“Fleshing out Middle Earth: Weta Digital Creatures” -John LaBrie, CTO (Weta Digital)
The realization of Peter Jackson’s vision for “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy demanded the creation of world-class creative teams across a number of disciplines. Weta Digital had a staff of 16 when research and development on the project began in 1997. The completion of work on “The Two Towers” in 2002 saw growth to almost 350 staff members, an Academy Award for work on the first film, and a substantial library of techniques uniquely suited to the task at hand.
This keynote discusses specific approaches to crowd animation, creature setups, digital doubles, Ents, the specific challenges involved in bringing Gollum to the screen, and how the concept of ‘creative iteration’ informed the development of one of the world’s largest digital visual effects infrastructures.
Info on GDC: Join the world’s leading developers to create the next generation of games. Five days of intensive sessions provide information and inspiration in visual arts, game design, programming, audio, business and legal, and production.
Make Better Games
Game Developers Conference
Conference: March 4-8, 2003
Expo: March 6-8, 2003
San Jose, CA
www.gdconf.com
