Ice Age 2 impressions

[DaForce]

So... anyone seen it yet? like it, loved it, loathed it?

I saw it last night with my girlfiend, and I loved it!!

Extremely well rendered, they seem to have taken another forward step in the render quality. Looks awesome.

And it was funny to boot, I had tears running down my face at one point, havnt laughed so hard in ages. Was really really good.
The whole audience was cracking up... quite funny.

Highly recommended

[Candelero]

I second that, mate !
It was awsome, thinking of watching it some more times in the future.

The water and ice shaders were perfect, especially the water. Wander
what simulation it was done with.

Best regards,
nikki Candelero

[DaForce]

yeah I want to see it again as well. REALLY enjoyed it... poor skrat... doesnt get a break... so funny when he is trying to get the acorn over the iced over lake.. hehehe

When i saw the water break out I was certainly a bit
Rather well done.
I reckon it was a probabaly a customer built water sim... seriously doubt Realflow was involved... LOL something like that would take about 10 years to calc.

[Olli96]

awesome movie, i loved it. go out, leave your pc and watch it

[DaForce]

ok im going....*slams door*

[instinct]

Loved it too....GREAT fun to watch...water was great, look was incredible, and the opossums we're too good to be true

Thorsten

[DaForce]

oh yeah.. the possums... my fav characters hands down..
Hilarious little fellas

[Candelero]

Don't know about you, but here in Bulgaria the movie is duplicated in bulgarian, and the Sid's voice is just perfect with all those lisps.

No such funny voice, guys.

Best regards,
nikki Candelero

[DaForce]

Well it appears as if ice age 2 used realflow 4 beta

http://www.nextlimit.com/realflow/rf4/whitepaperRF4.pdf
in the iamges.. that shot is from ice age 2 were sid falls in the water.

[Morbid Angel]

well. to be honest guys i wasnt impressed with ice age 2. nor was i impressed with ice age 1.
The shaders....ice was well made, water was well made. But thats about it. I felt that some matte paintings were weak, the lighting was bad on some of the scondary cheracters, also the shaders were flat, they could have added some sss to skin tones. Fur was nice, but when is it not?
Water sims looked good, I thought it was flowline, but if mention of realflow 4 is above, then I cant say for sure, some of the sims looked like flowline for sure.
Rendering, i could see the ambient occlusion layer, which made it look lame and incorrect. Mostly I thought the show was ok, but nothing fancy, I didnt think it was that funny, allthough my wife loved it.
Basicly, it could be done better in some points; for one the style of art is quite undefined, i.e. some things look very cartoony others super realistic like thewater for example.
good movie for kids though
perhaps chris can shed some light on what was used to render it? my bet is rman. :P

[Mathew Everett]

well. to be honest guys i wasnt impressed with ice age 2. nor was i impressed with ice age 1.
The shaders....ice was well made, water was well made. But thats about it. I felt that some matte paintings were weak, the lighting was bad on some of the scondary cheracters, also the shaders were flat, they could have added some sss to skin tones. Fur was nice, but when is it not?
Water sims looked good, I thought it was flowline, but if mention of realflow 4 is above, then I cant say for sure, some of the sims looked like flowline for sure.
Rendering, i could see the ambient occlusion layer, which made it look lame and incorrect. Mostly I thought the show was ok, but nothing fancy, I didnt think it was that funny, allthough my wife loved it.
Basicly, it could be done better in some points; for one the style of art is quite undefined, i.e. some things look very cartoony others super realistic like thewater for example.
good movie for kids though
perhaps chris can shed some light on what was used to render it? my bet is rman. :P

LOL, I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion...

[ShaunDon]

I'm in agreement with Morbid -- there was nothing about Ice Age on the technical side that impressed me, not when it was on the heels of Shrek and Finding Nemo. But I loved the movie all the same.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the achievement and excitement that the movie was done with off-the-shelf software ala Maya? Which then spurred a lot of interest among investors in putting money into smaller CG shops in hopes that they'd produce another cash cow. I'm recalling from an HBO making-of when the first one originally came out, so I may be way off base.

Honestly I don't think any of Morbid's technical complaints mattered to anyone who doesn't work in 3D, and it didn't bother me. It was a cute story with solid voice actors and characters I enjoyed. I wasn't all that pumped when I heard about the sequel, it wasn't necessary, and reviews haven't been as strong as the first which is the only reason I haven't seen it yet.

Oh, and the first one was rated PG for "Mild Peril." I STILL laugh about that today.

Shaun

[tom schuelke]

Well

i didnt have the time to see it allready. But....

It realy doesnt matter if the shader are perfect, and if the fur had sss and so on.

it made much fun and loughing and the storry was ok.... (ice age 1).

[dellis]

I liked the first one...and i'm sure i'll like the second one when i see it. As far as what it was rendered with...i'm sure it was proprietary for the most part.

http://www.blueskystudios.com/content/process-tools.php

[ShaunDon]

As far as what it was rendered with...i'm sure it was proprietary for the most part.

I don't know why the hell I still throw out conjecture when a 5-second Googling for "ice age rendering software" returned this:

"Powered by close to 100 Silicon Graphics visual workstations, two Silicon Graphics Onyx visualisation systems and six SGI Origin family servers, Blue Sky artists modelled and animated Ice Age entirely in Maya software from Alias|Wavefront, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited."
(from http://www.hoise.com/primeur/02/arti...-05-02-24.html)