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Transformers: The Best Special Effects Ever?
变形金刚：有史以来最棒的特效？
Behind the high-tech scenes of this summer’s biggest blockbuster with the
geeks who turned blazing concept cars into galaxy-saving Autobots
与将酷炫概念车变为拯救银河系机器人的魔术师们一同探索今年暑假鉅作的最新科技。
Images Courtesy of Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures
所有影像都是承蒙Paramount影业与DreamWorks影业的提供
〔图一〕
For a pivotal fight scene between Bonecrusher (left) and Optimus Prime, the layout team at Industrial Light & Magic used custom software to track a CGI version of the film camera (top). To continue with real-time, on-the-fly transformations, animators work with lower-resolution renders (middle) and coordinate with the creature development team to match up machinery and slot the digital wizardry back into the final cut (bottom).
在Bonecrusher（左）与Optimus Prime（右）对上的这场戏中，ILM的团队
使用客制化后的软体追踪电脑动画版本的镜头动态（上图）。
接著，为了将两台变形金刚加在影片中，动画师先从低解析度版本开始作业（中间图），接著与变形金刚设计团队合作，捕捉正确的机械光泽、效果，接著再合成最终版本
（下图）。
These finished renders of (from left) Autobots Bumblebee and Optimus Prime and Decepticon leader Megatron — filled with hundreds of real aftermarket auto parts — took tens of thousands of pivot points each, with some 10,000 separate pieces to put together Prime alone.
〔图二〕
完成版的Bumblebee、Optimus Prime与Megatron，全身上下有数以千计市面上买得到的车用零件，光是Prime就有一万个以上的接点，由一万个左右完全独立
By Matt Sullivan
Published on: July 3, 2007
More than 750 parts stretching a half-mile long. Some 350 engineers working round-the-clock. Thousands of rusty, old mechanic photos — clutch plates, transmissions, brake discs — spilling across the table. All for one beat up Camaro? Sure doesn't sound like your average auto manufacturer.
看看这座工厂，超过七百五十个零件，总长达到二点四一公里。三百五十位工程 师不眠不休的工作。数以千计生锈的、老旧金属零件照片－变速齿轮、传动轴、 煞车碟片－散布在桌上。只为了拼出一台破烂的Camaro跑车？你去哪裡找这种汽车公司？
"The idea is they're not fresh off the showroom floor," says Jeff White, the man charged with creating the yellow sports car and 13 others for a big new garage. He's right: They're supposed to look realer than that. And be from outer space. And turn into 30-ft. robots. And save the universe.
负责所有电影版变形金刚製作的Jeff White说：「我们的出发点是，这些变形金刚 的车辆型态并不是从展示间直接开进大萤幕。」，他的团队负责大黄蜂与其他十三 位分属两方势力的变形金刚。而他说得没错，这些变形金刚应该看起来像真车。而且还从外太空降临地球。又必须变成十公尺高的机器人。还必须拯救宇宙。
That's all in a day's work for the motor magicians at George Lucas's
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), who for the last two years have been
juggling the limits of the possible (turning a real car into a fake robot
and figuring out what the heck to put inside) and the demands of reality
(studio budgets, GM sponsorship, the wrath of fanboys worldwide) to
build the most painstaking — and maybe most believable — effects
achievement in movie history: Transformers.
这些全都是乔治卢卡斯（George Lucas）的ILM公司（Industrial Light & Magic）中的魔术师们过去两年以来每天上班打卡后做的事情，他们不断探索所谓的「合理性」到底可以被推到哪个极限，毕竟，你要把一台现实世界中的真车变成现实世界中不存在的机器人，还要想办法知道哪个东西要放到哪裡。
另一方面，他们也要面对现实环境中不同的挑战，製作群所能获得的预算有多少、通用（GM）车厂的赞助合约到底怎麼说、全球各地粉丝的期待有多高，这些不同领域的课题都考验著这群专家，考验著他们能否创造出最灿烂耀眼、光彩夺目同时又极为可信的电影特效成就－变形金刚。
When it revs up at the box office this Fourth of July, Michael Bay's $150
million adaptation of the legendary 1980s cartoon and toy series will include
nearly 50 so-called transformations. Hand-rendered metallic uncorkings of
real-life cars, trucks and helicopters represented uncharted territory for the
gooey-alien experts at ILM, each transformation taking six months to
imagine and each re-engineering the way digital Hollywood does computer
graphics imagery (CGI).
