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Virtual Stuntmen Ready for Hollywood 120

Posted by CmdrTaco from the can-you-take-a-punch dept.
Kerhop writes "Discovery Channel has an article about a new form of virtual actors in movies. In particular "Endorphin's virtual actors learn how to move and react independently, unlike most computerized characters now that depend on fixed databases containing animated clips". MSNBC also is featuring a news video (no direct link is available, stream must to be added to playlist). The featured software Endorphin is created by Natural Motion."
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Virtual Stuntmen Ready for Hollywood More

Virtual Stuntmen Ready for Hollywood

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  • Oh great (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 01, 2004 @02:39PM (#10688913)
    Now we get to hear the people in Hollywood complain about having their jobs outsourced to computers.

    • Union? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by p51d007 ( 656414 )
      Outsourced actors......well, the next logical step would be to somehow figure out a way to force them to belong to the screen actors guild (union), before the are allowed to "act"

    • Re:Oh great (Score:4, Funny)

      by The Ultimate Fartkno ( 756456 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @03:14PM (#10689511)
      Could be worse - they could have followed the tech industry model and outsourced everything to India.

      "Coming this summer to a theater near you, 'Mission Impossible 3' starring Tom Cruise!! (as portrayed by Amitabh Bachchan). Costarring Star Wars' Jake Lloyd! (as portrayed by a bowl of warm curry.)"

    • Now we get to hear the people in Hollywood complain about having their jobs outsourced to computers.

      Animators have been plagued by both computerization and offshoring for the last 2 decades. It is true that most of the "creative" side is still done by humans, but the rest has been ravaged. But, it has also affected the creative side because those on the less creative side (assignment-wise) tried to shift their career up toward the creative side also, creating a general glut in anything remotely resembli
    • ... the computers will be complaining about having their work outsourced to cheaper systems abroad.
    • Is this this the Blender3D 3.0 that I've read about?
  • Virtual porn stars!!!
    • I don't know about replacing the porn stars with computer generated ones, but I think we should be asking the more important question:

      With so much silicon inside, how many frames per minute can those boobs render.
    • Funny yes but I belive there was actual provisions in a recent law that made it illegal to even simulate certain types of sex acts and pornography created or modified with computers. Meaning you can not even use photoshop to paste the face of a 13 year old on a 18+ year old person or use computer rendering to simulate a 16 year old showing something. In theory, child pornography is illegal because of the age of the person and exploitation of people not legally old enough to make their own decisions which
      • Actually the law you speak of was struck down by the courts. However, most people don't realize that current obscenity laws are extremly commonlplace and most of them would almost certainly make porn films with, say, fake 5-year-olds very illegal.

        Why? Because the supreme court has determined that "community standards" prevail in obscenity trials. I think you'd have an extremely difficult time convincing any jury, anywhere that a portrayal of 5-year-olds haveing sex, fake as it may be, is not obscene.

        Pe

  • Wow... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So now we have to teach our virtual stuntmen how to act, instead of just telling them what to do? ?_?

  • Ain't this a bit OLD? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Soul-Burn666 ( 574119 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @02:40PM (#10688938) Journal
    Dated: June 26, 2003
    and from the article "...will make their debut next year in the film "Troy,"..."

    Frist psot?

  • Article from 2003?!?! (Score:4, Informative)

    by ceenvee703 ( 655877 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @02:41PM (#10688949)
    I started reading the Discovery Channel article and saw they'd make their debut "next year in the film 'Troy.'" And I thought, hey, they just made a movie about Troy, they're going to make another one? Then I saw the June 26, 2003 date of the article. Slow news day I guess.
  • ....seems to be a good idea. And I'm quite sure that it'll be interesting to see what movies take advantage of this new technology....as well as which actors, just to be macho, will still do all their own stunts.

    • Re:Adding a "learning" process.... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @02:47PM (#10689068) Homepage Journal
      There are advantages to doing your own stunts. At least today the virtual actors are shown only from a distance, since facial features still don't quite look real enough (though even before Troy there were some lovely examples in Lord of the Rings. Those were keyframed rather than virtual actors.)

