The TRANSFORMERS Films Were So Intense to Make That They Broke Industrial Light & Magic’s Computers
Regardless of how you feel about Michael Bay's Transformers movies, the special effects and animation that bring the robot characters and world to life are pretty incredible. There's just so much explosive eye candy! Every time I watch these movies my brain is just overloaded with insane visuals.
In a recent interview with /Film for Transformers: The Last Knight, Bay said that the VFX world and animation is so complex that they break the computers at Industrial Light & Magic. He says:
"We always break the ILM computer. We have the heaviest model ILM has ever had. They gotta shutdown ILM for a weekend and it breaks the computers."
He went on to explain why these Transformers film break the ILM computers saying:
"It’s because of the heaviness of the models. They’re so dense, so many pixels they can’t…like, a heavy model is a building that fell down. Built a real building. All that reflective, every window had its own little piece of software. If it moves…that shuts the computers down. And we’re gonna have models way heavier than that but their computers get faster and faster each year. ILM can explain it a lot better than me. They literally have to get everything offline so they can handle the model because they’re so dense. They can’t do multi-shows or anything. They have to clear the decks. It’s supposed to take months doing it the normal way but by using all the computer power you can get it done in a weekend."
That sounds like a complete pain in the ass. With all the work that goes into making these awesome visual movies, you'd think Paramount Pictures, Bay, and his team would actually set out to tell an amazingly good story, instead of the mediocre scripts that they keep pumping out.
Below you'll find a behind-the-scene featurette for Transformers: Dark of the Moon that focuses on the VFX work that was done on the film. It'll give you an idea of what Bay is talking about.