TRON revisited

[wwwmwww]

Its me again... I ended up aborting the last render I had going. At the rate it was going it looked like it would have taken a year to complete. Besides I wanted to start on my next project which I'll show you a taste of here shortly as a work-in-progress. But before then I wanted to go back to the beginning and start this thread properly.

In my first shot I tried to be funny and posted here:

http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?...=3&t=1585&st=60

I never was very good at being funny... so I did a second pass on the model and posted here:

http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?...=ST&f=26&t=2865

However I think I scared most away by mentioning 'Math' and I think I derailed my own thread. So before I show you my new work-in-progress... Here are a few pics of my Light Cycle that show you how it developed.

The cycle on the left is a reference picture that I used.

The cycle on the right is my first pass at my model.

You can see another picture of that model at the first thread above.

The cycle in the middle is my second pass and I think I made a fair number of improvements. Can you spot the differences? And again you can see two more very nice pictures made using this model at the second thread above which I won't repost here for the sake of saving space. I'll use this tread to post any new pictures and if you want to talk math please post to the other thread.

Comments, Suggestions, Questions, etc. are all welcome...

Now on with the show,

Carl

[wwwmwww]

Here is a view from the front...

Reference is on the left.

First pass is on the right.

And the second pass is in the middle again.

[wwwmwww]

Here is a view from the side...

Reference is on the top.

First pass is on the bottom.

And the second pass is in the middle.

[wwwmwww]

Here is a view from the top...

Reference is on the top.

First pass is on the bottom.

And the second pass is in the middle again.

These are the main reference pictures I used to make the model. In many cases I resorted to counting pixels to get mesurements to input into POV-Ray.

Enjoy...

[wwwmwww]

The next thing I wanted to share is a series of three pictures that I'll call "Anatomy of a Light Cycle". The last of which is still redering and I'll post it when its finisted but here are the first two.

Anatomy of a Light Cycle 1 of 3

[wwwmwww]

Anatomy of a Light Cycle 2 of 3

[wwwmwww]

Here a a teaser pic of my next project. By the way... I've noticed that converting these to jpegs takes alot away from the image. If anyone wants the raw bit maps just let me know...

Enjoy...

Carl

[CoryHolmes]

Will you be keeping the translucency you had from your first project? That was the one thing that screamed "TRON" to me.

[EXO]

Beautiful....

ok get started on the solar sailer!

[wwwmwww]

Will you be keeping the translucency you had from your first project? That was the one thing that screamed "TRON" to me.

Yes... the tank will have transluent parts. The reason the cycles above are not transluent is I was still working on the shape at that time and it takes alot longer to render if the shapes are transluent. For example "Anatomy of a Light Cycle 3 of 3" has been rendering for 4 days and its still only 28% done.

However as the actual cycles weren't transluent I find your comment a little odd. The transluency was a little artistic licence on my part. Still thank you for the compliment...

Carl

[wwwmwww]

Beautiful....

ok get started on the solar sailer!

Oh boy... the cycle was a cake walk compared to the tank which is taking me about 10 times longer to get 'right' then it took to get the cycle 'right'. Most of that being the lack of as good reference pictures however that's only part of it. The shape is much more complicated. As for the solar sailer I'm not aware of any really good reference pictures (front, side, top, bottom, rear views etc.) and on top of that I think its shape is even more complicated then the tanks as I'm not sure it can be built from POV-Ray primitives (spheres, boxes, cones, etc.) as the cycle and tank can. And besides I think the tank and cycles will be more fun to play with. I don't really see a solar sailer chasing around tanks or cycles as being all that plausible. I agree it might look nice in the background though... hmmm... that gives me an idea.

And thanks....

Carl

[wwwmwww]

Well I've now got the TRON DVD and been going over it frame by frame to pull out as many details as I can. And while doing so I slowed down to catch the Trivia/Bloopers talked about here:

http://www.tron-movie.com/trivia/index.htm

And I now have a few I think could be added to that last:

(1) The scene from 5:25 to 5:30, Clu's tank is missing a part. Can anyone tell we what part it is? And note Clu's tank has this part in all its other shots so its not just missing because its that one tank. Here is the interesting part... soon I'll be able to show you WHY its missing.

(2) See the site above about the person hiding in the computer room. Well... he's NOT the only one in there. In the scene from 26:44 to 26:45 the camera pans past a very reflective piece of computer equipment. Watch that reflection... it gives you a very nice pan of the whole film crew. Has this been spotted before? I find it hard to believe I'm the first to notice it but I couldn't find any other mention of it on line.

