Wellington's Weta Digital computer graphics workshop is
launching a working group aimed at bringing advanced research
together with movie production.
The new group, Transfx, is headed by Sebastian Sylwan, who
has joined Weta as head of research and development, Variety
Magazine reported today.
Sylwan was most recently senior industry manager for film and
television at United States software developer Autodesk,
where he led work on stereoscopic 3-D.
Weta is already working on an innovative 3-D movie, James
Cameron's Avatar, as well as Steven Spielberg's Tintin.
Transfx will be partly funded by the Government but mostly by
Weta, Sylwan said.
But a Weta executive in Wellington, David Wright, told NZPA
that there had not been any formal approval of a Government
contribution to the project.
Weta's team writing computer programmes for visual effects
will expand to about 20 people -- including advanced computer
graphics researchers and students -- and about half of them
will be recruited specifically for the new work.
Sylwan told Variety that the goal was to get computer
graphics "closer to reality while maintaining artistic
control".
Many visual effects were cobbled together with improvised
solutions that looked good in that "shot" but couldn't be
re-used on other shots, Sylwan said.
Transfx would look to find techniques that could be applied
more generally in things such as simulations of fire and
water.
The group would also work on speeding up rendering and on
digital capture.
The Transfx group would work directly on Weta's films,
including Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones.
