Computer Graphics World

May 2009 20 n n n n Lights•Shaders fects, Kerner Optical, Matte World digital, Pixel Liberation Front, Plowman Craven, Proof, Realscan 3D, Rising Sun Pictures, and Stan Winston Studio contributed vi- sual effects. e film takes place in 2018. Skynet has launched a nuclear war, and in the after- math, John Connor leads a group of sur- vivors who try to keep Skynet's machines from completely annihilating the human race. As he does so, Connor realizes he is facing an alternate reality, not the future foretold to him in the previous films. ere's no shiny, liquid-metal T-1000 in this world. "McG wanted a harsh, contrasty feel," says Ben Snow, visual effects supervisor at ILM. "e machines would keep them- selves running, but they didn't care if they looked crappy. ey know they have an expiry date, so they do minimum mainte- nance. ey get rusty and beaten up." e machines include the T-800 and T-600 humanoid terminators that we see largely in their mechanical endoskeleton forms, eel-like Hydrobots, aerial Hunter- Killers, road-bike Moto-Terminators, and giant harvesters for collecting people. "rough the course of the film, we're introduced to ways Skynet can kill people," says Marc Chu, animation supervisor at ILM, "the sea, air, land—no place is safe." Of the machines, Stan Winston's studio built puppets for the T-600 that appear in some shots, a T-800 endoskeleton used primarily for reference, and animatronic Hydrobots that appear in many shots. Otherwise, the terminators are digital, cre- ated at ILM. Moving Machines All told, about 12 animators worked in Autodesk's Maya on the shots, with four lead animators managing major sequences and types of creatures. Jakub Pistecky, for example, led the work on the T-800s and T-600s, the intricately mechanical hu- manoid robots that can cover themselves with flesh. e T-600 appears first, in its mechanical form. "e T-600 was only al- luded to in the previous movies," Chu says. "It's a predecessor to the T-800, and Skynet hasn't exactly perfected the technique. Hu- mans can spot them and run away." For shots of these terminators interact- ing with the actors in the film, ILM dressed stunt actors in the studio's gray iMocap suits, captured their performances during princi- pal photography, and then applied that data to the CG models as a starting point and timing reference for the animators. "Any time we had a humanoid CG crea- ture, we wanted tight interaction," Chu says. "If they could punch, push, and pull, lean weight on, or vice versa, it helped make the action feel more real, like they were interacting with someone." ILM also used stunt actors for the Moto- Terminator reference. ese machines, which look like road bikes on steroids and with guns, must seem to have intelligence, so ILM put stunt riders on Ducati motor- cycles during principal photography to get cues for maneuvering. e Moto-Termi- nators went through three design cycles, two at ILM after initial concept designs by Martin Laing, before McG got the beefy look he wanted. "ey're sort of like attack dogs," Chu describes. "And they have their own con- sciousness, so we looked at the shots on set with the stunt riders to help get the sen- sation of weight shifting for the animated machines without a rider on top." e aerial Hunter-Killers have bigger guns than in previous films, and they're no longer shiny, but they act in much the same way. "ey stand still in space, hover, take off, and fly like a jet," Chu says. "We're introducing a lot of creatures people aren't Bottom from right to left: A CG car simulated using the forces from a crash with a moving tow truck flies into the air, creating CG debris that hits the roadway below. Second, the same simulation seen through a different virtual camera. Third, the rendered car positioned into the footage. Fourth, the original footage shot near Albuquerque. The top image, at left, shows the final image rendered with neutral lighting to allow for extreme color timing in DI.

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