(3) Check out the tank in the scene from 49:52 to 49:55. Its also different from all the other tanks seen in the movie. Can anyone tell me what is different about it? I don't think this could be called a blooper as maybe its just a unique tank.

(4) In the scene from 51:11 to 51:12 I find the double shadow of the tank rather interesting. Note the tank isn't the only thing to get a double shadow in the scene. As from 51:15 to 51:16 you can see the light cycles themselves also have double shadows.

And finally... here is my first public showing of my TRON tank. Its in the PNG format as I've seen just what jpegs can do to my pictures.

Please compare it to this reference:

And I've put a light cycle in there for reference. I'm making a guess there about scale. If anyone thinks I'm off please let me know.

Enjoy fellow programs...

Carl

Edited December 4, 2003 by wwwmwww

[wwwmwww]

Just to show you what a difference saving a picture as a jpeg can make here is the PNG version of my teaser pic.

Enjoy...

Carl

[wwwmwww]

(1) The scene from 5:25 to 5:30, Clu's tank is missing a part. Can anyone tell we what part it is? And note Clu's tank has this part in all its other shots so its not just missing because its that one tank. Here is the interesting part... soon I'll be able to show you WHY its missing.

Here this picture should answer both the what and the why that I posed yesterday.

Enjoy,

Carl

[wwwmwww]

Ok... using the pics I was pointed to here:

Tank on ledge

Light cycles on same ledge

Ram's cycle right next to a tank

I made this pic.

If you ask me they aren't consistant within the movie about the scale on these models. The cycle looks twice as large in the second picture as it did in the top picture. Is anyone aware of any official or unofficial specs for these models?

Thanks,

Carl

Edited December 4, 2003 by wwwmwww

[wwwmwww]

For comparison purposes here is MAGI's model:

And here is the top view of mine:

[CoryHolmes]

The reason I say that the transluency is the most Tron-esque bit, even though it's not in the show itself, is because it's a hint of the computer world of the setting.

Well, that, and it just plain looked cool

[wwwmwww]

The reason I say that the transluency is the most Tron-esque bit, even though it's not in the show itself, is because it's a hint of the computer world of the setting.

Well, that, and it just plain looked cool

Thanks again for the compliment.

I've just finished the render of the front view of the tank so again for comparison purposes here is MAGI's model:

And here is mine...

Enjoy...

Carl

[wwwmwww]

The render of the rear view finished last night. For comparison purposes here is MAGI's model:

And here is mine:

[wwwmwww]

The render of the right side is finished. For comparison purposes again here is MAGI's model:

and here is mine:

Enjoy...

Carl

[wwwmwww]

I couldn't find bottom view of the MAGI preproduction TRON tank but here is a view cut off of the DVD:

[wwwmwww]

And here is the bottom view of my model:

Enjoy,

Carl

[wwwmwww]

Tank Command Program to Tank Pilot Program...

You're already in hot water after you were responsible for derezzing that tank last week. Now how could you go and lose that rogue light cycle in the middle of the game grid. Come on... there is NOTHING out here for him to hide behind!!!

[MSW]

Woah! very nice work!

One of the big problems I think with trying to model the old Imagic visuals of Tron is that today's software is so much more advanced and geared for more photo real rendering...you pretty much have to program your own 3D rendering software to make it look "right"...er actually that is fairly true for trying to match much of the early CG animation in films ( Last Starfighter for example )...Not only do you need to deal with the thin red/white/blueish lines around certain shapes in Tron, but even the basic way that old software projected perspective is different then the way modern software handles it...

Cool work though, keep it up

[Mr.Sci-Fi]

definitely awesome work

[wwwmwww]

Thanks guys.

MSW I'm not trying to make perfect copies of the visuals from the movie. I like the TRON setting as a starting point for learning ray tracing as I don't have the skills yet to make something photo realistic. So I solved that problem by playing in a realm where things are supposed to look computer generated. Plus I also wanted to add my own touch. The light cycle is transparent as is the red dome on the tank. Both the tank and the cycle have light sources in them, that's something I don't think they were modeling back then. Also I've added alot of reflective surfaces, somthing else you didn't see in the movie. I should point out the tread on the tank isn't my idea. It differs from what you see in the movie but I got the idea from MAGI's preproduction model that you can see in some of my other posts. Another big area where I think I've made improvements is in the shadows. Check out this screen grab from the dvd.

