Revenge of the Fallen Special Effects burn out ILM Mainframes

How the giant-robot F/X in Transformers 2 nearly broke ILM. Seriously | SCI FI Wire

So supposedly making the special effects for the movie blew up a few of ILM's computers.

If this is old news/not really news feel free to move and/or lock, I just found this interesting.

I've never heard of real life computers actually exploding or smoking solely because of complex computations. Exaggeration suspected.

Maybe they should've blown the dust bunnies out of the cooling fans first.

My computer here at work has tempted me to take a bat to it before, but exploding on their own...hmmm...not likely.

"ERROR: Your computer is on fire. Please extinguish it, then press any key."

They are just having so much fun with this tale of Exploding Computers .

That would be my guess.

They don't 'explode', but they can (and do) sometimes get to a point of literal internal meltdown which causes visible smoke. Most people who have worked in a commercial media environment (large scale print, music, video, etc.) have seen this at one time or other. It's extremely rare, but it does happen. I've seen it twice - the worst of which was in a server room for an internet company I worked for back in the 90's. So much black smoke that it looked like the room was actually on fire, but it was just tons of melting plastic & rubber.

Yeah, my toys totally can do everything the characters can do on the screen.[/sarcasm]

Holy shit

Faaaaaake.

Heh, yeah.

The last time that would actually have been true was in the old Diaclone commercials.

everything explodes in a michael bay film production

What really happened is that animating Devastator caused a computer or two to short-circuit.

Underrated.

Methinks there be some exxageration here.

But in any case, Transformers damn well better win best VFX Oscar this time around.

Render farms can run 24/7, 365 days a year, it could've happened at anytime on any film. Luck of the draw. Those computers take a lot of abuse. Breakdown, sure. Were Decepticons to blame? Always blame the Decepticons.

So are we to expect the Devastator toy to be as articulated as the movie Devastator?

Kremzeek strikes again !!!

You're right, no one has seen Kremzeek in over 20 years, so that's where he/she's been hiding! "KREMZEEEEEEEK!"

Not literally blowing up...but that's a term people just use alot. Just like blowing up your speaker sets..it doesn't really explode..of course.

I have no reason to doubt that some machines were under such a strain that certain parts overheated/were destroyed/smoke came out. It can happen, with faulty parts or extreme usage.

We've known about this for a while, just not to this extent.

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transf...awn-kelly.html

I posted up that interview a couple weeks ago but apparently it wasn't newsworthy. Devastator melted the processor out of a desktop.

DARN YOU FOR BEATING ME TO THE JOKE!!! (shakes fist angrily)

PSHHHH Who cares about their computers they have billions they can buy more, bring on the movie already!!!.

I've heard and read so much negative crap about the movie at this point I'm going to see it just to see if any of it is true.

Secretly though, I don't care if it sucks or not. I'll enjoy it anyway.

I'm busting ass to make sure it blows all other movies away by seeing it no less than 8 times opening weekend.

Watch out man! You're not supposed to like something that is currently being flamed by practically everybody!


....

No wait, I'M WITH YOU!

Flame away, we know these suckers will come in droves because that's what Sheep do. lol flock little Sheep, flock to your Shepard. Flock to, THE FALLEN!!!

For those of you crying "B.S." it can actually happen but mostly like some of the other posters on here are describing. Not a "ka-boom" but more like a small "pop" at most with smoke.
An over-taxed, under-cooled system will, in fact, overheat certain internal components (and no, "dust bunnies" need not be present. I've seen a clean system do it.) and smoke will rise and computer guts will melt. Wildest damn thing to see it happen and the stink is unforgettable.

I think it's funny as hell that something like this happened to the biggest SFX company on the planet. These are the guys who, if the technology isn't available, they invent it! The fact that it happened to them is just mind boggling. Way to go RotF!! This film is going to ROCK!

You should care, actually. The money it takes to replace these computers takes away from the production costs, not to mention time. If the computer's in the middle of processing a render and it melts down from the system being overtaxed, not only have they lost a computer, they've lost all of the work that computer had worked on, up to that point.

Ever notice how a computer or video game says not to reset or shut off your system while saving or loading or accessing a file? It's because you'll (at best) wipe out all of the information contained on the device (hard drive, flash drive, SD card, whatever) or only bits and pieces of it will remain. Or (at worst) you'll permanently ruin the drive (and still lose all of the information contained on it).

Same thing happens here. If the computer melts down during a process, the hard drive will most likely end up destroyed as well. And these aren't your run of the mill desktops, these are powerful, top of the line, elitist machines meant for this task. They come at a hefty price, and the cost of replacing them has to come from some place. I'd imagine it's insurance policies that would cover that kind of thing, but no guarantees.

geez, I guess the computers couldn't understand the plot either.
not hatin', just jokin'.

it's from an overload of special effects ILM...please learn your lesson this time.

I'm seeing this alot lately. People are not being given credit where it's due.

Tee hee hee..it was a good one, though.

But now I will have to bash your brains in.


No seriously.

Damn! They probably made it seem more impressive than it really was, but still.

after seeing the movie last night, ya, i can believe this story...

I can imagine that. It's like Pixar with Cars during the realistic waterfall sequence with particle physics rendering. That nearly killed them too.

I bet it was just the computers refusing to render that trash.

like the computers were trying to understand the plot at the same time and couldn't take it.

I've seen a smoking computer.... 40+ degree day, computer was already on its last legs. Comp spontaniously shut down and i could smell something burning... opened the case had a small waft of smoke come out and one side of the case was blackened. Power supply had blown and taken the Main Board with it. It was warped something shocking.

But damn! Making them work so hard they burned themselves out!

WOW~

not suprising, seeing as the amount of computing power it takes just to produce devastator (melted the insides of an computer) and considering the size of the movie itself (about 140-150 terrabytes deer gawd)

i do not doubt it, and seriously, i don't see how this is not plasible

i have blown a monitor and it did smoke. and my video card has burnt me buy touching it.

can't be sure if they're exaggerating but it would make sense as this movie has some of the craziest cgi ever made. i saw the movie and the detail on every robot was crazy. they definitely went all out this time

This would've never happened with blocky Transformers...

Still, I guess every little bit of 'this movie is so awesome things explode just by being associated with it' publicity helps. Just rendered one gold tooth too many this time.

Not in this part of movie

What they're not telling you is that the computer imploded after doing the animation for Devastator's balls. Apparently the computer thought it was ridiculous too.

Well although not surprising that they melted but def. awesome!!!

Your sig is awesome. I loved "Webworld", one of my favorite episodes.

That's not as impressive as it sounds; ILM use Dells.

It's akin to Hasbro making all the Transformers figures out of gold plastic - sooner or later, it'll happen.