SOme new TTT pictures

[ReaperFett]

http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=13761




I dont know about that Treebeard person. He looks good and all, but its reminding me of something, hence bugging me :)

[Nupraptor]

They both look really good. Gollum looked a little too CG in the trailer, but he seems to look better now.

[ReaperFett]

You know they did it well when someone claims its a puppet :)

[Nupraptor]

Treebeard looks an awful lot like a fanart I saw of him on Epilogue a while back:

http://www.epilogue.net/users/frodo/Tre-beard.jpg

[Salem Ave]

That shot of Gollum looks very convincing, CGI-wise.

[Darth Viscera]

ROFL, Gollum looks like a realdoll. I bet he is one. Or maybe not. Elijah seems to be staring about 18" above Gollum, which is indicative of CGI.

[JMK]

Yeah, Elijah's eyes are way off, but Gollum looks amazing! As does Treebeard!

[Marcus Telcontar]

Treebear looks an awful lot like a fanart I saw of him on Epilogue a while back:

That looks like it could be taken from the art of one of the two art designers that are working on the film.

Okay, Gollum is completely insane CG wise. How the helll did they do that?

And no way Treebeard is CG. No way - in those pics. That has to be animatronic - fact is I know a lot of treebeard IS animatronic. Saw an interview with on of the two guys that operated the "puppet". I think they will CG some scences, but those two pics just cant be CG

[JMK]

Now correct me if I'm wrong. I'm no CG expert, but everyone is saying that Gollum is the most intense, crazy CG character ever done, but how is making Gollum different from making Jar Jar?

I don't want to make a competition out of it, but what are the differences in bringing these 2 characters to life? From what I've seen, both characters have an actor wear a weird suit with ping pong balls attached to it, both have those same actors provide voices, and are later animated in the computers.

[Nupraptor]

If that is, indeed, a CG shot of Gollum, the difference lies in the amount of detail applied to the model. I've never really liked ILM CG, anyway... always looks too plastic-y, to me.

Treebeard is, indeed, an animatronic. But I'm fairly certain Gollum is CG.

[CheapCheep]

I work a small commercial digital imaging company and yes, I believe that shot of Gollum is possible with pure cgi, though the amount of time spent on modeling and the amount of processing needed has got to be absolutely enormous. Many of the techniques used are extremely new and it's debateable whether they would have been feasable a couple of years ago when work on Gollum would have begun.

With that extreme of a closeup, however, that would have to be designated a make or break shot, so it may have quite a bit of touch-up work..
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EDIT: Just saw the specs on their render farm and believe that it's it's easily possible for them to implement. :D

[Marcus Telcontar]

Their render farm is the Southern Hemisphere's most powerful supercomputer apparently. It's a geek wet dream