Transformers: The Best Special Effects Ever?
變形金剛：有史以來最棒的特效？ 翻譯from PTT MOVIE
出處：
http://www.popularmechanics.com/
Behind the high-tech scenes of this summer’s biggest blockbuster with thegeeks who turned blazing concept cars into galaxy-saving Autobots
與將酷炫概念車變為拯救銀河系機器人的魔術師們一同探索今年暑假鉅作的最新科技。
By Matt Sullivan
Published on: July 3, 2007
More than 750 parts stretching a half-mile long. Some 350 engineers workinground-the-clock. Thousands of rusty, old mechanic photos — clutch plates,transmissions, brake discs — spilling across the table. All for one beat-up Camaro? Sure doesn't sound like your average auto manufacturer.
看看這座工廠，超過七百五十個零件，總長達到二點四一公里。三百五十位工程師不眠不休的工作。數以千計生鏽的、老舊金屬零件照片－變速齒輪、傳動軸、煞車碟片－散布在桌上。只為了拼出一台破爛的Camaro跑車？你去哪裡找這種汽車公司？
"The idea is they're not fresh off the showroom floor," says Jeff White, the man charged with creating the yellow sports car and 13 others for a big new garage. He's right: They're supposed to look realer than that. And be from outer space. And turn into 30-ft. robots. And save the universe.
負責所有電影版變形金剛製作的Jeff White說：「我們的出發點是，這些變形金剛的車輛型態並不是從展示間直接開進大螢幕。」，他的團隊負責大黃蜂與其他十三位分屬兩方勢力的變形金剛。而他說得沒錯，這些變形金剛應該看起來像真車。而且還從外太空降臨地球。又必須變成十公尺高的機器人。還必須拯救宇宙。
That's all in a day's work for the motor magicians at George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), who for the last two years have been juggling the limits of the possible (turning a real car into a fake robot and figuring out what the heck to put inside) and the demands of reality (studio budgets, GM sponsorship, the wrath of fanboys worldwide) to build the most painstaking — and maybe most believable — effects achievement in movie history: Transformers.
這些全都是喬治盧卡斯（George Lucas）的ILM公司（Industrial Light & Magic）中的魔術師們過去兩年以來每天上班打卡後做的事情，他們不斷探索所謂的「合理性」到底可以被推到哪個極限，畢竟，你要把一台現實世界中的真車變成現實世界中不存在的機器人，還要想辦法知道哪個東西要放到哪裡；另一方面，他們也要面對現實環境中不同的挑戰，製作群所能獲得的預算有多少、通用（GM）車廠的贊助合約到底怎麼說、全球各地粉絲的期待有多高，這些不同領域的課題都考驗著這群專家，考驗著他們能否創造出最燦爛耀眼、光彩奪目同時又極為可信的電影特效成就－變形金剛。
When it revs up at the box office this Fourth of July, Michael Bay's $150 million adaptation of the legendary 1980s cartoon and toy series will include nearly 50 so-called transformations. Hand-rendered metallic uncorkings of real-life cars, trucks and helicopters represented uncharted territory for the gooey-alien experts at ILM, Each transformation taking six months to imagine and each re-engineering the way digital Hollywood does computer graphics imagery (CGI).
當這部由Michael Bay執導，預算達一億五千萬美金，由一九八零年代的卡通、玩具產品為原始題材所改編的電影在七月份上映時，當中將出現將近五十組所謂「變形過程」。這些必須使用手繪技術產生的車輛、直昇機、各式交通工具，對於ILM專攻外星生物的專家們來說是個陌生的領域，每一個變形的過程都花上六個月去構思，而且，每一個變形的過程都改寫了好萊塢過去對電腦動畫（Computer Graphics Imagery）的定義。
"How are we gonna get this thing from a car into the robot and back in a believable way?" White, the film's digital production supervisor, asked the Transformers crew in 2005, when, after their back-and-forth with toymaker Hasbro, the F/X plan consisted of little more than robot sketches and shiny new Hummers — and not much in between. "Of course, Michael Bay wants a lot of energy, he wants ninja-fighting warriors that can punch and put their arms over their heads and do all this crazy stuff," White says. "So we had to design these really complicated systems — how do all these systems match together and fly over each other to keep it looking real? And that was a huge challenge."
