Internet Gravity, space movie directed by Alfonso Cuaron. Trailer up!

[Pipcard]

(some spoilers if you haven't seen the film yet)

 

[Suzy]

The screenplay is now online (via this article)

 

[martins]

Just back from a presentation here at UCL by the visual effects guys from Framestore who did the CGI for Gravity. Pretty cool to get a behind-the-scenes look, so to speak. Gives you more appreciation of the film when you see how much effort is involved to put together just a single scene (lighting, texturing, reflections, animation, switching between live-action capture and rendering), and how it comes together to produce a convincing end result. To be fair, they have a lot more time per frame than Orbiter (apparently the most expensive single frame took 380 hours to render) and a lot more computing power than the average Orbiter user (15000 processors in continuous action).

I did ask them for their ISS model, but they didn't want to give it to me

 

[Donamy]

Just back from a presentation here at UCL by the visual effects guys from Framestore who did the CGI for Gravity. Pretty cool to get a behind-the-scenes look, so to speak. Gives you more appreciation of the film when you see how much effort is involved to put together just a single scene (lighting, texturing, reflections, animation, switching between live-action capture and rendering), and how it comes together to produce a convincing end result. To be fair, they have a lot more time per frame than Orbiter (apparently the most expensive single frame took 380 hours to render) and a lot more computing power than the average Orbiter user (15000 processors in continuous action).

I did ask them for their ISS model, but they didn't want to give it to me

Any pictures ?

 

[martins]

Any pictures ?

Sorry, no. The audience were even asked not to take pictures during the talk, so they can show the "interesting" stuff. So I don't think they'll upload the presentation either. You can see some bits on their website though: http://www.framestore.com/work/gravity

 

[Ghostrider]

Sorry, no. The audience were even asked not to take pictures during the talk
http://www.framestore.com/work/gravity

Are you telling me nobody smuggled in a hidden camera?

Man, it ain't the world of spies it used to be anymore....

 

[Donamy]

Nobody would admit to it anyway.

 

[paddy2]

Quote To render Gravity on just one machine you would need to start before the dawn of Egyptian civilisation. Unquote
http://www.framestore.com/work/gravity

I think I have the very machine!!

Joking apart, that is one heck of a lot of number crunching

 

[Urwumpe]

Quote To render Gravity on just one machine you would need to start before the dawn of Egyptian civilisation. Unquote
http://www.framestore.com/work/gravity

I think I have the very machine!!

Joking apart, that is one heck of a lot of number crunching

Well, the 3D modell would likely look not much different to Orbiters current one, just more triangles for some trivial rounded surfaces. After all, the number of people making the 3D-Modells is much more limited than the number of CPU cores.

What we do in a few thousand triangles, would then be a few million, plus extra triangles for special rendering effects, a different kind of shader calculation, etc...

 

[paddy2]

not much different to Orbiters current one

Yes, but it still strikes me as saying my garden wall is a bit like that one they have in china.

Still gets me that some free download models of a sat dish have more triangles then a whole orbiter base!!

Just wonder about the file size for their ISS Model.....

 

[fsci123]

I'm pretty sure that if we wait maybe 50 years, Orbiter(or whatever comes after) will have graphics that rivals the gravity movie.:thumbup:

 

[Ghostrider]

Maybe less. Remember the cutting-edge CGI in TRON? The game TRON 2.0 released 21 years after the movie could render in real-time the effects that took the original mainframes months. Of course, we have now hit an obstacle in the growing of processor speed....

 

[Donamy]

If everyone is in space by then, no one will care about a gravity movie.

 

[Ghostrider]

If everyone is in space by then, no one will care about a gravity movie.

Especially if they're not wearing space suits...:lol:

 

[Izack]

Well, the 3D modell would likely look not much different to Orbiters current one, just more triangles for some trivial rounded surfaces. After all, the number of people making the 3D-Modells is much more limited than the number of CPU cores.

What we do in a few thousand triangles, would then be a few million, plus extra triangles for special rendering effects, a different kind of shader calculation, etc...

According to the website, they put 100 million polygons into the model, foregoing displacement maps entirely in the final product. So, a couple of extra triangles here and there, I guess.

 

[Urwumpe]

According to the website, they put 100 million polygons into the model, foregoing displacement maps entirely in the final product. So, a couple of extra triangles here and there, I guess.

Yes, what I said: Where we have thousands of triangles, they likely used millions.

A typical simulation model for calculating aerodynamics is already in the same scale and that also uses tetraheder, not triangles for filling the volume around it.

 

[Quick_Nick]

I just noticed that Alfonso Cuaron will be having a Reddit AMA at 5pm EST. (14.5hrs from now)

 

[ex-orbinaut]

Yeah, watched it by chance this morning on the IFE of an A330 on the way to Miami. What I learned; I am (finally) getting a bit far-sighted! :lol: It all looked rather blurry from 12 inches on a tiny screen. The ear phones were a bit defective, too, so some accidental authenticity to silence in space was added there every now and then.

That aside, I am glad I read the thread before posting. Here is what was going to be my own comment...

*SPOILERS BELOW*

I'd say one thing that bugged me slightly was the scene where George Clooney lets go of Sandra Bullock and drifts off. What is pulling him away from her? If she just lightly pulled him, he would start moving in her direction and he would be saved.

...I thought I was missing some detail in the scene because of the poor viewing experience I was having, but it seems not.

Otherwise, it was very entertaining. I liked her revitalizing, inspirational dream scene. I'll be watching it again under better viewing conditions.

 

[Kyle]

I liked the explanation that it was because the ISS is in LVLH attitude. Ever try to do a spacewalk in LVLH attitude on Orbiter? Same basic idea, your orbitnaut usually drifts away from the vehicle you're spacewalking from pretty quickly.

 

[Andy44]

I liked the explanation that it was because the ISS is in LVLH attitude. Ever try to do a spacewalk in LVLH attitude on Orbiter? Same basic idea, your orbitnaut usually drifts away from the vehicle you're spacewalking from pretty quickly.

Actually, that may be the best retcon I've heard so far.