Kate Rockwood writes: For this winter’s blockbuster The Day the Earth Stood Still, two dozen Weta Digital designers spent six months sculpting the film’s real star (sorry, Keanu): the spaceship. Joe Letteri, senior visual effects supervisor for the four-time Academy Award-winning digital shop, walked us through the process. Inside Weta Digital’s Spaceship
Category: WETA Digital
So much of what Weta does is terribly secret until it’s finished (who knows what they’re up to in preparing for The Hobbit? But next month they’re inviting people in Wellington to visit the Weta Cave to enjoy their work on their own series, Jane and the Dragon. It’s a free day of medieval fun and a chance to meet both the author of the book, Martin Baynton, and master swordsmith Peter Lyon, who did so much work on The Lord of the Rings. Read More
September 5, 2008 — Digital visual effects studio Weta Digital (wetadigital.com) announced on Friday it has completed building its new extreme density data center in Miramar, New Zealand. Founded in 1993 by Peter Jackson, Joe Letteri, Eileen Moran, the Wellington, New Zealand-based visual effects company is responsible for producing Hollywood blockbusters like The Lord of the Rings series and 2005’s King Kong. Designed and built to accomodate current and future technological demands, the energy efficient facility is unique in that if features frame rendering capabilities but also balancing the investment in floor space, power, cooling, and associated technology. Weta Digital will be the first in the world to use Hewlett-Packard’s (hp.com) new Double Density server blades, which uniquely combine two independent servers in a single blade. Weta Digital Builds NZ Facility
The Weta Cast – A Bug In The Workshop quickly became very popular across the world. Daniel and Magnus were blown away by all the helpful feedback and generous comments. In this episode, Magnus Hjert interviews Richard Taylor, Weta creative director and multi Academy Award winner about Wetas history with Halo 3 and about collecting. Daniel Falconer catches up with fellow designer Paul Tobin and talks about his work at Weta and about The Chronicles Of Narnia. Here is the RSS link (Needs compatible RSS reader, Firefox, Safari or IE7) or Click here if you prefer to use iTunes
GandalfX86 writes: WETA Digital has 4 new supercomputers in the TOP500-List on top500.org (Rank 219 to 222). This is interesting because they will perhaps render the 3d-animations for the Hobbit on these computers.
From the New Zealand Herald: Animation technology used in blockbuster movies such as Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings is now helping children to walk. The Gait Laboratory at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Brisbane uses animation technology developed at Weta Digital in Wellington to see why some children, as young as 3, have trouble walking. Gait Laboratory director Dr Robyn Grote said the technology was reducing the number of times children had to undergo surgery because of its precision in mapping a child’s motion. Read More