Not only is the shadow just a box with square corners but it looks like that shadow has the cannon pointed back at you. Also note what I believe to be an error on the right rear side panel. You can see the triangles that make up its surface since I don't think they are aligned properly.

[MSW]

Yes I know all about the funky shadows in Tron, as well as the polygon "popping"...both of which were the result of the software used to produce the visuals at that time...what I ment is that modern 3D rendering software has to take several steps "backwords" (or one has to program thier own 3D render system) to fully duplicate the visuals of Tron...if you watch the menu selection screens on the Tron SE DVD you can see that they tried like mad to duplicate the original visuals as best as possable, but there are still little details that give it away (course part of the problem with duplicateing the Tron visuals also involves the custom hardware developed to transfer the images from the Cray super computer to film..our current technology is much better and doesn't introduce the little image artifacts and such that are present in Tron (and to some extent the Last Starfighter))

My comments wern't ment to critisize your models and such...just to point out that if you had wanted to duplicate the Tron visuals exactly, it will be difficult if you just use modern 3D rendering software as is without a carefull eye for the perspective, color, contrast, resolution, and other details that make the original Tron CG visuals unique...your models and renders look really good, keep it up

[wwwmwww]

MSW your comments were not taken to be negative so please don't worry about that. I enjoy the feedback. I'm curious why you are familar with the "funky shadows" and "popping polygons" though. To be honest they were things I never noticed till I sat down to try and model the thing. Did you have anything to do with the film or have you made your own models?

And yes I noticed the menus on the SE DVD. I personally think I did a much better job however I'm not up to animating mine yet.

And yes I agree with your assesment that its a very dificult job to copy the visuals of TRON exactly. The part I had the hardest job with was the red outline of the turret and even there my copy is missing parts I see no easy way to add. I have all the fixed edges lined in red but note the tank in the movie also had the domes outlined in red. There is no physical edge here as its just the outline of the shape against the background and its location depends on where the camera is placed. So I'm note sure how to add it to my model. At the moment I've just left them off. I think it would look better with them and I have an idea or two how I might be able to add them with some post processing but I'm not sure its worth the effort and if I ever animated my model and camera I'd have to do this post processing on each frame. There is one last idea that I haven't tried yet though. POV-Ray has a 'media' feature that I might use to add a thin shell of red 'fog' over the turret and cannon. I think if I make it thin enough you'll be able to see through it to the black underneath and at the very edge you'll just be looking through the red fog so you'll see a red outline. I have serious doubts as to rather it will work as I've already tried to cover it with a thin red glass. And even if it does work I'm afraid it will take much much longer to render then it already does which will make it useless for animation anyways. I've watched all the stuff on the SE DVD and its obvious the tank and the light cycle are made with what POV-Ray calls CSGs. However POV-Ray has no easy way to outline these CSG's as you see done in the movie. I doubt I'll ever do the solar sailer as its a mesh and I don't really even know where to begin with trying to copy that. I would however like to make a recognizer and after the work on the tank I think is should be rather easy to make. As it has no curved surfaces I can even add all the edge lines in and have it look right.

A couple general question for you (or anyone that might be able to answer):

(1) If you know how I could add the dome outlines to my model in POV-Ray I'm all ears. Since their location is camera dependant though I just don't see an easy solution.

(2) I modeled my Lght Cycles before I saw all the info on the SE DVD. On one part of the DVD it shows how the cycle was made my adding the differences and intersections of simple shapes together. In it is shows the front wheel as being made from one large center sphere with two just slightly smaller spheres or spheroids cut out of the sides. I've always assumed that the pieces cut out were cones and thats how I modeled it. However now that I've seen that animation of the cycle being made on the SE DVD I'm tempted to go back and change my model. The thing is I don't think it would look right. All the pics I've seen of a complete light cycle don't seem to suggest that kind of curvature to the front wheel cutouts. Its possible I'm not interpreting the meaning of that part of the short light cycle assembly sequence on the DVD or maybe that part of the model was change before the movie was made. Does any have any high quality pictures of this part of the light cycles where it would show if that part is a cone or if it has some curvature to suggest that it needs to be a spheroid. I know there is an Art of Tron book out there and I'm sure there may be other sources I don't have.