電影的數位製作總監，White說：「我們怎麼讓這些”東西”，從車變成機器人再變回來，又讓人相信這一切是真的？」。在二零零五年時，他向變形金剛的團隊提出了這個問題。當時，整個團隊才剛與玩具大廠Hasbro完成繁複的溝通、協調，而最初的產物不過是幾張機器人的草稿與一台閃亮量的悍馬車，沒什麼其他的成果。White說：「當然，Michael Bay要看到很多的能量，他要像忍者一樣戰鬥的戰士，能揮舞拳頭，能把手臂高舉過頭、作出各種瘋狂的動作。所以，我們必須設計這些相當複雜的系統，如何讓每個部位湊在一起，又在移動時看起來像是真的？而可是個相當大的挑戰。」
When it came to breathing life into characters such as Bumblebee, the protective Autobot, ILM needed to think backwards to fill in the blanks (and the junk in the drunk) between finished robot sketches and real-life GM cars.
當你要讓Bumblebee這樣一位屬於Autobot的主角「活過來」，ILM的做法是－逆向思考。想辦法在機器人與車之間來回思索，同時也要準備好一堆車輛零件．．．．
Under-prepared, a New Road Map
〔新方向〕
From Jar Jar Binks in the new Star Wars films to villains of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, the modern CGI pipeline has tended to work from the ground up: Pre-build a creature, film it with a stand-in on set, then animate it to react, to actors such as Samuel L. Jackson or Johnny Depp, in postproduction. But after realizing that the simple route, with one transformation per Autobot or Decepticon, might not look robotic enough, Bay and Co. pulled a 280-terabyte U-turn.
從新一代星際大戰三部曲中的Jar Jar Binks到神鬼奇航三部曲中的各式反派角色，今日的電腦動畫專家很習慣從無到有的作業流程：先建立怪物的模型，在拍片現場用個紙板給演員對戲，接著，在後製過程（post-production）中，製作出相對應的動畫，跟真人演員的演出配成最終成品。但是，在考慮到每一位Autonot與Decepticon都需要一個變形的過程之後，Bay與同事們踩了煞車，把整個做法轉了個大彎。
ILM designed a backwards interface, moving the beginning of CGI production out of the hands of creature development and onto the desktops of the animators. By allowing animators to get the first crack at rigging control — the way a computer- generated character is built, the way it walks and rotates — ILM's IT team could develop software for custom transformations designed on the fly that might satisfy Bay's notorious flying camera angles. Click a button here, and a flatbed's brake light can pivot into an Optimus Prime punch. Set a control function there, and an alien jetfighter wing can cock into a Megatron claw for any of a half-dozen different scenes.
ILM設計了一個「逆向介面」(backwards interface)，將整個電腦動畫作業的最初階段從角色設計部門這邊移走，交給動畫師。當動畫師成為第一個進行「Rigging Control」（一個電腦創造的角色怎麼組成、怎麼走路、活動）的人時，ILM的資訊科技部門才可以及時替每個變形過程撰寫程式，好滿足Bay他需索無度的動感鏡頭擺設。不論是在電影中的哪一個場景，只要在這裡點一下，煞車燈模組就可以變成Optimus Prime的拳頭；只要在那裡做好設定，外星噴射機的機翼就可以凹變成Megatron的利爪。
For a character like Bumblebee, hiding untransformed inside that '74 Camaro as the shy protector of the movie's human hero, this tradeoff was crucial: the stand-up robot with feelings and the boy's beat-up car with rust were set in stone, so it was the hybrid halfway point that would represent the real character development.