      Being able to focus up-close on an actor doing a stunt gives a verisimilitude that the audience really appreciates; they believe that the character is in danger. But they can also detect the jump-cuts that usually surround a stunt (since a stunt is shot on its own, with lots of preparation beforehand, and the camera is immediately stopped so that everybody can be checked out.)

      So when they're ready to seamlessly slip a virtual actor into the frame, then back to the human actor at the end, and make it look like a single shot, you'll really be thrilled. You will believe Brad Pitt can kick ass. (I once played Achilles myself and I loved Brad Pitt's work.)
      • Although it wasn't with a virtual actor, they actually did something similar in Jurassic Park towards the end of the movie, when the girl falls through the ceiling panel. The stunt was done by a stunt-woman, and then they digitally replaced her face with the actress' when she looks up toward the camera while hanging above the velociraptors.
        • Actually Jurassci Park does have another better example than the face replacement. The shot where the lawyer guy in the bathroom stall gets chomped by the T-Rex. You only see him from the back as a midshot so it was a perfect candidate for an early CG stuntdouble.
      • In the real world of movie making this programs possible uses are extremely limited. As a simulator this is a great piece of work and hats off to all involved. But until they create a simulation that can conform to the average inane request by hollywood directors these days, we won't see very much of it in actual production use. It could be handy for crowd sims and the likes. Also, some have referred to this as Virtual acting. This is purely a dynamic simulation of how the body reacts in the real w
    • "...And I'm quite sure that it'll be interesting to see what movies take advantage of this new technology....as well as which actors, just to be macho, will still do all their own stunts."

      Anybody remember Lee Marvin as Battling Maxo?

  • Just now!!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hey ( 83763 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @02:42PM (#10688972) Journal
    I assumed many "stunts" were done my CG!
    How about the burning Terminator emerging from
    the fire in Terminator 2?

    • Re:Just now!!! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )
      Many "stunts" are actually compositing and involve both real actors and real fire, just not in the same frame. Compositing can actually be done with classic film techniques, and does not require CG, though CG has become cheaper for most of them.
    • Not really a stunt since what emerges is a CG character, not something trying to pass for a real human. SOme early examples were on Executive Decission and Jurassic Park.

  • They'll still need fixed databases... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 01, 2004 @02:43PM (#10688994)
    ...to reproduce the robotic movements of the virtual Stallone and Bronson.

  • As a Gamer..... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kazrath ( 822492 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @02:43PM (#10688996)
    Forget movies...this would/could revolutionize gaming. Could you imagine actual thinking/reacting NPC characters that are not just set to a script. And if literally you can get fluid muscle movements... the graphics could be amazing. Okay, I'm done fantasizing. Regardless of how many times I see new "Revolutionary" technology it never seizes to amaze me.

    • cease v. seize (Score:2, Informative)

      by mailman-zero ( 730254 )
      cease
      1. To put an end to; discontinue.

      seize

      1. To grasp suddenly and forcibly; take or grab: seize a sword.
        1. To grasp with the mind; apprehend: seize an idea and develop it to the fullest extent.
        2. To possess oneself of (something): seize an opportunity.
        1. To have a sudden overwhelming effect on: a heinous crime that seized the minds and emotions of the populace.
        2. To overwhelm physically: a person who was seized with a terminal disease.
      4. To take into custody; capture.
      5. To take quick and forcible p
      • Yea well if you didn't notice I said I am a gamer. Never once indicated I was an English major or that English was my first language. People like you sicken me. You cannot post anything constructive. And your pathetic attempts at "Putting somone down" are sad compared to even the standard "Schoolyard bully"
        • Never once indicated ... that English was my first language.

          If English isn't your native language, then I would think that you would like being corrected when you use the wrong word, since it is an opportunity to improve your language skills and learn new vocabulary.
        • He was being constructive. He attempted to correct an error in your writing.
    • This needs to be combined with better ragdoll physics, so when I'm playing Chaos Unreal Tournament Evolution, I can really whack people with the warhammer. There's nothing better than flying corpses.