Thanks,

Carl

[MSW]

How did I know about the shadows? way, way back in the late 1980's (I'm old) I did a high school term paper on CG animation...sort of showing the evolution from tron to Last Starfighter...to the then brand new morphing effect seen in Willow...I never noticed the tron shadows or polygon poping when I first saw Tron in the theaters...but I studied every frame of it from books, magazine articals, and well worn VHS tapes...also I knew the basics of how it was done through the knowledge I gained in all the various computer programing classes I took (mostly Basic and Pascal on the old Apple II computer, then on the Commadore 64)...anyway, never worked on the film, but did get to play around with a video toaster unit many years ago when I worked in video production...

anyway...I'm not sure if POV can do this...but if you make a copy of the domes,resize them slightly larger, then invert the polygons of this copy (giveing it a red color) this should work pretty well for giveing them the red outlines...some 3D rendering systems (and most all 3D games) use "single sided" polygons...basicly this works by calculateing the normal of the polygon once it is rotated and translated to camera space, if this is positive the polygon is thought to face the camera, if the result is negative then the polygon is faceing away from the camera (and thus the polygon doesn't need to be rendered)...anyway in effect buy "inverting"or "flipping" the order the computer stores the verticies of polygons (such as those that make up the rescaled larger copy of the domes) it can make them seem invisable...sorta like entering the special code that lets you walk around outside the levels in Quake and such... It might work with POV, and then again it might not...

If there is a cell shader type rendering feature for POV you might be able to use that along with some photoshop post processing to get those dome outlines as well...

The Imagic visuals are quite unique in that those little red outlines (white ones on the lightcycles, look closely...and thier are blue outlines on the recognizer Flynn takes control of) anyway...in the Imagic shots the outlines are always the same size/thickness...while the polygon modeled lines on the large carrier and later shots in the film change size depending on how close to the camera the object is (it's kinda obvious in the few recongizer shots where they ride the beams chaseing after the solar sailer)...appart from the vector laser basied animation in the opening credits the later polygon basied CG animation (like the solar sailer and carrier) are far easyer to duplicate with modern CG rendering software)...anyway...to duplicate the IMagic CSG stuff you would be best off to program your own rendeer or some such...effectivy the lines are done by finding the surface normal (once everything is transformed to camera space)of the ray being cast...if the normal is around 0 (zero, plus/minus some small amount) then the "outline" is visable at that specific surface point...another way is for each polygon to store a "edge list" indicateing the other polygons that share each of it's edges...if those "edge linked" polygons face away from the camera (by doing a normal calculation) then the edge is visable and should be drawn (which is pretty much how Imagic did it IIRC)...hope that helps

[wwwmwww]

Hey... I was in High School back in the mid-80's. 1983 to 1987 to be exact so PLEASE don't call yourself old. My wife says I'm in denial. I can remember back when my High School offered its first ever computer course. They gave the job to the teacher that had taught typing for the past 20 years and I assume a computer back then was thought of as nothing more the a complicated typewriter. I however had taken a computer camp the summer before and learned some basic and forth (there is a langue I haven't heard of since). Long story short I ended up teaching the teacher as she knew nothing more about computer then most of her students. Those were the days... That course was on Apple II computers and I had a list of fun peek and poke commands as I recall that I used to play mind games with the other students. My first computer was a Sanyo 555. Anyone remember those?

On to POV-Ray... I don't believe the primitives in POV-Ray have an underlying polygon mesh. And even if they did you wouldn't want to see all the lines that made it up. Hmmm... I'm having a hard time visualizing this I think. If the sphere has a red interior and you make it bigger and turn it inside out you wouldn't see any of the smaller black sphere. Let me tell you what I've done. No... its easier to show you...

Lets say I want to outline the shape formed by the union of this box and sphere:

box {<-50,20,-75>,<100,150,75> texture {clear_black}}

sphere {<100, 120, -85>,75 texture {clear_black}}

I pick the size of the red frame I want it to have. In this case 10. And I add spheres with that radius to all the corners of the box:

sphere{<-50,20,-75> 10 texture {red_frame}}

sphere{<-50,20,75> 10 texture {red_frame}}

sphere{<-50,150,-75> 10 texture {red_frame}}

sphere{<-50,150,75> 10 texture {red_frame}}

sphere{<100,20,-75> 10 texture {red_frame}}

sphere{<100,20,75> 10 texture {red_frame}}

sphere{<100,150,-75> 10 texture {red_frame}}

sphere{<100,150,75> 10 texture {red_frame}}

I then add cylinders to all the edges of the box with the same radius:

