Visual effects shoot for realism in explosive 'Terminator Salvation'
Spoiler alert: This article describes some of the action sequences in the new Terminator movie. If you don't want to know details about some scenes, bookmark this article and come back to read it after you've seen the movie.
In 'Terminator Salvation,' visual effects and computer graphics played a big part in making many of the action sequences look realistic. This is a mototerminator, a key evil robot in the film, and one that required the visual effects team at ILM to work hard on making an exploding car do what they wanted.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET; and image copyright 2009 Warner Bros. Courtesy of Industrial Light & Magic)SAN FRANCISCO--What do you do if you're a filmmaker trying to capture a scene in which an onrushing tow truck slams into a parked car, sending the car rolling neatly up and over the truck's back, but you face the reality that the car, vaulted into the air by a cannon shot from below, actually flies high above the truck?
If you're making "Terminator Salvation," or T4 as it's known, the latest salvo in the 25-year-old series, you turn to the visual effects experts at Industrial Light & Magic and depend on them to solve the problem.
And solve it they did. Those who see the film, which opened Friday, will see the collision rocket the car into the air and, indeed, roll right over the back of the tow truck. They'll never know that in real-life, the car actually soared high and straight up into the air.
Why did it matter? According to Ben Snow, the ILM visual effects supervisor on T4--who had the same title on films like "King Kong" and "Iron Man"--it had every bit to do with the film's story. In the scene, the driver of the tow truck is trying to derail a so-called mototerminator, a high-speed killer robot in the body of a super motorcycle that is chasing fast behind. But the mototerminator is an intelligent machine, and isn't so easily knocked down.
So, Snow said, the point of the exploding car is that it's supposed to fall over the top of the truck and into the mototerminator's path, providing the evil robot the chance to showcase its instant maneuvering skills. And to turn that high-flying car into something that looks, on-screen, just as the script called for required a whole lot of visual effects.
"Usually we try and do it" for real, Snow said, "but it would be a miracle with an effect like this. So you weigh if it's worth standing around with an expensive film crew for a day trying to get it. Do we have more than one go at it?"
Instead, Snow explained, the real-life footage of the car exploding into the air was enough for the visual effects team to get going on the computer graphics (CG) version of the sequence. They combined the real footage with a digital version of the car that was based on some still photos they'd taken, and then they simulated the desired rolling-over-the-truck effect using ILM's proprietary rigid body simulation tools in order to produce the CG version.
Snow said that the footage of the truck, taken from behind, was doctored with visual effects to show it from the point of view of the mototerminator, which has a heads-up display calculating what's happening with the car.
"The story point," Snow said, "is that this mototerminator is reacting to the car, and able to do an incredibly nimble evasive maneuver to get out of the way. So we're trying to tell the story of these things being really bad-ass."
In the past, a movie studio might still have tried to produce a similar effect but Snow said that filmmakers might well have been less likely to turn to CG for the effect.
"I think we would have tried a lot harder to get the effect for real with the car," he said. "I can now depend on effects. I can take existing material and re-project it and get it to do what I need to...I can count on the fact that I can get a believable rigid-body simulation of something like a crumpling, rolling car. I mean, we were doing those kinds of things (a few years ago) on "Twister" and "Star Wars." But if you compare the realism of what we're able to achieve now to what we were able to achieve five years ago, it's way more realistic now."
That sort of advance, Snow continued, means that Warner Bros. and director McG can "make a Terminator for the 21st century...updated to give it a more gritty, edgy feel. Instead a guy puppeteering the robot, we're able to have the robot running around and chasing people."
Explosions on a bridge
Another of T4's major action sequences involves a large-scale battle that includes several forceful explosions on a bridge high over a river gorge. But Snow said that since it was obvious that the filmmakers couldn't conduct the explosions on the actual bridge--the fantastic Rio Grande Gorge Bridge near Taos, N.M.--it was necessary to film the sequence in three different places and then blend the footage together using visual effects and CG.
The sequence was shot on the bridge, on a nearby roadway and on a set on a field in Albuquerque, N.M., where they could actually blow up a truck.
Creating this action sequence required shooting at three different locations in order to make a truck explode on the bridge, something that the filmmakers could not do in real life. Then, it was up to the visual effects team at ILM to stitch it all together using newly-developed CG techniques.
(Credit: Image copyright 2009 Warner Bros. Courtesy of Industrial Light & Magic)The sequence, then, involves combining footage from the three different locations, going back and forth between them depending on the severity of destruction in each frame, and using CG to patch them together seamlessly.
