Comments on: How technology lifts Pixar's 'Up'

The cluster of balloons carrying a house away couldn't be hand-animated or done individually on a computer. So the studio invented a way to make them look real.

[sdf0013]

Excellent article!

[Zer0Wolf]

A very good article indeed! And the last lines are so true!
So few people even bother to appreciate the 3D animations nowadays. The sheer strength of technology in our daily lives and the ubiquitousness of it in nearly every movie has made people insensitive to the strength of animation.
An animated movie is in current times only as good as its story.

[dascha1]

I hear the voices were also rendered using high quality texture maps with half the effort applied to the 3D visuals.

[karpenterskids]

Good article!


Can't wait to see the movie for myself...I did notice just now, though, that Carl's ear in the third picture doesn't seem as realistic as the rest of the image does.


Idk, maybe that's just me...

[gmarzette]

Very good article!

I said the same thing when looking at this picture. His ear and left hand looks so far off than the rest of the picture. I certainly agree with karpenterskids.

Maybe when in motion we wouldn't be able to notice this. That is... if we don't concentrate on the visual flaws.

[dream_fly]

Let's see...realistic was the goal. I still can't figure out how all of a sudden when the balloons were released and the house went up. Shouldn't the house went up when enough balloons were blown up in the first place? Perhaps he blew up the LAST balloon when the others were released and that tipped the scale? If they spent so much energy on the realistic front, I sure hope they would explain this real physics phenomenon. May be they did as I have not seen the film yet, just the trailer.

[viper396]

Get over it. It's a stupid waste of time trying to nitpick details such as this. They were going for realistic motion and visuals of the balloons, not the physical aspects of actually lifting a house.

Got to the move. Suspend your disbelief for a couple hours and just enjoy the story.

[lakorai2]

I find it hilarious that Pixar doesn't use Macs.....

Maybe for video editing, but not for rendering..... nVidia TESLA and QuatroFX (other than ONE model) don't exist for Macs...

[tipoo_]

The drivers for Quatro's are also terrible for macs...Google it.

[WulfTheSaxon]

I too find it amusing (and imagine Jobs regrets selling Pixar). The Madagascar DVD had a behind-the-scenes video that was essentially nothing but a product placement for HP.

[viper396]

Thankfully the Movie industry has more important concerns then to get involved in a petty Mac vs PC debate.

[balloon-com]

That's a great article - I'd love to get my hands on that algorithm (if I had a powerful enough computer), play with the wind settings and watch how the balloons react.

Mind you - i have built my own virtual balloon race and my PC can cope with more than 500 moving balloons. The balloons fly across real live websites, why not have a play
www.balloonrace.com/beta

[tipoo_]

"As producer Jonas Rivera put it, "The audience looks at (the balloon cluster) and says, 'Oh, that's pretty.' But they have no idea how much work went into it. We worked on that for over a year. (Then) the kid takes off his hat and runs his fingers through his hair. My mother will never know that took 15 people six weeks." "


Holly hell, that sounds brutal!