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News => Announcements => Topic started by: Oshyan on December 20, 2011, 01:56:00 AM

Title: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: Oshyan on December 20, 2011, 01:56:00 AM
If you've been out to see the new Mission Impossible already, you might have noticed the 100th Anniversary reimagining of the Paramount Pictures logo. You might have even wondered what they used to create it. We're very excited to announce today that Terragen 2 played a major role in the project. In fact large portions of the sequence are almost entirely Terragen rendered.

Big thanks go to DevaStudios for bringing us in to work on this iconic and high-profile project. You can check out the new logo in high resolution at Deadline.com (http://www.deadline.com/2011/12/paramount-unveils-100th-anniversary-logo/) and watch a small video of the complete intro on DevaStudios' site (http://www.devastudios.com/) along with some stills, but to really get the full effect check out Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol in theaters!

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: Tangled-Universe on December 20, 2011, 05:26:37 AM
That's really great to see it in such a high profile sequence :)

And yes, I did see MI4 last friday and indeed thought "hey, I believe this is TG2!" ;D
The movie was pretty awesome btw, thin story but plain awesome action and very nice humour.
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: freelancah on December 20, 2011, 05:45:20 AM
Haha my thoughts confirmed! Awesome :)
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: Oshyan on December 21, 2011, 06:29:08 PM
Can't wait to see it myself, hopefully later this week! I hear the movie itself is "a pretty good ride", which is about the most I can expect from the franchise. ;)

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: chris_x422 on December 22, 2011, 02:38:14 AM
Taking my son to see this this over christmas, as I'm big fan of Brad Bird, and was gob-smacked when I found out he was doing this movie, thought it was potentially a huge waste of his talent.
The new logo will be a great bonus, looks fantastic from the bits that I've seen.

Working in the heart of Soho at the moment and am still amazed at how few cg artists have heard of terragen, so it's good to see the profile rising.

Chris
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: masonspappy on December 23, 2011, 10:02:08 PM
That new logo looks to be a great piece of work!!
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: rcallicotte on December 27, 2011, 05:23:56 PM
Cool news and a fun movie.
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: Matt on December 28, 2011, 12:20:25 AM
HD version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWb9v8OB8HA
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: chris_x422 on December 28, 2011, 07:00:05 AM
Saw it last night on the big screen, stunning! (the logo that is, not so much the film)

Can I ask, which of you guys worked on this? and how long for?

Chris
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: Tangled-Universe on December 28, 2011, 03:49:25 PM
Is there a DEM-source for this mountain or was the terrain/heightfield sculpted?
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: AP on December 28, 2011, 05:46:48 PM
To me that looks like a very nice alpine fractal with very nice small scale fractals mixed in. Looks like angled strata and outcrops nicely blended in which is something i can not do to this day. Also i see what appears to be long channel erosion, perhaps the alpine fractal was stretched with one of it's perimeters somehow or it was ran through a height field node by the shader input and then eroded. I am guessing a whole lot here but what the heck.
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: Tangled-Universe on December 28, 2011, 06:28:17 PM
That's what I noticed too, but didn't ask ;)
The resemblence of the mountain between the old and new logo make me suspect it is based on a DEM-source or a custom made heightfield.

I once had a client who asked a DEM for a specific area, meaning that you can place an order at mapmart to have a satelite generate heightfield data of your desired area.
Costs a couple of thousand bucks, but you have your data ;)
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: Matt on December 28, 2011, 07:05:23 PM
Making procedural terrain match an existing shape is very difficult. An approach that we've used on a few different projects now is to model the terrain in a 3D package, export some heightfields, bring them into Terragen, add procedural details and render in Terragen. If you already have a model of the mountain, that's even better.

Another thing. You can make your renders faster by using planes that are the same size as your heightfields, instead of trying to render the whole planet. A completely flat horizon is slow to render at high resolution, even when it gets covered up by foreground mountains. Having the whole planet is convenient, but if you're willing to spend the time to build pieces of terrain everywhere they need to be, and only render those pieces, it might render a lot faster.
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: AP on December 28, 2011, 10:27:49 PM
Yes, the DEM to match an existing shape. Should have known that. Went right over my head.    ;D    One could also carefully sculpt the mountain inside something like Zbrush and bring it into TG. Lot of work involved either way.
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: Tangled-Universe on December 29, 2011, 04:10:09 AM
Thanks for that tip Matt :)
If I understood correctly it is as simple as replacing the planet node with a plane object and adjust it's size? (perhaps a check on displacement tolerance value?)