cone {<-50,20,-75>,10 <-50,20,75>, 10 texture {red_frame}}

cone {<-50,20,-75>,10 <-50,150,-75>, 10 texture {red_frame}}

cone {<-50,20,-75>,10 <100,20,-75>, 10 texture {red_frame}}

cone {<-50,150,75>,10 <-50,150,-75>, 10 texture {red_frame}}

cone {<-50,150,75>,10 <-50,20,75>, 10 texture {red_frame}}

cone {<-50,150,75>,10 <100,150,75>, 10 texture {red_frame}}

cone {<100,20,75>,10 <100,20,-75>, 10 texture {red_frame}}

cone {<100,20,75>,10 <100,150,75>, 10 texture {red_frame}}

cone {<100,20,75>,10 <-50,20,75>, 10 texture {red_frame}}

cone {<100,150,-75>,10 <100,150,75>, 10 texture {red_frame}}

cone {<100,150,-75>,10 <100,20,-75>, 10 texture {red_frame}}

cone {<100,150,-75>,10 <-50,150,-75>, 10 texture {red_frame}}

The edges formed by the intersection of the box and the sphere is taken care of with and intersection of oversided copies of the original shapes.

intersection {

box {<-60,10,-85>,<110,160,85>}

sphere {<100, 120, -85>,85}

texture {red_frame}

}

Which makes the image you see attached. Note: I still don't have the sphere outlined in red.

As for post processing I do have a few ideas that I think will work to a degree. I'll post something about one of them today if I can get it to work.

Lets see... some of your other points. Yes I know the light cycle has the outline effect too. Its not seen on the pre-production pictures I copied though. Come to think of it the red framework isn't seen of the pre-production tank either. I don't really have the desire to add it to the light cycle as I don't think it adds much. The color difference isn't there and it doesn't stand out as much. On the tank however I do think the red frame on the black tank parts really does stand out. In the movie it ties the red lighting of the helicopter seen in the real world to the tanks in the computer world rather well and it gives the tanks alot of character so I was persuaded to add it back in. Note the first pictures I posted here didn't have it on the tank either. As for making my own rendeer I think that's more work then I really want to put into this. I'm not out to make perfect copies and I can get all the fixed lines added to the tank already. I've already gone far beyond what you see in the movie with textures, reflection, shadows, etc and I don't want to take that step backwards. Come to think of it even if I could add the lines that depend on camera postion back in they may look odd in animations. It will no longer look like that tank is covered on neon lights as the detail you can put into a POV-Ray render may make it jump out that "Hey... some of those lines are moving." I could also point out that not all of the edges of the turret/cannon get the red line effect in the movie and which do isn't always consistent from one sceen to the next.

Thank you so much for all the feedback. I really appreciate it.

Carl

Edited January 28, 2004 by wwwmwww

[wwwmwww]

Ok... here is my first shot at post processing so go easy on me.

I took the shape above and cut the floor in half and added a flat blue background. See insert. As to why I left any of the floor in this picture was I wanted the reflections on the sphere of the grid however note now the left side of the box is missing its reflection. I then cut out the shape, made the blue backgroud transparent (my idea of how blue screen works), and pasted it on top of the same image redered with a complete red sphere covering the black one. Not too bad... I obviously don't know how to get rid of all the blue as I still see a blue outline around my shape and this test highlights some serious problems with a post process solution to this problem. I think if I knew what I was doing or had the right software I should be able to get rid of all the blue but what about the reflections on both the object and the foreground? I think I'll leave my model as it is for now. I really like all the reflections and that's not something they had to deal with origionally.

A questions for those of you that have been at this longer then I have:

Is there some software out there that will allow me to cut that shape off of the blue background and not only make the 100% blue pixels transparent but make the partially blue pixels at the edge partially transparent so they'll pick up the red of the solid red sphere when I perform the paste? I know the PNG file format allows for layers of partial transparency but the free software (ImageForge) that I downloaded doesn't support that feature or I can't figure out how to use it as the documentation isn't all that user friendly.

Thanks,

Carl

Edited January 28, 2004 by wwwmwww

[wwwmwww]

Here is an idea I've have in my head for 20 years and I've never seen anyone else do. So I finally sat down and put my light cycle sidecar on-screen so-to-speak. What do you think? Does it fit with the TRON slogan of reminding you of something you've never seen before?

Edited February 10, 2004 by wwwmwww

[wwwmwww]

If I had just posted this picture do you think anyone would have noticed what was added?

[EXO]

Excellent. Yori gets to ride along now.

The Programmers will be happy...

[wwwmwww]

This one just finished. Reflectivity and transparency turned on for the body this time.

Enjoy...

Carl