Snow explained that putting the sequence together meant marrying footage from all three locations, adding digital backgrounds when needed, adding railings to the CG bridge, and adding the CG truck to the bridge.
"We re-projected this onto the (CG bridge) so I could have the truck fall over the edge, because in the original, it didn't fall over the edge," Snow said. And "those sort of techniques are just some of the things that we've been perfecting over the years: re-projection, the ability to say, 'Well, we can go and do this, shoot at three different locations, and we don't always have to use blue screen.' ...We can make it so you don't know which bit of the bridge is CG."
And, importantly, it means that for the filmmakers, there's no worrying about whether they can fulfill the all-important script element of blowing up a truck on a bridge.
Molten metal
For Snow's visual effects teams, the hardest part of working on T4 was getting the film's molten metal sequence just right. This meant making a scene in which melted metal pours through a terminator look believable, even though it's done in CG.
"We have some very good fluid simulation tools that we've developed over the years," Snow said, "but getting the molten metal to pour in and through this skeletal robot and look believable involved a lot more computing power than we've (ever used before). That was surprisingly hard, given that in the end, it's only in a few shots." It's funny seeing the film now, Snow said, because it's over in seconds and took days and more than a hundred high-power processors to create.
By comparison, Snow said, previous fluid sequences in films like "Pearl Harbor" used 30 lower-power processors and were considered beyond state-of-the-art at the time.
Today, visual effects teams like those at ILM still struggle to do realistic digital doubles and CG fire, Snow said, but the barriers to such effects are breaking down rapidly. And that could mean that in the near future, filmmakers can turn to CG to get just about any effect they want.
"The sky is the limit with digital technology," Snow said. "We're not limited by physical constraint. And so there's no time for complacency."
On June 22, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South and North Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between. E-mail Daniel. 
It was spooky how realistic it was.
The audio was beyond impressive and really, really loud. Can't wait for this to come out on Blu-ray as a new Home Theater audio test.
And that is all I will say
All three blockbusters so far this year have had terrible scripts.
I think the movie didn't perform as well, due to a bad word of mouth. WB blames it on this, or that, but they fail to recognize that the movie just isn't that good. Sure, the T fans will love it, but even then, if the movie is only so-so, even fans won't respond.
T1 and T2 were awesome. Cameron did an amazing job. T3 and T4 killed the franchise. McG is no Cameron.
If you wanted any worse of a director, and one to bury a franchise quicker, it should have been made by Uwe Boll.
Next Title: Terminator 5 - Death to the franchise
Directed by Uwe Boll himself.
The digital insert of Arnold was pretty good. It actually needed a little more grit for me. I saw it on a DLP screening and his image was just a little too clean and a little too smooth compared to the other actors. I could almost pick out which scenes they lifted the footage from, rebuilt his face and inserted it. Don't get me wrong, it was still great.
Over all I'm totally in awe of digital effects. We're basically at the technical point where we can tell just about any story we want. I think for me LOTR really set that in my mind. There are more and more films that just couldn't have been done even 10 years ago. ILM has had a huge part in that.
Can't wait to see what James Cameron does with his team.
Don't hold your breath.
The best FX won't save a movie, and the best movie is still great even with crappy FX
For the record I'm a fan but this film had so many story problems I'll just throw out a few. The effects are great, but that's about it. For those who haven't seen it please stop here.
1. Connor jumps from a helicopter into the ocean in the middle of a storm at night. Even if he knew exactly where the command sub was and vice versa, there's no way anyone can survive that.
2. How does Skynet know that Kyle Reese is Connor's father let alone important enough to hunt down? Never explained in the movie. If you want to stick to continuity, we know Skynet doesn't know because they went after "Sarah Connor" - his father's ID is unknown (See "Terminator")
3. The resistance gives up their "secret" position by essentially blowing up the entire compound to keep Marcus from escaping. Then, the spiders show up in the water. Skynet has Marcus and all robots so why not just kill Connor on the spot? We later learn Skynet setup the computer code decoy so killing Connor wouldn't have made a difference.
4. Pilot Williams frees Marcus. Why? Because he's a nice guy. I guess everyone she fights with doesn't count. Nothing like betrayal to keep a plot going.
5. Connor gets a cycle and goes to get Kyle. He's driving along a bridge then a minute later the bridge behind him is destroyed. Poor editing since we don't know if he did it or not (and why).
5. Humans are kept in cages. Never explained. Also.. I didn't know Terminator guards wore doo-rags.
6. Connor is inside the facility. Remind me again why Skynet has been after this guy the entire movie yet in the end decides to use "Arnold" to kill him by throwing him around for a few minutes.
