VFX
Jaden McGrath 1/11/19
For this blog, it looks we are taking a little break from the 12 Basic Principals of Animation to discuss the visual effects in a film that is actually quite recent. And that film is 2018's surprise critical hit and easily the best Transformers movie to date, Bumblebee. Although all of the effects in the film were truly great, today we will be talking about one specific effect in the film which is the way both the Autobots and Decepticons transform from their robotic selves to their vehicle forms whether they be cars, planes, or even a cassette tape. This effect was also used in the other Transformers movies as well, so we will be discussing the way the effect was accomplished in those films as well. Back in the 2007 film, the animators and special effects crew had no idea how to make the transformations int the film possible. But they soon realized that every panel from the vehicle had to match the panel from their humanized robotic forms and that every transformation would be different depending on the camera angle and the action at the time.
Jason Smith who has worked on four out of the six current live-action Transformers movies as the creature supervisor which meant he was basically in charge of the rigging and also providing the animation necessary with tools they had in order to bring the transformations to life on screen. He said and I quote, "What those tools allow the animators to do was, on the fly, let them grab some pieces, regardless of how they're rigged, and say, 'I want to move these as a unit.' And, they were given a few hinges that they can place, where they say, 'I know I'm going to want it to fold back that way, so I'll put it in here. I know it's going to spin while it does it, so I'll put a hinge right in the middle that can spin.' And once they placed those hinges, they can push a button and that becomes a live rig that they can now animate as pieces along those hinges." He also said giving the animators controls that they were normally just the domain of the riggers as a major and also the main benefit of the TFM tools they used. The TFM tools were also used to bring other great effects to life, most notably the suit for the 2008 hit superhero film, Iron Man.
Going back to 2018's Bumblebee, the animators at ILM not only benefited from the improvements to the rigging system, but also benefited from the tools that enabled them to be able to a "rudimentary' transformation into an animated scene. Before, the robots would just turn off and a car would turn on in order to roughly indicate when a transformation would take place while the animators worked on that scene simultaneously. Like for example, the animators might just have a CGI Bumblebee in his Volkswagon car form in a scene where the car would have to transform into its Autobot robot form and vice versa when they needed a scene where he goes from a robot back into a car. The car would be imported in Maya with a set of internal controllers. Bumblebee also has the benefit of resembling the look of the Autobots and the Decepticons from the classic 1980's cartoon series as closely as possible unlike the previous films where they had a definitely noticeable different appearance. Thanks to the improvements with the TFM tools, bumble is by far the best looking Transformers film yet and with the great writing and amazing direction by Kubo and the Two Strings director Travis Knight, Bumblebee is also without a doubt the best Transformers film overall that we have ever gotten yet. Yes, maybe even better than the old animated film.
I just have to say, I got a serious kick out of this article. I just really love these articles that apply with modern movies seeing as how I am a huge movie buff and love any chance to talk about them. And I'm especially happy I got to talk about Bumblebee because I was really surprised in how much I loved that movie. I also learned quite a few things from this article as well. Like for example, I learned that the same animation tools that were used on the Transformers was also used to bring the suit to life in the first Iron Man movie back in 2008.
And although I really loved this article, I once again do not have any questions concerning it or the content it explains. The process on making the animation of the Transformers transforming seemed very well explained to me and I was able to follow everything that they discussed. And I also agree with everything they said because it was told by experienced animators who actually did work on these movies. So I have no doubt that they know exactly what they are talking about and explaining. It also helps that the article also uses quotes from Jason Smith and Rick O' Conner who had a hand in four out of six of the movies. This is important when it comes to learning about animation because it might be something you want to know about if you ever get a job as an animator in Hollywood and even end up working on one of these films.
For this blog, it looks we are taking a little break from the 12 Basic Principals of Animation to discuss the visual effects in a film that is actually quite recent. And that film is 2018's surprise critical hit and easily the best Transformers movie to date, Bumblebee. Although all of the effects in the film were truly great, today we will be talking about one specific effect in the film which is the way both the Autobots and Decepticons transform from their robotic selves to their vehicle forms whether they be cars, planes, or even a cassette tape. This effect was also used in the other Transformers movies as well, so we will be discussing the way the effect was accomplished in those films as well. Back in the 2007 film, the animators and special effects crew had no idea how to make the transformations int the film possible. But they soon realized that every panel from the vehicle had to match the panel from their humanized robotic forms and that every transformation would be different depending on the camera angle and the action at the time.
Jason Smith who has worked on four out of the six current live-action Transformers movies as the creature supervisor which meant he was basically in charge of the rigging and also providing the animation necessary with tools they had in order to bring the transformations to life on screen. He said and I quote, "What those tools allow the animators to do was, on the fly, let them grab some pieces, regardless of how they're rigged, and say, 'I want to move these as a unit.' And, they were given a few hinges that they can place, where they say, 'I know I'm going to want it to fold back that way, so I'll put it in here. I know it's going to spin while it does it, so I'll put a hinge right in the middle that can spin.' And once they placed those hinges, they can push a button and that becomes a live rig that they can now animate as pieces along those hinges." He also said giving the animators controls that they were normally just the domain of the riggers as a major and also the main benefit of the TFM tools they used. The TFM tools were also used to bring other great effects to life, most notably the suit for the 2008 hit superhero film, Iron Man.
Going back to 2018's Bumblebee, the animators at ILM not only benefited from the improvements to the rigging system, but also benefited from the tools that enabled them to be able to a "rudimentary' transformation into an animated scene. Before, the robots would just turn off and a car would turn on in order to roughly indicate when a transformation would take place while the animators worked on that scene simultaneously. Like for example, the animators might just have a CGI Bumblebee in his Volkswagon car form in a scene where the car would have to transform into its Autobot robot form and vice versa when they needed a scene where he goes from a robot back into a car. The car would be imported in Maya with a set of internal controllers. Bumblebee also has the benefit of resembling the look of the Autobots and the Decepticons from the classic 1980's cartoon series as closely as possible unlike the previous films where they had a definitely noticeable different appearance. Thanks to the improvements with the TFM tools, bumble is by far the best looking Transformers film yet and with the great writing and amazing direction by Kubo and the Two Strings director Travis Knight, Bumblebee is also without a doubt the best Transformers film overall that we have ever gotten yet. Yes, maybe even better than the old animated film.
I just have to say, I got a serious kick out of this article. I just really love these articles that apply with modern movies seeing as how I am a huge movie buff and love any chance to talk about them. And I'm especially happy I got to talk about Bumblebee because I was really surprised in how much I loved that movie. I also learned quite a few things from this article as well. Like for example, I learned that the same animation tools that were used on the Transformers was also used to bring the suit to life in the first Iron Man movie back in 2008.
And although I really loved this article, I once again do not have any questions concerning it or the content it explains. The process on making the animation of the Transformers transforming seemed very well explained to me and I was able to follow everything that they discussed. And I also agree with everything they said because it was told by experienced animators who actually did work on these movies. So I have no doubt that they know exactly what they are talking about and explaining. It also helps that the article also uses quotes from Jason Smith and Rick O' Conner who had a hand in four out of six of the movies. This is important when it comes to learning about animation because it might be something you want to know about if you ever get a job as an animator in Hollywood and even end up working on one of these films.
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