Cheers,
Martin
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: Matt on December 29, 2011, 02:55:08 PM
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 29, 2011, 04:10:09 AM
Thanks for that tip Matt :)
If I understood correctly it is as simple as replacing the planet node with a plane object and adjust it's size? (perhaps a check on displacement tolerance value?)

Yes, but you still need a planet node to put an atmosphere in the scene, with 'render surface' turned off.
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: Matt on December 29, 2011, 03:11:07 PM
The entire project was completely designed, produced and finished in-house at Devastudios, Inc. in Santa Monica, California. I was the environment lead and the lead compositor. Much of the environment was modeled by Ethan Summers (environment artist) and Brad Colwell (art director and creative lead). Opening clouds and low-lying clouds were rendered in Maya with a rig that Ethan Summers set up. Maya clouds and water effects by Andrew Honacker (CG lead). Also involved were Matt Hartle (Maya), Ryan Quinlan (compositor), Ed Anderson (compositor), Giancarlo Lari (matte painter, generalist). Executive Creative Director: John Berlin. Art Director and creative lead: Brad Colwell. Producer: John Busenberg.

The schedule was a bit unusual, but it probably works out at about 3.5 months for the version you see, with an average team size of maybe 4 or 5. Concept development began much earlier.

There is also a 4k stereoscopic version which hasn't been released yet.

Matt
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: chris_x422 on December 29, 2011, 05:23:49 PM
Thanks for all the info and great tips Matt.
The schedule time seems quite refreshing, as I would have expected the turnover to be much shorter than that, based on the on the type of schedules I usually see.
Good to see that you all had the time you needed to get it right. Congrats to all the team on such a good job. I used to pour over Ethan's paint fx 101, great artist.

One thing I used to do years ago, and am thinking of resurrecting, (as I have a bit more time than usual in the evenings these days) is compiling a day to day production diary. I used to find it really helpful when I was starting out, but realise now it could also help others see how we use the software on a daily basis. Sorry, don't mean to hijack the thread, just thinking aloud.
I found it very interesting that you combined maya clouds with tg atmospherics as I used to use them a lot, but rarely these days with the advent of tg, and it's those kinds of details and combinations of usage I find really interesting.

Sorry to be a nag, but I do have one more question, as I'm about to start on a 4k stereo film. Were there any particular pitfalls or techniques you used when working in stereo, say for calculating correct padding beyond the camera frustum to ensure correct lighting, matching, etc?

Thanks

Chris

Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: Matt on December 29, 2011, 07:03:48 PM
Thanks Chris.

We knew we wanted some motion in some of the clouds but we didn't know how much. We also wanted to be able to art direct them easily, and also be able to use artists that weren't used to Terragen. In the end we decided to use Terragen for any of the clouds that would be seen reflected in the Terragen lake, and Maya and small amounts of matte painting for the others. The clouds on the final frame are 100% Terragen above the horizon, Maya below the horizon. I did some comp tricks to improve the scattering through the Maya clouds.

Regarding 4k stereo: I'm not a stereographer but I have some opinions on it. We rendered with a parallel camera rig and adjusted convergence in the comp. Delivery will be at 4096 horizontally but we rendered all of the raw elements at 4500. So that's about 5% padding on each side. That would allow for up to 10% positive parallax (into the screen), but you never want to use anywhere near that much positive parallax because that would cause the eyes to diverge on a typical cinema screen. Apparently on IMAX you don't want any positive parallax at all, as the screen is treated as infinity, but I guess that's a decision you'd make only if you were delivering for IMAX. I believe that 1% to 1.5% positive parallax is pretty normal. I am sure there are people in here that know a lot more than me about this.

On the other end of the scale, the 10% was useful for adjusting elements that were rendered way out in audience space (negative parallax) that we needed to push back a little, or to bring something even farther forward. Actually the 10% wasn't quite enough in one case. We needed a bit of paint work on a couple of frames of a foreground element, but that's only because it was too far forward on a few frames and we needed to push it back by more than 10%. If you have a lot of audience space elements you might find these are the parts that will be tweaked a lot in post.

On another show I worked on previously, I think that was also 5% overscan on each side, but that used a toe-in rig with convergence adjustments in post being kept to a minimum. Different people have different opinions on toe-in vs. parallel.