当这部由Michael Bay执导，预算达一亿五千万美金，由一九八零年代的卡通、玩具產品为原始题材所改编的电影在七月份上映时，当中将出现将近五十组所谓「变形过程」。这些必须使用手绘技术產生的车辆、直昇机、各式交通工具，对於ILM专攻外星生物的专家们来说是个陌生的领域，每一个变形的过程都花上六个月去构思，而且，每一个变形的过程都改写了好莱坞过去对电脑动画（Computer Graphics Imagery） 的定义。
"How are we gonna get this thing from a car into the robot and back in a believable way?" White, the film's digital production supervisor, asked the Transformers crew in 2005, when, after their back-and-forth with toymaker Hasbro, the F/X plan consisted of little more than robot sketches and shiny new Hummers — and not much in between. "Of course, Michael Bay wants a lot of energy, he wants ninja-fighting warriors that can punch and puttheir arms over their heads and do all this crazy stuff," White says. "So we had to design these really complicated systems — how do all these systems match together and fly over each other to keep it looking real? And that was a huge challenge."
电影的数位製作总监，White说：「我们怎麼让这些”东西”，从车变成机器人再变回来，又让人相信这一切是真的？」。在二零零五年时，他向变形金刚的团队提出了这个问题。当时，整个团队才刚与玩具大厂Hasbro完成繁复的沟通、协调，而最初的產物不过是几张机器人的草稿与一台闪亮量的悍马车，没什麼其他的成果。
White说：「当然，Michael Bay要看到很多的能量，他要像忍者一样战斗的战士，能挥舞拳头，能把手臂高举过头、作出各种疯狂的动作。所以，我们必须设计这些相当复杂的系统，如何让每个部位凑在一起，又在移动时看起来像是真的？而可是个相当大的挑战。」
When it came to breathing life into characters such as Bumblebee, the protective Autobot, ILM needed to think backwards to fill in the blanks (and the junk in the drunk) between finished robot sketches and real-life GM cars.
当你要让Bumblebee这样一位属於Autobot的主角「活过来」，ILM的做法是－逆向思考。想办法在机器人与车之间来回思索，同时也要準备好一堆车辆零件．．．．
Under-prepared, a New Road Map
〔新方向〕
From Jar Jar Binks in the new Star Wars films to villains of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, the modern CGI pipeline has tended to work from the ground up: Pre-build a creature, film it with a stand-in on set, then animate it to react, to actors such as Samuel L. Jackson or Johnny Depp, in postproduction. But after realizing that the simple route, with one transformation per Autobot or Decepticon, might not look robotic enough, Bay and Co. pulled a 280-terabyte U-turn.
从新一代星际大战三部曲中的Jar Jar Binks到神鬼奇航三部曲中的各式反派角色，今日的电脑动画专家很习惯从无到有的作业流程：先建立怪物的模型，在拍片现场用个纸板给演员对戏，接著，在后製过程（post-production）中，製作出相对应的动画，跟真人演员的演出配成最终成品。但是，在考虑到每一位Autonot与Decepticon都需要一个变形的过程之后，Bay与同事们踩了煞车，把整个做法转了个大弯。
ILM designed a backwards interface, moving the beginning of CGI production out of the hands of creature development and onto the desktops of the animators. By allowing animators to get the first crack at rigging control — the way a computer-generated character is built, the way it walks and rotates — ILM's IT team could develop software for custom transformations designed on the fly that might satisfy Bay's notorious flying camera angles. Click a button here, and a flatbed's brake light can pivot into an Optimus Prime punch. Set a control function there, and an alien jetfighter wing can cock into a Megatron claw for any of a half-dozendifferent scenes.
ILM设计了一个「逆向介面」(backwards interface)，将整个电脑动画作业的最初阶段从角色设计部门这边移走，交给动画师。当动画师成为第一个进行「Rigging Control」（一个电脑创造的角色怎麼组成、怎麼走路、活动）的人时，ILM的资讯科技部门才可以及时替每个变形过程撰写程式，好满足Bay他需索无度的动感镜头摆设。
不论是在电影中的哪一个场景，只要在这裡点一下，煞车灯模组就可以变成Optimus Prime的拳头；只要在那裡做好设定，外星喷射机的机翼就可以凹变成Megatron的利爪。
For a character like Bumblebee, hiding untransformed inside that '74 Camaro as the shy protector of the movie's human hero, this tradeoff was crucial: the stand-up robot with feelings and the boy's beat-up car with rust were set in stone, so it was the hybrid halfway point that would represent the real character development.
至於像Bumblebee这位以七四年出厂Camaro为偽装的人类英雄守护者，有一个
取捨格外重要，那就是在高大直立、帅气有型的机器人与男主角四处铁銹的破车之间找到平衡，所以，真正的挑战发生在这两者的中间，也就是变形的过程。
We start with the end result first, then work backwards from there," says animation supervisor Scott Benza. "We'll start Bumblebee standing up in his pose in the composition of the shot, then collapse him down into something of a car shape, where we fold his arms in and hover him down close to the street. And then we deal with what we have to fill in the in-between."
