What CGI software was used in Final Fantasy the movie?

[Citadel535]

Okay my brother and I are into this argument (he is a Mac guy so go figure) anyway we saw the movie and the animation was really good. However, I think that it was rendered in Softimage (runs on Windows NT and Irix) but my brother insists that it had to be lightwave or maya (meaning that Macs were involved). Anyone know what it was? I based my guess on the fact that so many computer graphics magazines had ads for Square's animation division with Softimage experience requirements. Also the site for their Honolulu location wanted people with NT and IRIX experience some time ago. Can anyone shed some light on the situation?

 

[RC7]

I'm not sure, but I do know Shrek was created with propriatery (sp?) software designed by the team. I don't know if square did the same thing, but they very well could have.

 

[samarth]

I think it was Maya, not sure though.

 

[SJ]

Maya works on the PC, as does lightwave. But I doubt it was either. Movies like Shrek and FF and Toy Story for the most part use inhouse software. They did a good job on the modeling and textures, and a bad job on animation and lip syncing. The movie was good for what it was, to display technology, but as a movie I thought it sucked, and that could explain the very low BO turnout, what $11million or so for a 5 day period, that is very crappy for a movie that was around $200million and 3+ years to make.

 

[notfred]

Maya. rendered with renderman.

edit: and I'm 99% sure it was done on irix and/or solaris.

 

[Pretender]

It was Maya, as for the OS and systems I don't know, but I remember something along the lines of either ten-thousand or 100-thousand P3 800 Mhz computers.

 

[dawks]

Yea.. You wont find MAC's doing the rendering..

 

[zmatrix]

Yup, definitely Maya. Saw it on TechTV.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

it was 93x some odd intel computers (want to say 733mhz) and 200 sun systems that made up the "render farm". pics and info was in an issue of computer gaming world last month or the month before (99.9% sure it was 9xx intel puters and 200 sun).

 

[hpkeeper]

Maya... is there any other?

 

[d0ofy]

The character team pushed the CG envelop to the limit, creating proprietary programs for realistic skin, hair, and clothing textures and dynamics to work with their existing tools, Maya, Photoshop, and Alias' Studio Paint.
Animators also devised proprietary solutions for scaling inverse kinematics to motion-capture data, filtering and smoothing movement, and blending multiple passes. Artists created sets, props, visual effects, and lighting in Maya, and composited via Avid Media Illusion and Shake.

From AnimationArtist.com

 

[AdamDuritz99]

man i thought toy story was mad with 3d studio max. am i wrong? if so, figures, the guy who told me this BS's alot.


peace
sean

 

[Mapidus]

The modeling and animation was done with Maya on SGI workstations. The rendering was done an a farm of x86 linux machines using Pixar Renderman.

 

[xyion]

For Toy Story/Toy Sotry 2, Pixar uses proprieraty software called Marionette (sp?).

- xyion

 

[Linux23]

what hardware was used to render TS/TS2 and a bugs life??? I still can't believe they used low end Intel CPU's to render this animation?

 

[DannyLove]

I stayed until the last credit was shown, and maya appeared twice with a big logo as well, so my guess would have to be Alias Wavefront Maya Rendering

danny~!

 

[Aihyah]

$11million or so for a 5 day period, that is very crappy for a movie that was around $200million and 3+ years to make.



its 19mil 5 days, and ~110 mil for movie cost. 45 for their developement studio which will be reused. its doing a lot better over seas

 

[Mapidus]

<< I stayed until the last credit was shown, and maya appeared twice with a big logo as well, so my guess would have to be Alias Wavefront Maya Rendering

danny~! >>



Maya was definitely used, but only for the modeling and animation. Pixar Renderman was used for the rendering.

 

[TheOverlord]

i coulda sworn it was bryce &amp; poser...

 

[bigbootydaddy]

lightwave rules...2 years of computer animation gave me 30 sec of footage..CompAnim is so tedious...

impatient booty

 

[Mday]

no, you are all wrong.

it was done frame by frame with MS paint on a celeron with the intel 820 chipset with 64MB of SDRAM used via the hub.

 

[FrontlineWarrior]

that is incorrect, ms paint wasn't used. it was ascii art but they bumped up the resolution a gazillion times to make it look realistic.

 

[Bignate603]

Maybe the lip syncing wasn't great because it was made by foreigners. They wouldn't be as familiar as native speakers with the mouth movements, just like most Americans couldn't animate as well for japanese rather than english.