Comments on: How was the ending of "2001" animated?

Question: How was the ending of "2001" animated?

Rash — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 21:38:31 -0800

How did Kubrick film the psychedelic 'stargate' sequence of "2001: A Space Odyssey"? Some of the movie's special effects are obviously crude CGI (like the cockpit displays during spacecraft rendezvous) but the ending seems far more sophisticated. Regular old animation? Looks too... digital. Articles on 'the making of' I've seen never discuss this all-important visual (although it's cool knowing about the spinning set used for example in the jogging scene).

By: scallion

scallion — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 21:48:37 -0800

Slit-scan photography.

By: oflinkey

oflinkey — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 21:50:37 -0800

It is all Douglas Trumbull- slit-scan photography which he adapted for motion pictures (he also was a primary in the invention of the Imax technology, incidentally).

See here.

By: grumblebee

grumblebee — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 22:03:00 -0800

It's called "slitscan" photography.

By the way, there was no CGI in "2001." The "computer screens" were animated using traditional techniques.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 22:57:11 -0800

CGI definetly didn't exist at the time. This is when people used computers with teletype machines, you type into a keyboard and the computer prints results onto paper. Most of the animation in TRON was actualy hand drawn even.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 23:00:24 -0800

Speaking of computers, here's a page wheresomeone used computers to 'reverse' the slit-scan video and calculate the original 2-d images. (via wikipedia)

By: crunchland

crunchland — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 23:16:44 -0800

attack of the wikipedias.

By: kindall

kindall — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 23:31:08 -0800

Most of the animation in TRON was actualy hand drawn even.

Do you have a source for that? I find it dubious.

By: sophist

sophist — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 01:18:31 -0800

TRON used CGI and "backlight compositioning".

By: b.

b. — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 01:23:41 -0800

Yep, you are right kindall, TRON was using CG extensively - CGI in TRON (via Ken Perlin) and also here (via Wikipedia).

By: pmurray63

pmurray63 — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 04:25:17 -0800

CGI did not exist for 2001. The cockpit displays were animated the old-fashioned way. But as for your main question, yes, Trumbull's slitscan is what what produced it.

By: elgilito

elgilito — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 04:43:04 -0800

About Tron: some of the backgrounds (particularly some of the "landscapes") were traditional hand-painted matte paintings (matte artist Peter Ellenshaw was a producer after all) created to look computer-generated in order to blend with the actual CG elements and backgrounds. CG texturing at that time was much too crude to create some of the effects shown.

By: zsazsa

zsazsa — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 06:03:32 -0800

I remember hearing that the "nebula" effects were done by filming the interactions of various oils on water.

One effect I don't understand, though, are the octahedrons with animated patterns on them. I can't figure out a way to do that with late-60s technology. Perhaps they made real objects and projected film onto the sides, then filmed that?

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 09:03:08 -0800

L. This is all oddly sounding a lot like a "How did they build the pyramids?" discussion.

By: teg

teg — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:57:33 -0800

Wasn't there also a scene in 2001 that shows a wireframe model on a computer screen, but in fact it's actually made of wire painted with phospherescent paint? Or was that another movie?

By: teg

teg — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 14:22:37 -0800

To answer my own sub question: Yes, it was 2001.

By: neckro23

neckro23 — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 21:11:13 -0800

(Odd timing on this question. I was just reading about this very topic last Wednesday...)