Page 62 - Star Wars Insider #175

GRAPHIC DISPLAYS

and they’d use the system to
colorize anything we wanted.”
Layers of effects could
be built up in stages using
Scanimate, albeit with a slight
loss of quality on each pass.
“So you didn’t want to have too
many generations before you
decided, ‘This is what we like,’”
says Wash.
“It wasn’t like the digital
realm these days, with
nondestructive editing,” he
continues. “If you’d built
something from fi ve pieces
and, as you were adding piece
number six, you realized piece
number three didn’t work
correctly, you had to dump the
whole thing and start again.
We were wise to that, so we
started with the hardest stuff.
We managed to get everything
we needed in about eight
harrowing hours!”
As with Larry Cuba’s
trench run briefi ng animation,
the resulting graphics were 06

captured for film by pointing
a camera at the computer some impressive computer
screen. The sequence was then THE ROAD graphics for Michael Crichton’s
composited into the Death Star NOT TAKEN sci-fi thriller Westworld in
command center’s monitoring 1973, and George Lucas was
At one point during
screen in postproduction. intrigued enough by their
preproduction of A New Hope,
George Lucas and his team work to commission some 3D
EYES ON THE FUTURE considered fi lming the Death image tests.
Along with Image West, Star graphics without computer Though nothing from
technology. John Wash, Jay
another innovative company Triple-I made it into A New
Teitzell, and Jim House came

that Lucasfilm worked with on up with a proposal to create Hope, Lucas remembered
A New Hope was Information the entire sequence using high- the company when The
International Inc., also known contrast model photography Empire Strikes Back went into
as Triple-I. Triple-I had provided and other techniques to make production, and further tests
it look as if it was computer-
generated, because, as Wash were carried out. Most notable
recalls today, “computers just among these were a high-
“LAYERS OF EFFECTS weren’t very powerful.” Lucas resolution computer-generated
soon rejected the idea in favor X-wing fighter model, and

COULD BE BUILT UP of Larry Cuba’s computer a lower-resolution fi ve-ship
animation, but Wash got his
IN STAGES USING chance to contribute to the animation, complete with
sequence the following year, anti-aliasing and motion-blur.
SCANIMATE, ALBEIT when he completed the fi nal impressive, Lucas decided
Though the results were
part of the animation using
WITH A SLIGHT traditional methods [see main once again not to use them
text]. “It just took a long time
LOSS OF QUALITY...” for me to get the job,” Wash on screen. He was convinced,
laughs on recalling it today.
however, that such tools had

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