« Getting A Clue | Main | Nuttin' Honey »
December 16, 2003
Fools Rush In
This cracked me up. (Link via Fark)
Director Peter Jackson had laid down his requirements for the Battle of Pelennor Fields - the climactic engagement in The Return of the King in which the heroic defenders of Middle-Earth face the overwhelming might of Sauron and his armies of Darkness. Jackson wanted the computer-generated antagonists to have absolute authenticity on the big screen and to be indistinguishable from the real actors.
So programmers wrote this incredibly detailed program that basically allowed the CG soldiers to evaluate conditions & decide on an individual course of action. One little problem.
"For the first two years, the biggest problem we had was soldiers fleeing the field of battle," Taylor said.
"We could not make their computers stupid enough to not run away."
I'll not be able to watch the battle now without LMAO.
Guess they forgot to program in the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
Posted by Rita at December 16, 2003 01:08 PM
Comments
They could have saved a lot of time by programming for esprit de corps istead of stupidity. What the Legionaires did at Camarones did was stupid; what the Legion does every year on Camarones Day is not.
Posted by: triticale at December 16, 2003 02:16 PM
Seems you can't program spirit. At least not yet.
Posted by: Rita at December 16, 2003 03:35 PM
Actually, the problem was that they programmed for reactions in the immediate vicinity, and instructed the soldiers to run across blank spaces. A certain number of soldiers would be on the fringes, and facing the wrong way. Off they'd run, looking for something to do.
I give them a lot of credit. The Massive program is amazingly complex, and provides for some really cool cinematic stuff. Even if the soldiers are on the verge of uncontrollable. :-)
Posted by: Keith at December 16, 2003 06:40 PM