7. Continuity error - Connor's gunshot drops the molten lava on the Terminator. In "T2" this same model was destroyed by dropping itself into a vat of molten lava. Either the "Arnold" model in the new film is an earlier version of the one we see in the first two films or it's the same model.
8. Connor stabbed through the heart or at least pretty close. Sorry.. but he should have died in about 10 seconds.
9. Blowing up the installation - they were so close to the nuclear explosion they should have been incinerated. See "Aliens" for instructions on how to do this safely.
If you enjoyed the film that's cool, but please don't tell me it made sense or was good storytelling. I won't even get into the cliches.
As for T4 well lets just say i was left dissapointed.
Some points:
1. In every Terminator they show the future as being more futuristic with the Terminators firing lazer beams, etc. yet in T4 the stage is set alittle after judgement day and with the resistance still having planes and subs.. How long does it take to get to the Future on terminator as described past movies..
2. It apears to me that they went for a more grider approach which i didn't care for to much.
3. In every past terminators there has always been a hint of comedy from either connor on the terminator yet in T4 they left that out. what a shame cause i always liked that..
4.When the digital Arnold terminator came out John conner did not show any emotion as if her remembered him from the past. Excuse me but if i had this same terminator first try to kill be then save me 2 seperate times i think i would have some type of emotional reaction if i ever saw him again. Shame on the writers for not adding that in or for Christian Bale for not portraiing that.
5. I really didn;'t like Christian Bale as John Conner. He played the role to hard for me. and never showed any emotion or humor. I just didn;t like where we went with the charcater.
6. I realize that they prop didn't want to jump to far in the future but come on give alittle more action then just some cheezy plot to blow up synet base and find kyle reese to save him from the terminators so john can decide whether or not he's going to send him into the past so he can save his mother and he can be born..yea i still get confused witht that too.. Plus in the movie why would John say to the learders on the sub that if they don't save kyle that they would have no future if they already living it and the past can't effect them becuase they are on an alternate path in the future and one alternate reality has nothing to do with another.... oh crap sorry i confued myself again with travel in time crap so i can born again...
7. oh yea and lastely if John conner has had more experience with these things they ANYBODY then why the heck is not running the show. i realizie that this is still set early in the furue, if that makes sense, but i really dont get how
he not in control from the get go. I don't see anybody else in the film that has almost been killed by T1000 and TX. if so please speak up now....
enough of me ranting. couae i know ill prop go and see T5 when it comes out.. Maybe they'll have lazers by then
I screamed when this happened. It was so ignorant. From what I understand Salvation takes place 10 years before Skynet falls. Skynet falling is why they sent the Terminator back in time to T1 to kill Sarah Connor so it would change the future.
I screamed when this happened. It was so ignorant. From what I understand Salvation takes place 10 years before Skynet falls. Skynet falling is why they sent the Terminator back in time to T1 to kill Sarah Connor so it would change the future.
@uptown187
"6. I realize that they prop didn't want to jump to far in the future but come on give alittle more action then just some cheezy plot to blow up synet base and find kyle reese to save him from the terminators so john can decide whether or not he's going to send him into the past so he can save his mother and he can be born..yea i still get confused witht that too.."
John Connor already knew Kyle Reese is his father. Skynet knew that because they knew he was sent back in time. Time travel is a hard concept to wrap your mind around.
Did anyone forget that every time judgment day has been delayed in a previous movie, it creates changes in the current timeline? I mean, by the third movie, Skynet had become an internet virus, which it definitely wasn't in T1. Therefore, is it such a logical misstep to assume that the "new" T-800 model was built to withstand things that the "original" T-800 wasn't?
Regarding the scene where Connor is crossing the Golden Gate Bridge: he is traveling over the first half on the bike but as they pan past it is clear parts of the decking are missing and broken. For a minute I thought they would show him on the bike on the other side but he clearly had to climb. And yes, it is possible for the bridge to stay standing without the decking [but not without anchored cables, thank you very much X-men 3!].
Here's one:
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/sony-vaio-ux-series/4505-3121_7-33639696.html?tag=mncol;lst
As for T4 well lets just say i was left dissapointed.
Some points:
1. In every Terminator they show the future as being more futuristic with the Terminators firing lazer beams, etc. yet in T4 the stage is set alittle after judgement day and with the resistance still having planes and subs.. How long does it take to get to the Future on terminator as described past movies..
2. It apears to me that they went for a more grider approach which i didn't care for to much.
3. In every past terminators there has always been a hint of comedy from either connor on the terminator yet in T4 they left that out. what a shame cause i always liked that..