动画总监Scott Benza说：「我们从最终结果开始，然后，倒著做回来。我们先让Bumblebee以机器人型态站立著，接著，我们把他”打平放倒”成车辆的型态，我们把他的手臂折弯面朝下放在路面上。接著，我们开始思考这中间的过程该怎麼填满。」
When that crucial "in-between" involves over 10,000 hand-modeled parts pulled out of actual autobody — as Optimus Prime did (his old- school toy had a mere 51 components) — there's a bit more filling in to do. "It's hugely complicated," says visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar. "It's no different than going out and machining these parts [in a real car]. Every one of those things has to be connected and travel in the right direction when an animation occurs."
想想看Optimus Prime，一个在最重要的「变形」过程中牵涉到超过一万个手绘
零件进行移动的角色（初代的他大概只有五十一个零件），这可不是件小工程。视觉效果总监Scott Farrar说：「这真的是超超超超复杂的。
这跟徒手组装真车没什麼两样。当整个变形的动画发生时，每一个零件都要互相连接、都要往正确的方向移动。」
It started with ILM's creature development team (well versed in children's movie animals but not so much in carburetors) heading to the autobody shop in early 2006 and lifting up the hoods of real-life cars to develop as many real-looking car parts as possible. These formed the innards underneath the exoskeleton provided to the animators. But building a design system that allowed the animators to move all those pieces quickly — and to fit them into the finished robot, designed almost a year earlier, without banging parts into each other — was the real headache.
而一切都在二零零六年初开工，那时候，ILM的角色设计团队前往一家汽车经销商， 打开车子的引擎盖，开始想办法设计出一堆看起来像真车上零件的零件。这些将与外观一同提供给动画师，构成外表以下的骨架、内装。但是，早在一年多前，一套特别的系统就已经被开发出来，好让动画师能够迅速的移动所有零件、放到机器人形态的各个部位、又不会把彼此之间的位置给撞乱。
The 30-year-old Camaro grille, then, may not have been the exact one that ended up on Bumblebee's chest, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Visual effects art director Alex Jaeger built frame-by-frame movements so an animator could take a thinly slatted grille and flip it into a three- slat grille like Venetian blinds. That way, at least, Bumblebee would become both muscular and recognizable (he takes seven different forms — used car, concept car and battered bot among them). Toying with the classic Camaro aside, this hero's transformation represented a massive CGI maneuver, with nearly 20,000 nodes in the movable rig: Jaeger had to break apart a fender close to the ground to unleash Bumbleebee's arm, then disassemble a brake disc attached to the arm before shifting out of the way that will eventually end up on his shoulder.
Bumblebee变成机器人时胸口的水箱盖可能不是原本车头的那一个，但是这可不是乱搞。视觉效果艺术指导Alex Jaeger一格一格将变形过程提供出来，动画师才能把原来薄薄一片的水箱盖利用百叶窗般的机制转成三倍大。靠著这种做法，Bumblebee才能既有”肌肉”又不会看起来不像台车（Bumblebee有七种造型，旧车、概念车以及其他几种受损程度不同的分身）。先别提那台经典款Camaro，Bumblebee的变形过程代表著极为大量的电脑动画量，将近有两万个移动的动作。Jaeger必须先把靠近地面的挡泥版给切断才能让Bumblebee的手臂露出来，接著还要把煞车碟片给接到手臂上，才能让手臂移往最后的位置，因为煞车碟片是要放在肩膀上。
And Jaeger couldn't screw up. Not while he was working for the guy who reignited Pearl Harbor, who told Bruce Willis how to nuke an asteroid from a space shuttle. No way. "Michael's a very, very particular person when it comes to..." Jaeger trails off. Better be careful with Boss Bay. "This is a man who's shot many a car commercial, so he's very particular on the finishes and the materials on the cars as well as the robots."
而Jaeger可不能搞砸。可不能在他与把珍珠港受袭重现、告诉Bruce Willis怎麼开著太空梭去炸陨石的「那个人」一起合作时。他说：「Micheal是个非常非常特别的人，尤其是牵涉到．．（谈到老闆他特别小心．．谨慎的选择自己的用语）。这是一个拍了很多很多汽车广告的人，他对於车辆最后的外观、材质跟机器人一样有一要高的要求。」
Director Michael Bay and his $150-million budget weren’t about to have Optimus Prime talking through a strobe-like voice box. “If you’re gonna watch a movie for two hours, it’s kind of boring if you don’t see something move,” says visual effects supervisor Scot Farrar.
电影导演Micheal Bay和投入的一亿五千万美金可不打算让Optimus Prime讲话还要摀著嘴。视觉效果总监Scott Farrar说：「如果你要看一部片长两个小时的电影，萤幕上一点动静都没有的话，不是有点无聊吗？」
Under the Gun, the Finishing Brushes
〔最后的细节〕
Optimus Prime has lips. Moving metal lips. The Autobot leader went to the grave in the original 1986 movie without ever having opened his voice box, but Bay hated the idea of action heroes wearing a mask. So he had ILM juice up each robot's jaws, eyes and metallic visage, from cartoony strobe light to winking, blinking, crackling Norelco blades.