至於像Bumblebee這位以七四年出廠Camaro為偽裝的人類英雄守護者，有一個取捨格外重要，那就是在高大直立、帥氣有型的機器人與男主角四處鐵銹的破車之間找到平衡，所以，真正的挑戰發生在這兩者的中間，也就是變形的過程。
We start with the end result first, then work backwards from there," says animation supervisor Scott Benza. "We'll start Bumblebee standing up in his pose in the composition of the shot, then collapse him down into something of a car shape, where we fold his arms in and hover him down close to the street. And then we deal with what we have to fill in the in-between."
動畫總監Scott Benza說：「我們從最終結果開始，然後，倒著做回來。我們先讓Bumblebee以機器人型態站立著，接著，我們把他”打平放倒”成車輛的型態，我們把他的手臂折彎面朝下放在路面上。接著，我們開始思考這中間的過程該怎麼填滿。」
Under the Hood, the Superunknown
〔打開引擎蓋，有什麼呢？〕
When that crucial "in-between" involves over 10,000 hand-modeled parts pulled out of actual autobody — as Optimus Prime did (his old- school toy had a mere 51 components) — there's a bit more filling in to do. "It's hugely complicated," says visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar. "It's no different than going out and machining these parts [in a real car]. Every one of those things has to be connected and travel in the right direction when an animation occurs."
想想看Optimus Prime，一個在最重要的「變形」過程中牽涉到超過一萬個手繪零件進行移動的角色（初代的他大概只有五十一個零件），這可不是件小工程。視覺效果總監Scott Farrar說：「這真的是超超超超複雜的。這跟徒手組裝真車沒什麼兩樣。當整個變形的動畫發生時，每一個零件都要互相連接、都要往正確的方向移動。」
It started with ILM's creature development team (well versed in children's movie animals but not so much in carburetors) heading to the autobody shop in early 2006 and lifting up the hoods of real-life cars to develop as many real-looking car parts as possible. These formed the innards underneath the exoskeleton provided to the animators. But building a design system that allowed the animators to move all those pieces quickly — and to fit them into the finished robot, designed almost a year earlier, without banging parts into each other — was the real headache.
而一切都在二零零六年初開工，那時候，ILM的角色設計團隊前往一家汽車經銷商，打開車子的引擎蓋，開始想辦法設計出一堆看起來像真車上零件的零件。這些將與外觀一同提供給動畫師，構成外表以下的骨架、內裝。但是，早在一年多前，一套特別的系統就已經被開發出來，好讓動畫師能夠迅速的移動所有零件、放到機器人形態的各個部位、又不會把彼此之間的位置給撞亂。
The 30-year-old Camaro grille, then, may not have been the exact one that ended up on Bumblebee's chest, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Visual effects art director Alex Jaeger built frame-by-frame movements so an animator could take a thinly slatted grille and flip it into a three- slat grille like Venetian blinds. That way, at least, Bumblebee would become both muscular and recognizable (he takes seven different forms — used car, concept car and battered bot among them). Toying with the classic Camaro aside, this hero's transformation represented a massive CGI maneuver, with nearly 20,000 nodes in the movable rig: Jaeger had to break apart a fender close to the ground to unleash Bumbleebee's arm, then disassemble a brake disc attached to the arm before shifting out of the way that will eventually end up on his shoulder.
Bumblebee變成機器人時胸口的水箱蓋可能不是原本車頭的那一個，但是這可不是亂搞。視覺效果藝術指導Alex Jaeger一格一格將變形過程提供出來，動畫師才能把原來薄薄一片的水箱蓋利用百葉窗般的機制轉成三倍大。靠著這種做法，Bumblebee才能既有”肌肉”又不會看起來不像台車（Bumblebee有七種造型，舊車、概念車以及其他幾種受損程度不同的分身）。先別提那台經典款Camaro，Bumblebee的變形過程代表著極為大量的電腦動畫量，將近有兩萬個移動的動作。Jaeger必須先把靠近地面的擋泥版給切斷才能讓Bumblebee的手臂露出來，接著還要把煞車碟片給接到手臂上，才能讓手臂移往最後的位置，因為煞車碟片是要放在肩膀上。
And Jaeger couldn't screw up. Not while he was working for the guy who reignited Pearl Harbor, who told Bruce Willis how to nuke an asteroid from a space shuttle. No way. "Michael's a very, very particular person when it comes to..." Jaeger trails off. Better be careful with Boss Bay. "This is a man who's shot many a car commercial, so he's very particular on the finishes and the materials on the cars as well as the robots."