  • Is this really news (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mailman-zero ( 730254 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @02:44PM (#10689004) Homepage
    June 26, 2003
    The world's first virtual stuntmen, born out of an Oxford University zoologist's research into human motion, will make their debut next year in the film "Troy," according to a press release issued this week by the university.

    I thought this site was supposed to be News for nerds. This story is over a year old.
  • Celebrity Deathmatch

  • Manny the Virtual Stuntman... (Score:5, Funny)

    by GreenPenInc ( 792018 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @02:47PM (#10689076)
    ... he'll come on at the start of every movie, and tell the kids to quit downloading his code!

  • Toy Story (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ced_Ex ( 789138 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @02:48PM (#10689098)
    Did Buzz Lightyear do his own stunts, or did he have a stunt double?

  • A much simpler solution (Score:5, Funny)

    by elid ( 672471 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .dopi.ile.> on Monday November 01, 2004 @02:49PM (#10689107)
    can be found here [homestarrunner.com]
  • Reminds me of the scene near the end of The Running man [imdb.com]. The lame movie, not the awesome Steven King novel [amazon.com].

  • In other "news" (Score:4, Funny)

    by ValuJet ( 587148 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @02:51PM (#10689142)
    Apple is rumored to be developing a portable MP3 player that has a hard drive, leaked sorces say it's name will be the 'I-Pod'

  • Yeah right. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cjpez ( 148000 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @02:57PM (#10689261) Homepage Journal
    May added, "In future there won't be many movies without digital doubles, and those movies without them will seem boring by comparison."
    I know that *I'm* always excited when I know that it's just some videogame onscreen. I'd love to see him explain how CG stuntmen would enhance a Jackie Chan flick somehow. It certainly didn't work for the Matrix sequels. Or practically any action flick I've seen since CG started becoming popular.
  • At least there will be less of the "actor hanging from wires in front of a blue screen" inaccurate physics and gravity simulations.

  • Massive look-a-like? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xnot ( 824277 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @02:58PM (#10689287)
    What relation does this technology have to the Weta Digital's Massive program, which was used to create the characters for the war scenes in the Lord of the Rings movies? That program used sub-elements called Agents which could be tailored to give you certain randomated AI actions for characters. (Check the LOTR DVDs or google for Weta Massive for more info... I don't want to slashdot anyone in particular ;-) )
    • Most people don't tend to read the comments on news postings, and even fewer click links that people post in comments.

      There's not a big risk of a /.'ing from the comments.
    • The techniques behind Endorphin could indeed be incorporated into a crowd simulation system such as Massive. But it should be stressed that Endorphin draws from a field of research established by many people across the world.

      There already exists a sizable body of work on mixing artificial life with rigid body dynamics. Even back in 1994, people like Karl Sims were evolving their own rigid body creatures [genarts.com]

      You also want to check out Craig Reynolds [red3d.com] (who also did lots of work on flocking)

      One of the toughest

    • As one anonymous coward has already said, there is not a lot of similarity between the two, though on a superficial level they might look the same.

      Endorphin works by taking either a clip, pose, or preprogrammed behavior and making a virtual actor attempt to complete that action. In attempting to do so it generates a new animation sequence.

      One example that is shown is a virtual actor running along (getting most of its animation from a looped running animation, I believe). A second virtual actor comes up

  • The cliche, redefined. (Score:4, Funny)

    by InfinityWpi ( 175421 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @03:03PM (#10689368)
    Wow... imagine a whole bunch of these taught to do Beowulf...
  • i didn't RTFA (i'm at work...i can only waste so much time ya know), but i hope it's not all dopey and video-game looking.

    anyone remember certain fight scenes from blade 2?

    *shudder*

  • Endorphin is about the third package for this (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @03:07PM (#10689431) Homepage
    Softimage has what used to be Motion Factory [softimage.com]. There are others.

    There are two main approaches to this - the "animation splicing" systems, where canned bits of motion are spliced together by a program, and the "behavior" systems, where control programs are trying to optimize some goal. The first major appearance of a good "splicing" system was the baby 'zillas in Godzilla 2000. That's what most feature films are using today.

