have to look like Ron Paul to watch 3D movies.
On the contrary, most people DO.
And they make you THINK like Ron Paul.
I'm just looking forward to more CG and shit that's different from when I was a kid.
- Branco
Speaking of which, there's a showing this weekend of the original 3D version of Creature from the Black Lagoon as part of the Buffalo International Film Festival (yes, it surprised me as well ^_^). I'm probably going to go, making it and the uncut print of Metropolis my two festival experiences. Unless I also do the 35mm print of Evil Dead next Saturday...
Speaking of which, there's a showing this weekend of the original 3D version of Creature from the Black Lagoon as part of the Buffalo International Film Festival (yes, it surprised me as well ^_^).
Watch for the bubbles. If they don't get you a headache, they'll blow your mind.
…
I guess they'll blow your mind either way.
Well, for what it's worth, here's a quote from John Knoll from the copy of Homing Beacon I just received:
"Getting good results on a stereo conversion is a matter of taking the time and getting it right," said John Knoll, Visual Effects Supervisor for Industrial Light & Magic. "It takes a critical and artistic eye along with an incredible attention to detail to be successful. It is not something that you can rush if you want to expect good results. For Star Wars we will take our time, applying everything we know both aesthetically and technically to bring audiences a fantastic new Star Wars experience."
Dammit Jim! Seems dear Mr. Cameron might have had something to do with this. Link
Dammit Jim! Seems dear Mr. Cameron might have had something to do with this. Link
That is an extremely thin article…all Cameron said is that he encouraged Lucas to convert the whole trilogy after seeing some test footage Lucas had done.
Hmmm, given how wooden the acting and how 2 dimensional the characters (of Star Wars), surely the only good 3D star wars conversion will be Empire!
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