而Jaeger可不能搞砸。可不能在他與把珍珠港受襲重現、告訴Bruce Willis怎麼開著太空梭去炸隕石的「那個人」一起合作時。他說：Micheal是個非常非常特別的人，尤其是牽涉到．．（談到老闆他特別小心．．謹慎的選擇自己的用語）。這是一個拍了很多很多汽車廣告的人，他對於車輛最後的外觀、材質跟機器人一樣有一要高的要求。」
Director Michael Bay and his $150-million budget weren’t about to have Optimus Prime talking through a strobe-like voice box. “If you’re gonna watch a movie for two hours, it’s kind of boring if you don’t see something move,” says visual effects supervisor Scot Farrar.
電影導演Micheal Bay和投入的一億五千萬美金可不打算讓Optimus Prime講話還要摀著嘴。視覺效果總監Scott Farrar說：「如果你要看一部片長兩個小時的電影，螢幕上一點動靜都沒有的話，不是有點無聊嗎？」
Under the Gun, the Finishing Brushes
〔最後的細節〕
Optimus Prime has lips. Moving metal lips. The Autobot leader went to the grave in the original 1986 movie without ever having opened his voice box, but Bay hated the idea of action heroes wearing a mask. So he had ILM juice up each robot's jaws, eyes and metallic visage, from cartoony strobe light to winking, blinking, crackling Norelco blades.
Optimus Prime有嘴唇。會動的、金屬的嘴唇，這位Autobot的領袖在一九八六年的電影中，從頭到尾都沒有把臉上那片「檔版」給放下，直到最後他在電影中都掛點了還是沒有放下。但是，Bay很討厭一個動作派的英雄卻戴著面具的呈現方式。所以，他要求ILM把每個機器人的嘴部、眼睛還有臉部輪廓都好好的設計出來，從卡通時代一條上下張合的線條，升級成可以嘟嘴、瞇眼的豐富臉部表情。
But the most important finishing touch? Grease. Lots of it. Sure, stagehands dusted off the real Pontiac Solstice GXP before the cameras rolled, but digital painters at ILM were shading the doors and really mucking up each car's gearbox guts before they rolled up into robots. "Here we've got a car but we don't have any robots, so that's what made this project way harder than Pearl Harbor, where we had real planes to look at," says Ron Woodall, admitting that he painted some cars to look twice as dirty as their exteriors. "We don't have a target, and it's up to everyone's imagination."
但是，最重要的．．最後的那個ＦＵ怎麼抓？油污。很多很多油汙。當然，在片場有專人會把擺在位置上的Pontiac Soltice GXP給打蠟、上光保養得亮晶晶，但是，ILM的畫家們可是把車門給上了好幾層陰影，並且把車子的齒輪箱給好好的弄髒。RonWoodall說：「我們有車輛的實物，但是，我們沒有機器人的實物。所以，這就是為什麼這個計畫比珍珠港更難的原因，在珍珠港計畫時，我們有真正的飛機作為依據。這一次，我們沒有個準，所以，要靠大家的想像力。」他個人承認把某些車輛塗得幾乎比原來模樣髒上兩倍。
Ultimately, that's the point of spending $150 million on car chases, explosions and millions of little CGI polygons: Drummed-up digital trickery is now at the level of turning the unreal into the real — as long as it doesn't seem too cheesy, and doesn't piss off too many fans. "Our goal is to please Michael Bay. He's got to answer to all the other folks," Benza says. "So top of the priority list? If it looks cool, that's where we start. That's the ultimate goal, then we can figure out ways to get the Chevy logo visible and the kind of signature things that the GM folks wanted in there. But I think ultimately even GM wanted Michael to have creative control over the coolness of the transformations."
