During the making of Episode II, the previs department also served as a pre-post production department, showing how finished visual effects would look in a shot.

By the end of Episode II, the previs department had grown to about a dozen artists from four at the start of the show. Powered by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) PC hardware and Alias’s Maya with After Effects on the Macintosh we were able to take on a lot more tasks than we did at the start. The quality of our work had increased to the point where we were answering all sorts of other questions that were usually only addressed in the final stages of visual effects work. Lighting, texture, mood, feel, character animation, particle simulations, dynamic simulations were all entering the realm of previs. No longer were we only doing simple animation and 2D cheats to get half the point of the shot across. We were not only looking to see if the shot was working, but also how we could make it visually look better. We were taking art and design direction from art directors Erik Tiemens and Ryan Church on aesthetics, mood and feel and trying to answer more than we had in the past. This in turn gave George a much more powerful tool in the decision making process and helped him maintain greater control over his film.

Episode III is no exception to the processes we developed on II. For Episode III, we simply started earlier and with more people on staff with the express intent of providing a lot more material to Lucas while on set in Sydney. By the time you read this article, my group of 11 artists and I have completed more than 1,700 original shots since March 2003. Amazingly, this number is fast approaching the total number created for all of Episode I — and we’re just getting started.

The size of the previs department tripled during the length of production.

For Episode III, the concentration has been more on shot quality and substance. We’re spending more time on character animation and shot blocking and proper cinematic techniques than we ever have before. It is important that we try to be more realistic so when it comes time to recreate shots on-set or at ILM, George has confidence that they will work. This by no means hinders us creatively. In fact, it has made our work more easily edited and believable leaving more exciting sequences.

One example of pushing the limits is our move to a 64-bit architecture done in partnership with AMD. The effects industry has been bouncing off the upper ceiling of what today’s 32-bit hardware can process for some time now.

Not only is this 64-bit technology able to accommodate 32-bit legacy, applications, but it is also able to leverage 64-bit applications when they become available. A markedly improved internal architecture, meanwhile, complements the chip. Using early systems, we have seen a dramatic increase in productivity using AMD Opteron-based hardware even when running 32-bit applications and operating systems. Some of the tests we’ve run have improvements to the tune of double the performance, especially with heavy file texture-based rendering. This is an incredible boon to our process and gives us a great new tool to do more with less. We’re looking forward to moving ahead with this and other new technologies because it strips away a few of the technical issues and allows us to simply create more effectively.

Daniel Gregoire is the visualization effects supervisor at JAK Films.