    Kinematic motion generation has been around for years, and that's what you see in games. It doesn't look real, but it works well enough for gameplay. The physics isn't realistic. That's why, from across the room, EA Football looks different from NFL football. Those jerky motions really pop out at you, especially when they're alternated with nice motion-captured moves.

    Endorphin isn't as automated as it looks; much manual tweaking of the motion is necessary. Motion Factory has more automation, but it's kinematic. Automatic physically-realistic animation is hard, because you have to solve the robotic control problem. The animation community may yet do this. But they're not there yet.

    (I've done some work on this. [animats.com])

    • Godzilla 2000 had no baby Godzillas in it. Godzilla 2000 was all "suit-imation" as far as I'm aware with a good amount of CGI for the UFO and the first metallic alien creature.

      You're probably thinking of Sony's horrible "Godzilla" movie with Matthew Broderick and those moronic French secret service guys. I always assumed the technology behind that movie was the same as used in Jurassic Park, but now that you mention it there were some shots that had a LOT of the baby 'zillas moving around at the same tim
      • Right, it was the Sony version of Godzilla. I met the guys who did the baby 'zillas at the Softimage offices in LA. They hand-animated a standard set of nice-looking moves, and had a probabilistic state machine driving them. Moves were animated so that the tangents matched, and about 5-15 frames were overlapped during the blend, to avoid jerks at the transitions. There's no physical simulation, but the behaviors try to prevent collisions.
    • But to me it looks like they have (and what they say) is they are using (for now slight) AI (+ kinematics of course) to control the virtual actor. Tough if this isn't just a fad and the development continues (as given the similarities to computer games is so big, that they compliment each other, and the need for background animation for hundreds of animations, they will), the AI might get to be pretty good and the need to tweak the animation minimizes. (Their demos, what with those stick-figures, do look li
    • Interesting. My uninformed, ignorant approach would be to do tons and tons of motion capture, both real people and dummies &c, but instead of recreating it verbatim, use it to 'train' some software -- maybe neural net-based, or something of that ilk -- and then use that software should be able to create natural-looking movements for just about any situation. Is that at all feasible?

  • I thought we were responsible... (Score:5, Funny)

    by hende_jman ( 747347 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @03:09PM (#10689453)
    Isn't it people who download movies that put people like stuntmen out of jobs?
  • REAL actors can "act cg". Why have virtual actors when the actors could act virtual? Watch actors acting virtual! [funnyjunk.com]

  • Stop complaining about the time (Score:3, Informative)

    by bersl2 ( 689221 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @03:15PM (#10689539) Journal
    Although the article may be a year old, this news was only aired on the Discovery Channel this week.

  • Time to counter with a (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @03:17PM (#10689582) Journal
    ...virtual Darwin Award.
  • Within 10 years, someone will make a full-length, CGI feature film that's indistinguishable from "live, shot on film."

    It may not be cost effective, but the cat will be out of the bag.

    The actor's guilds will moan and groan. Actor's "trademark voices and mannerisms" will become protected intellectual property, with exemptions for spoofs and other "fair use." There will be court fights for awhile.

    You won't see many new film actors after that point.

    Porn will be among the early adopters go "all digital" fo
    • I think you're wrong about the porn thing, I think one of the main attractions to porn is that real people are really having sex. It's less about the act than it is about seeing someone actually engaged in the act.

      I think that's why in the last couple of years there's been a new trend in movies to feature unsimulated sex scenes in one form or another (mostly in foreign or indie films, but it's making its way to the states as well now).

  • Stair Dismount! (Score:3, Informative)

    by glorf ( 94990 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @03:22PM (#10689732)
    The article may be old news, but fully reactive software stunt men have been around since 2002. I did hours of "research" on this topic with some really good software [jet.ro].
  • Well, I'm not the kind to kiss and tell, But I've been seen with Farrah
    I've never been with anything less than a nine, so fine.
    I've been on fire with Sally Field, gone fast with a girl named Bo.
    But somehow they just don't end up as mine, so fine.
    It's a death-defying life I lead, I'll take my chances.
    I've died for a living in the movies and tv.
    But the hardest thing I'll ever do is watch my leading ladies,
    Kiss some other guy while I'm bandaging my knee.
    I might fall from a tall building, I might roll a

  • Great (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OldManAndTheC++ ( 723450 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @03:29PM (#10689927)
    So now the backgrounds are virtual, the actors are virtual, the script is formulaic, and the whole thing is financed by funny money.