4.When the digital Arnold terminator came out John conner did not show any emotion as if her remembered him from the past. Excuse me but if i had this same terminator first try to kill be then save me 2 seperate times i think i would have some type of emotional reaction if i ever saw him again. Shame on the writers for not adding that in or for Christian Bale for not portraiing that.
5. I really didn;'t like Christian Bale as John Conner. He played the role to hard for me. and never showed any emotion or humor. I just didn;t like where we went with the charcater.
6. I realize that they prop didn't want to jump to far in the future but come on give alittle more action then just some cheezy plot to blow up synet base and find kyle reese to save him from the terminators so john can decide whether or not he's going to send him into the past so he can save his mother and he can be born..yea i still get confused witht that too.. Plus in the movie why would John say to the learders on the sub that if they don't save kyle that they would have no future if they already living it and the past can't effect them becuase they are on an alternate path in the future and one alternate reality has nothing to do with another.... oh crap sorry i confued myself again with travel in time crap so i can born again...
7. oh yea and lastely if John conner has had more experience with these things they ANYBODY then why the heck is not running the show. i realizie that this is still set early in the furue, if that makes sense, but i really dont get how
he not in control from the get go. I don't see anybody else in the film that has almost been killed by T1000 and TX. if so please speak up now....
enough of me ranting. couae i know ill prop go and see T5 when it comes out.. Maybe they'll have lazers by then
The movie was alright could have been better but so could STAR TREK.
Wich sucked to me should have been a TV mini series.
Each it's own.
The whole movie was based on this not being the future Connor's mother warned him about.
It's the alternate future that exists as a consequence of Skynet and the Resistance sending their soldiers back. That's why Skynet knows about Reese and that their exoskeletons were vulnerable to extreme temperatures. Those events are in this new timeline's past from the get go, whereas for T1-3, the past was being altered. This is why Sarah Connor's tapes are on the right track but not completely correct as Connor points out.
Skynet is trying to prevent Reese from being sent back because they already know the consequences of him being sent back. They also know that killing both at the same time makes any further timeline alterations less likely.
Obviously, the movie didn't do a great job of getting all this across, but it is in there, for the most part.
yes i do agree with your points as well about the molten LAVA and the past changing the future. I just wish they would have explained that better in the movie to give people who might have never seen the previous films and idea of what is happening and why it was so important to save kyle reese. They could have easily done this by having John narrate this in the beginning or have some text scroll across the screen like in staw wars.....jus kidding about that last one. but serioulsy they waist about 10 minutes showing how this wanna be kiiller on death row becomes a terminator in the future.. Snooze...
Oh and by the way has anyone really solved the mystery of how John conner is really born. kinda like the chicken in the egg??
What did you think about John's lack of emotion when he saw digital arnold?
- by fredjaboobie May 29, 2009 8:38 AM PDT
- 1) How can John Connor communicate on radio shortwave to all of the human resistance but
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(36 Comments)the robots not find where he is broadcasting from?
2) When he is telling all of the resistance not to attack skynet on the radio woudn't that be the first give away to the robots there is an attack? I would expect there to be more machines terminators coming once that broadcast went out.
3) Why would the infiltrator terminator not kill John as soon as he saw him instead of bringing him into skynet. He sucessfully infiltrated the resistance base so why not kill him then? It make things overly elaborate when they dont' need to be. It takes away from the movie and adds confusion.
4) Why was there only 1 terminator inside all of skynet? This is the homebase for all terminators, and there is only 1? This is even harder to believe since the plan was to get John there to kill him.
5) How are there planes in the future? Can't the terminators find the air base where planes are launching, if not from radar tracking the planes but from just seeing a giant runway?
6) Why are terminators picking up humans and taking POW instead of killing them? Reminded me too much of War of the Worlds.
7) Once Kyle Reece is captured they then scan him and put him in a cell. Why not just kill him there? Moreover, why not scan people as they are picking them up?
8) I love the comment about terminators wearing bandannas, that was retardedly hillarious.
9) When the infiltrator terminator realizes he is programmed by skynet, he rips his chip out of his head that skynet put in there to control him. Wouldn't removing the chip shut down the whole ability to function? If he ripped out the chip he obviously overcame the skynet programming on the chip that controlled him before the he ripped it out, so doing so did nothing!?! makes no sense.
10) How is John steering the terminator motorcycle thing? The palm pilot thing?
11) How are terminators not able to use infared to spot all the fires people are lighting at night or the heat coming off the bases they stay in? I couldn't believe they could just sit outside skynet and not be found. It seemed the terminators tracked them from the radio signal they were broadcasting, not the use of the john's cb radio or there own body heat.