The technology behind Transformers 2

June 25, 3:58 PMDC Technology ExaminerTanya Gupta

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Photo: AP

Grossing around $60 million on opening day, "Transformers 2" has become the second highest grossing film, behind "The Dark Knight", and tying with "Spiderman 3".   IMAX stock has also gone up around 16% as a result of the good box office numbers. 

The movie's technology has a lot to do with this success as much of the animation is created on a computer.  Shawn Kelly, the head animator for Industrial Light and Magic, the company responsible for the animation in the movie, runs his own blog, a useful guide for animators. According to his blog, Shawn, who was only 5 when Star Wars hit the big screen, landed a job at ILM in 1998. Since that time, he has worked on numerous films including Day After Tomorrow, where he was on the team that animated the wolves; War of the Worlds, for which he animated tripods and probes; and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, where he helped develop and animate the vulture droids and animated Yoda in a pivotal swordfight.  Shawn received the 2007 award for the 'Best Single Visual Effect of the Year' by the Visual Effects Society (VES), an organization dedicated to advancing the arts, sciences and the application of visual effects. Shawn's winning effect was for the desert highway sequence of Transformers, in which Bonecrusher skates through traffic, destroys a bus, and fights Optimus Prime.
 

The other technology related aspect of this movie is that it contains what may be the single biggest display of hardcore military hardware that you have ever seen.

Photo: AP