Posts Tagged ‘cg’

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There’s good reason for a little elation today as lighting for Freedom episode 4 is finally completed, a total of about 350 shots spread between me and my chief Matsui-san, averaging about 10 cuts per day. Its a big relief there were no Crab Robos ( folks who have been following the series should know these critters, nasty buggers not only in Eden but to us too, for they consist of so many individual moving parts our workstations slow down to a crawl whenever there is one in the scene; imagine having to light a dozen. ) this time round or we would have been dragging polygons through molasses again.

Over dinner with 2 of my colleagues at Sukiya banter turned to the topic of life after Freedom – where each of us are heading or are planning to do and Matsui-san expressed his interest in games design.

“Square Enix huh ?”, I suggested, the obvious top candidate to mention.

“Jyoudanjyane ?( which roughly translates as “Are you kidding me ?” ) Advent Children was neat, but what if I get assigned to the fluid simluation detail ? I’ll drown before the first week is up.” and we had a good laugh.

If I may be allowed to explain his derangement, Matsui-san was just voicing his innate fear of pigeonhole specialization in Square Enix, or actually any other major effects company for that matter, where you can be assigned to a specific task, say, the effect of a drop of water landing on concrete; and drone on that task for eons. The bigger the company, the higher the risk. For the dauntless however, Square runs recruitment ads in CG World every month.

So beautiful and realistic is Weta’s rendition of King Kong ( with the chompy chirpy Rexes coming in a close 2nd, though I still feel the Rexes from Jurassic Park are the most realistic ever ) that barely five minutes past his first appearance in the film I have lost the ability to visualize him as a CG character generated from mere pixels and texture maps but instead saw him more as a real performer with an emormous, overwhelming presence. King Kong is an oversized silverback with a soft spot for beautiful blondes such as Naomi Watts, and I wonder how Jane Goodall and Diane Fossey would feel if they ever sat through this film, admiration or distaste. There can be no ambivalence however, that King Kong is going to be one of the best effects films released this year.

Sweet, sweet eye candy from start till end, Nomura Tetsuya’s Final Fantasy VII : Advent Children is the ultimate culmination of the brilliant CG work conjured up by the artists at SquareEnix ( formerly SquareSoft ), dating back to the then revolutionary Squall Leonheart character in 1999. This time round what sets Advent Children apart from 2001’s FF Spirits Within is not so much the faithfulness it stays to the game’s original material, but more the presence of impossibly, devastatingly neat characters. Top that with sleek Anime style editing, photography and beautifully animated fight sequences, Nomura has created a film tailor made for FF fans, with none of that sanitized Hollywood treatment in sight. This is the definitive, bona fide Final Fantasy.