Optimus Prime有嘴唇。会动的、金属的嘴唇，这位Autobot的领袖在一九八六年的电影中，从头到尾都没有把脸上那片「档版」给放下，直到最后他在电影中都掛点了还是没有放下。但是，Bay很讨厌一个动作派的英雄却戴著面具的呈现方式。所以，他要求ILM把每个机器人的嘴部、眼睛还有脸部轮廓都好好的设计出来，从卡通时代一条上下张合的线条，升级成可以嘟嘴、瞇眼的丰富脸部表情。
But the most important finishing touch? Grease. Lots of it. Sure, stagehands dusted off the real Pontiac Solstice GXP before the cameras rolled, but digital painters at ILM were shading the doors and really mucking up each car's gearbox guts before they rolled up into robots. "Here we've got a car but we don't have any robots, so that's what made this project way harder than Pearl Harbor, where we had real planes to look at," says Ron Woodall, admitting that he painted some cars to look twice as dirty as their exteriors. "We don't have a target, and it's up to everyone's imagination."
但是，最重要的．．最后的那个FU怎麼抓？油污。很多很多油污。当然，在片场有专人会把摆在位置上的Pontiac Soltice GXP给打蜡、上光保养得亮晶晶，但是，ILM的画家们可是把车门给上了好几层阴影，并且把车子的齿轮箱给好好的弄脏。
Ron Woodall说：「我们有车辆的实物，但是，我们没有机器人的实物。所以，这就是为什麼这个计画比珍珠港更难的原因，在珍珠港计画时，我们有真正的飞机作为依据。这一次，我们没有个準，所以，要靠大家的想像力。」他个人承认把某些车辆涂得几乎比原来模样脏上两倍。
Ultimately, that's the point of spending $150 million on car chases, explosions and millions of little CGI polygons: Drummed-up digital trickery is now at the level of turning the unreal into the real — as long as it doesn't seem too cheesy, and doesn't piss off too many fans. "Our goal is to please Michael Bay. He's got to answer to all the other folks," Benza says. "So top of the priority list? If it looks cool, that's where we start. That's the ultimate goal, then we can figure out ways to get the Chevy logo visible and the kind of signature things that the GM folks wanted in there. But I think ultimately even GM wanted Michael to have creative control over the coolness of the transformations."
不论如何，这就是为什麼要花上一亿五千万在飞车追逐、爆破以及百万个小电脑动画多边形上的原因。日渐成熟的数位科技现在已经进入到「化虚假为真实」的境界，只要看起来别太”假”，还有不要激怒太多粉丝。Benza说：「我们的目
标就是让Michael Bay满意。他才是真正负担成败的人。
所以，什麼最重要呢？
如果一样东西看起来够酷，我们就继续努力下去。那就是我们的终极目标。接著，我们要想办法把车厂标誌给放在明显的地方，还有听从通用车厂对於车辆呈现 方式的意见。但是，我想，最后最后，通用车厂还是要求Bay在变形的机制能多”酷”上作主。」
What ends up on the silver screen this week is something that for once actually looks silver, justifiably chrome. Bay even had to send back one of the few non-CGI scale models made for the film — a painted fiberglass Bumblebee made for a scene when the Autobot savior is tied to traintracks — because it didn't look real enough. "It's been a struggle for all of us in this business to get the computer graphics looking as good as they are now, and I really do believe Transformers is a new high-water mark for making materials look good," says Farrar, the visual-effects supervisor and Bay's right-hand computer geek. "It's surprisingly complicated in the world of computer graphics to make objects look like what everybody in the world sees every day."
而本週终於跟大家在电影院面见的是闪亮亮、毫无疑问非常性感的成品。Bay甚至 必须退回少数为这部电影所製作的「真正的模型」－正确点来说，是一辆玻璃纤维 製作、已经上色的Bumblebee，用来拍摄被绑在平板车上的片段－原因是，这个看得到、摸得到的玻璃纤维模型「不够逼真」。视觉效果总监、Bay在这个计画上的电脑顾问Farrar说：「让电脑绘图的成果进步到今天大家所能看到的这个水準一直是我们拼命要做到的一个目标，我想，变形金刚设下了一个很高的标準，一个关於材质看起来能够有多美丽的标準。将大家身边天天见到的东西用电脑绘图的方式呈现，而且做到逼真，是一项出乎意料之外复杂的挑战。」
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以上均摘自
http://www.popularmechanics.com/ ... 18826.html?series=6
[ Last edited by fxrengero on 2007-7-28 at 17:15 ] |
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发表于 2007-7-28 10:17:27
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