Terragen-specific issues. We didn't use GI. I added specific sunlights and ambient settings to get the mood, colour and detail in the shadows that we were looking for. I don't think I had to tweak any other padding settings or anything like that, but we were lucky enough to have most of the lights coming directions that didn't cause any rendering problems.

Matt
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: chris_x422 on December 30, 2011, 05:52:47 AM
Thanks Matt, thats all good and useful information.

The comp tricks on the maya clouds work nicely as they really do blend and match well with the tg clouds.
I can also appreciate the use of traditional light rigs as opposed to using GI when working at those resolutions.

Thanks again

Chris

Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: Tangled-Universe on December 30, 2011, 06:04:05 AM
Any chance we will see a stereoscopic version somewhere in the near future?
Did you need to work explicitly in real world scales to make the stereoscopic effect work, say for inter-ocular distance and such?

4.5K resolution :) Holy shit man. Wonder how long that took per frame!

I'm curious to see/know how such a lightrig would look like...how many lights are there?
I suppose there's a kind of threshold where the number of lights to create a GI-like effect exceeds the rendertime of actually using GI at 1/x/y ? (regardless for the moment of the flickering it may introduce).
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: ajcgi on January 16, 2012, 06:35:56 AM
Wow, good work guys! I saw the previous Paramount logo recently and thought how cool it would be to rejig that myself one day... with Terragen. Better be careful what I think about now as it seems someone reads my mind!  ;D Excellent use of the software. It's another string to the bow that will be TG2's future in film vfx imo.
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: penang on January 17, 2012, 05:02:45 AM
Quote from: Oshyan on December 20, 2011, 01:56:00 AMYou can check out the new logo in high resolution at Deadline.com (http://www.deadline.com/2011/12/paramount-unveils-100th-anniversary-logo/)
- Oshyan



Oh no !!

Global Warming has melted the snow cap !!!
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: KK22 on February 21, 2012, 02:34:36 PM
Wasn't it Ben Lomond Peak in Northern Utah (Wasatch Mtn Range) the source for the original logo?
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: Matt on February 21, 2012, 05:26:52 PM
No one seems to know for sure. I believe it was "inspired by the memory of" that peak, or something like that. There are other theories.

Matt
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: KK22 on February 22, 2012, 10:53:20 AM
I believe you are right Matt. After a brief Google search I found the following info at this website: http://www.summitpost.org/ben-lomond/152185

Ben Lomond is thought to be the inspiration behind the Paramount Pictures logo. It is the oldest studio logo in continuous use. It's nearly a decade older than the second-oldest logo, MGM's roaring lion. It also predates Paramount Pictures as a film production entity. They trace their history back to the 1912 formation of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company, but the Paramount Pictures name was first used by a film distribution company founded by William W. Hodkinson and other independent exhibitors.

Hodkinson was the one who first designed the Paramount logo in 1914. Legend has it that he sketched an image of a star-crested, pyramid shaped, mountain on a napkin during a meeting with Adolph Zukor. It was an image he remembered of a mountain peak from his childhood in Ogden, Utah. The Paramount Pictures logo was known as "Majestic Mountain" and is one of the most familiar images in Hollywood.

There has been speculation about just where Majestic Mountain really is. Some people have assumed it to be Mount Everest or other famous mountains. If it is a real mountain at all, it is most likely Ben Lomond in the Wasatch Range. Even if Hodkinson had meant it to be a generic mountain, Ben Lomond is a prominent landmark in the Ogden area and would have been the first mountain to come to his memory. The logo has been used with only a few cosmetic changes for over half a century. The familiar mountain with its ring of 24 stars remained the most popular. Many people tend to believe that the pointed and sharp mountain used on the logo today is what Majestic Mountain actually looked like. The logo was drawn to make the mountain look more impressive than it really was.
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: Kadri on May 16, 2012, 02:13:03 PM

When i first saw this new logo the first i thought was this looks like TG2 but some other elements made me indecisive.
When i heard here that TG2 really was used i liked it a lot more .
Thanks for the insight Matt!
Great work! Nothing much to say more  :)

Matt i really think you should post more about the work you do on movies with TG2 !
I don't know the others but i would not be bored to hear much more detail  ;)
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: Hannes on May 18, 2012, 12:25:38 PM
So do I!!
Title: Re: Terragen 2 used extensively for Paramount Pictures 100th anniversary logo
Post by: MattJacks2003 on July 09, 2021, 10:51:23 PM
Did you work on the Paramount+ logo?