    Clearly the next step is to make the audience virtual. You send your movie-watching robot to watch the movie for you, and it e-mails you a "thumbs-up" or "thumbs-down", freeing you to read a book or take a walk. Perhaps this is progress after all.

  • These guys are so behind the times. Al Pacino created the perfect virtual actress and super-star celebrity *2* years ago, and Rez (of Lo/Rez-fame) married one *7* years ago.

  • ... didn't Keanu Reeves originate the form?

    Eric
    Why Vioxx is like Prozac for lawyers [ericgiguere.com]
  • Will be a virtual actor!

    (insert insulting reference to your favorite politician here)
  • Or I should say we just had a demo. I work for a Digital Post Production house and we also use Massive for crowd simulation. Endorphin is an interesting technology which I believe demos very well but practical use may prove to be a bit harder.

    The basic concept is intersting. Actors are "trained" using a neural network setup. The actions are not captured or keyframed, they are "learned" based on a fuzzy set of rules that allow the actor to adapt to its environment. These behaviors can then be combined to c
    • Something that surprised me was to see that Endorphin is a standalone Windows App. I thought that was strange. Aren't pro animation people all using Unix / Linux and maybe some Mac? Massive, for example, seems to be a native Red Hat app. Doesn't it seem odd to create something for a niche market that doesn't run on the same platform said niche market already uses? Any thoughts from the trenches?
      • Not neccesarily. Almost all "Big" houses do have windows machines. Photoshop, texure painting software are almost exclusively in the windows domain (except for Mac Photoshop users.) And yes, most people use Photoshop for matte painting, not Gimp. You would be VERY hard pressed to get a matte painter to struggle though the pain of doig work in Gimp.

        But I digress. I suspect that they developed in Windows because it is easier to find windows developers and easier to support a common platform (no worries about
  • Direct link to video (requires Windows Media):

    mmst://od-msn.msn.com/14/mbr/DTW_Virtua lStuntman.wmv

    (Don't bitch that I didn't make it clickable, and that it has a space in it; both are due to Slashdot issues)

    • Downloaded with MiMMS [nongnu.org] and played with MPlayer [mplayerhq.hu]. No Windows Media Player or Windows required.

      Oh, and there shouldn't be a 't' in the protocol part of the URL:
      mms://od-msn.msn.com/14/mbr/DTW_VirtualStuntman.wm v
      (remove any spaces)

  • I almost misread that as "Virtual Statemen Ready for Hollywood," which made me think "don't they have those in congress already?"
  • Since we're all running FF here, how the heck do we play MSN video without IE? More importantly, how the heck do we watch it in Linux??? Grumble, grumble...

  • Truck Dismount... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Glove d'OJ ( 227281 )
    I believe that I have seen this before, in both the "Truck Dismount" (Rekkaturvat) and "Stair Dismount" (Porrasturvat) versions. They are available for download [jet.ro].

    My favorite was trying to get the truck to throw the guy *completely* over the wall, or go for bonus points getting the guy's head to rattle back and forth between the wall and the truck grill.

    Great for getting stress out on a boss (at the time) whom we imagined we were putting on the truck, etc.

    ---

    wwjd? jwrtfm!

  • With any luck... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stealth.c ( 724419 ) on Monday November 01, 2004 @07:15PM (#10693923)
    ...we can turn movie making into a completely safe, risk-free and boring enterprise.
  • I for one welcome our new CG overlords.
  • Star Wars Episode II already had virtual stunt men. Some of Obi Wan's fight with Jango was done with CG characters. Like, when Obi Wan is grabbed by the grappeling hook, and when he does a back flip down the roof of the building...

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