不論如何，這就是為什麼要花上一億五千萬在飛車追逐、爆破以及百萬個小電腦動畫多邊形上的原因。日漸成熟的數位科技現在已經進入到「化虛假為真實」的境界，只要看起來別太”假”，還有不要激怒太多粉絲。Benza說：「我們的目標就是讓Michael Bay滿意。他才是真正負擔成敗的人。所以，什麼最重要呢？如果一樣東西看起來夠酷，我們就繼續努力下去。那就是我們的終極目標。接著，我們要想辦法把車廠標誌給放在明顯的地方，還有聽從通用車廠對於車輛呈現方式的意見。但是，我想，最後最後，通用車廠還是要求Bay在變形的機制能多”酷”上作主。」
What ends up on the silver screen this week is something that for once actually looks silver, justifiably chrome. Bay even had to send back one of the few non-CGI scale models made for the film — a painted fiberglass Bumblebee made for a scene when the Autobot savior is tied to train tracks — because it didn't look real enough. "It's been a struggle for all of us in this business to get the computer graphics looking as good as they are now, and I really do believe Transformers is a new high-water mark for making materials look good," says Farrar, the visual-effects supervisor and Bay's right-hand computer geek. "It's surprisingly complicated in the world of computer graphics to make objects look like what everybody in the world sees every day."
而本週終於跟大家在電影院面見的是閃亮亮、毫無疑問非常性感的成品。Bay甚至必須退回少數為這部電影所製作的「真正的模型」－正確點來說，是一輛玻璃纖維製作、已經上色的Bumblebee，用來拍攝被綁在平板車上的片段－原因是，這個看得到、摸得到的玻璃纖維模型「不夠逼真」。視覺效果總監、Bay在這個計畫上的電腦顧問Farrar說：「讓電腦繪圖的成果進步到今天大家所能看到的這個水準一直是我們拼命要做到的一個目標，我想，變形金剛設下了一個很高的標準，一個關於材質看起來能夠有多美麗的標準。將大家身邊天天見到的東西用電腦繪圖的方式呈現，而且做到逼真，是一項出乎意料之外複雜的挑戰。」
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4218826.html?series=6
原文連結：有圖唷～～
Images Courtesy of Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures
所有影像都是承蒙Paramount影業與DreamWorks影業的提供
〔圖一〕
For a pivotal fight scene between Bonecrusher (left) and Optimus Prime, the layout team at Industrial Light & Magic used custom software to track a CGI version of the film camera (top). To continue with real-time, on-the-fly transformations, animators work with lower-resolution renders (middle) and coordinate with the creature development team to match up machinery and slot the digital wizardry back into the final cut (bottom).
在Bonecrusher（左）與Optimus Prime（右）對上的這場戲中，ILM的團隊使用客制化後的軟體追蹤電腦動畫版本的鏡頭動態（上圖）。接著，為了將兩台變形金剛加在影片中，動畫師先從低解析度版本開始作業（中間圖），接著與變形金剛設計團隊合作，捕捉正確的機械光澤、效果，接著再合成最終版本（下圖）。
These finished renders of (from left) Autobots Bumblebee and Optimus Prime and Decepticon leader Megatron — filled with hundreds of real aftermarket auto parts — took tens of thousands of pivot points each, with some 10,000 separate pieces to put together Prime alone.
〔圖二〕
完成版的Bumblebee、Optimus Prime與Megatron，全身上下有數以千計市面上買得到的車用零件，光是Prime就有一萬個以上的接點，由一萬個左右完全獨立的零件組合而成。
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