DD additionally rewrote internal tracking software to allow simultaneous stereo camera solve and also incorporated V-Ray for the first time into the feature pipeline, adding to the shader development and allowing artists to launch renders more easily."What is carrying over immediately is our stereo workflow," Barba suggests. "This show had to get that first pipe up and running. How we fix stereo issues and deal with the workflow is now being used on Transformers: Dark of the Moon."

However, the most ambitious challenge was definitely performance capture -- the reverse of the Oscar-winning Benjamin Button, in which the 60-year-old Bridges was made to look 25 years younger as the ruthless Clu. "We had to utilize these mounted cameras and figure out what to do with that data, which meant writing a lot of software internally," Preeg suggests. "We also put this volume process in the hands of the animators so they could run the iterations and choose parameters for the solve; and we put it all into a nice interface for them. I think that was a big change for us and they've been very responsive to that process."

Still, there is no getting around the difficulty of trying to recapture Bridges in his prime, even if he is driving the performance. The physiology is different. "Trying to get Jeff's performance on set was ideal for Jeff but maybe not the most ideal thing as far as our needs in terms of the number of cameras to position around him and lighting," Barba offers. "But it allowed Jeff to get into character and be Clu with the other actors. We had EA in Vancouver helping us on set with the cameras and tracking the data and handing it back to us, which we ran through our solve. That part of the system worked great. We have ideas on how to get better cameras that weren't available when we shot, and how to get better results next time. But we're happy with the results."

Now they await the assessment of their peers.

"Tron's like the birth of our entire industry, so to go mucking about with that sacred thing, we hope we've maintained some of that same visual feeling but brought it to a newer generation," Preeg offers. "They were completely groundbreaking in starting a whole revolution [in 1982]. They were even disallowed for being up for an Oscar because the Academy said they were cheating by using a computer and now computer graphics is so widespread, it's not even thought about anymore. Whether or not there was a new renderer or a new software package that we wrote, that kind of thing happens all the time. Yeah, people are going to look at this just like any other effects movie, and then they're going to say, 'But this is Tron! -- don't mess that up!'

"For me, besides the obvious challenges we had with the Clu character, I hope people will see the artistic challenges we had along with the technical challenges," Barba concludes.

Bill Desowitz is senior editor of AWN & VFXWorld.