Jim Cameron's reworking of Terminator 2 for the Universal Studios theme park in Orlando has resulted in one of the most spectacular displays of computer animation and special effects ever. Shot in a stereoscopic 65mm format, Terminator 2-3D combines live action, computer animation and real onstage elements.

The final sections of the 12 minute production are projected onto three 24 x 50 foot screens, giving a total image span of 150 feet. That's three separate 65mm images side by side, each of them made up of separate images for the right and left eye.

The T-Meg from the T2-3D ride from Digital Domain. © Digital Domain.

Cameron produced the project at Digital Domain, the company he founded in 1993 together with Scott Ross and Stan Winston. The computer work was broken down into two areas--computer graphics imaging and compositing. A total of 47 computer graphic artists and 8 compositors worked fulltime on the project for more than 6 months.

The story sweeps the audience from the present day forward to the year 2029 with Arnold Schwarzenegger's T800 and resistance leader John Connor. They are pursued by Robert Patrick's liquid metal T1000 and a team of other Terminators as they search for the central controlling core of Skynet. But when they do finally reach it they are faced with the ultimate test of the T-one million (or TMeg). The confrontation with this sixlegged creature features in a climactic 90 second 3D computer animation sequence across all three screens.

100% Digitally Processed
"T23D forced us to mature our CG animation department very, very rapidly, because we had to," says Cameron.

"The mimetic polyalloy we used to create the first T1000 and now the TMeg is so well understood, it's been duplicated by everyone since T2. But it's never been done at this resolution and in three dimensions so we had a lot of 3D science to work out."

The inner skeleton of the T-Meg from the T2-3D ride from Digital Domain. © Digital Domain.

T23D is the first such major production to be 100 percent digitally processed. Every frame, including the live action, was manipulated in the computer in some way before being recorded to film. Cameron believes that eventually all films will be digitally processed from start to finish, making for easier editing, effects and fine tuning. The current cost of digitizing an entire twohour feature film remains prohibitive, but the relatively short running time of T2 3D and the fact it was being made at a digital production facility made it a realistic option on this occasion. Act 1 takes place in the Cyberdyne auditorium and starts with the Cyberdyne logo melting and morphing into the reflective head of the T1000 and then into the face of actor Robert Patrick. The 3D technique makes the T1000 seem to leap out into the theater and then snap back to the screen just as a real T1000 actor is catapulted out from a trap door onto the stage. Computer generated elements were modeled and animated using a beta test version of Alias 7.0 and rendered in Renderman using a Digital Domain conversion program. Also featured in the first section and created using Alias and Renderman is a computer generated T800 on a HarleyDavidson motorbike.