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Tron is one of my favorite movies of all time... some of the matte shots of the cubicles at Encom are incredible, and though my tiny TV doesn't really show it in all it's glory, I don't think I'd be able to watch a 70mm print of it without wetting myself in amazement.

 

It's a brilliant movie in just about every aspect. And a lot of the cool stuff isn't even computer animated, right? Isn't a lot of it traditionally done?

A lot of the electronic world was done traditionally. Most of the backgrounds and environments were drawn by hand. The grid bugs, and some of the first-person-shots going through canyons (most notably during Flynn's recognizer flight) were hand-animated, as were most of the special effects (discs flying, de-rezzing effects, reactive lighting on the characters, etc.). I think the Logic Probe was also hand-animated. All of the live action in the electronic world was treated like traditional animation. Each frame was blown up onto large pieces of film, which were then altered in various ways and re-photographed with other elements that made up the scene. They said each frame had an average of about eighteen passes under the camera to build up each image.

 

It's really a hand-crafted movie. Even the computer graphics were plotted out using traditional animation notation, one frame at a time, six coordinates per object, per frame (X,Y,Z position, yaw, roll, pitch). Everything was figured out that way, since you couldn't just grab a model, and slide it around on screen like you can now. This was all painstakingly calculated out and handwritten down on animation exposure sheets, then entered into the computers by hand. Hundreds of thousands of pieces of data. They only could see about 16 small, static wireframe images of any given scene at once, and they didn't see anything actually fully finished and animated until it was in 70mm.

And yet, it's a beautiful film. Shows what a difference that kind of outpouring of creative effort can do, I guess. I loved the featurette on the second DVD that showed the history of the Tronman logo, that was good.

 

Man. It really gives a whole new layer of appreciation for the film to know how much work it took.

 

EDIT: I'm not sure how to phrase that last sentence more clearly, but damn is it a bad sentence. Sorry, it's late.

That works.

 

One of my friends that I went to the screening with gained a whole new appreciation for Tron when she watched the film, because of the discussion that preceded the screening. Had the discussion come after the film, I don't think it would have been as effective.

The way most of the "inside the computer" live action scenes were done, it almost qualifies as an animated film. Shoot in B&W, blow up each frame into greyscale & multiple positive and negative high-contrast cells. Matte and ink each cell by hand, when re-shoot each frame as a multiple exposure backlight shot.

 

Speaking of Cars, I was looking at a promo poster and a thought hit me - where did Pixar get all of the 3-D models for the various cars? A Porsche, a Hudson, a Jeep, a VW van, a Dodge van, a Model T, and and and. There's easily a couple of dozen unique, recognizable, and decently accurate models in the shot.

Because of their proprietary animation software, everything Pixar uses has to be custom built. So they didn't get the models from anywhere - they made them all. They just used a lot of reference material to make sure they looked right.

 

I would think they also had to get permission from some of the car manufacturers, in order to be able to merchandise the more recognizable ones.

Nathan, do you have any info on how "protective" Disney is regarding a brand like "Tron"?

 

I find the thought of 30+ people wanting a 2600 version of the old Tron Arcade pretty challenging

Disney is pretty protective of everything they own. But with the studio changes that have gone on there lately, it's hard to say how they might respond to something like that. It might be something so low on the radar they wouldn't look twice at it. There are existing precedents of sorts, GLtron, Space Paranoids, and some other Tron games that are pretty well known, and haven't seen any C&D orders. However, those are all freeware, as far as I know, so no money is made off them (like anyone makes a profit off of 2600 homebrews anyway ).

If you liked Tron, you must get the game Tron 2.0 for the PC. It's only $9.97 on Amazon. Very fun. The plot, graphics, and gameplay fit nicely with the feel of the original movie.

I already have it. (Mac version.)

 

The GBA version is pretty good, too. Cool mini-games in it.

Tron is one of my favorite movies of all time... some of the matte shots of the cubicles at Encom are incredible, and though my tiny TV doesn't really show it in all it's glory, I don't think I'd be able to watch a 70mm print of it without wetting myself in amazement.

 

It's a brilliant movie in just about every aspect. And a lot of the cool stuff isn't even computer animated, right? Isn't a lot of it traditionally done?

 

Anyone ever play Armagetron? An open-source version of the movie's light-cycle game, with full perspective (not isometric) 3D animation.

I've heard of it, but never played it (it's similar to GLtron, which I'd mentioned earlier).