4 ms·
One problem with minatures, positioning the camera for each photo, then turning the result into special effects shot for a movie is that it can take days to rec
by sliken 1y ago
One problem with minatures, positioning the camera for each photo, then turning the result into special effects shot for a movie is that it can take days to record a scene, get the film developed, and view the result. Only when played back at full speed (24fps) the result might not be believable or lack the dramatic flare they were hoping for.
To fix this they looked for the fastest display they could find to do real time previews. They ended up with a vector display from three rivers computer corp (later renamed to PERQ Systems Corporation). This vector display could manage 50,000 vectors @ 60 Hz and allowed for wireframe to be displayed in real time, allowing MUCH quicker turn around times before they committed the result to film.
Made for interesting stories at the dinner table, doubly so after I saw star wars as a kid and my dad's vector display helped with the above.
- ahartmetz 1y agoDid that pre-vis system give them the idea (and hardware!) for the few in-universe computer-generated images? I remember death star schematics and a targeting computer.
- currymj 1y agoThose came from Larry Cuba, who worked at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois Chicago. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2017/05/23/blueprints-for-star-wars-death-star-were-created-at-uic/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/2017/05/23/blueprints-for-sta...
- sliken 1y agoAh, yes, vector general. I think that was a bit earlier, but much slower. I think most of the footage was rendered a frame a time then a camera took a photo.
- sliken 1y agoI did use the screen a bit, it was connected to the unibus interface (which provides memory access) to read vector data straight out of the PDP-11's memory. One oddity of the vector screen is that if you drew long diagonal lines from A to B then B to A they wouldn't overlap perfectly, I believe the earth's magnetic field made a small difference. My memory of the original star wars was that the schematic and targeting computer was pretty crude. The graphics wonder/GDP/2A Graphics Display processor display was accurate enough for quite small fonts. The fonts did look vectorized, and I believe the end points of each line were slightly brighter. The tube display was very deep to allow the magnetic fields to have high slew rates. I'll have to take a look again at star wars to double check, but I don't think so based on memory.