Anomalous Depth Perception Illusion

One of the most traditional phenomenonological questions is how do I know that what you see is the same thing as what I see. If we both look at a picture, and it has the color red, and we both agree it is red, even so, how do I know that the red that you perceive is the same red as I perceive?

The answer is, you don't know. There is natural variation in the red and green cone sensitivities at the very least, and there are other issues involving how the brain processes the information. And of course there are the various types of color blindness and the tests that have been designed to diagnose them.

This post is about an example of an optical illusion that I see, but that no one else that I have tested it on sees. One reason for posting it on the blog is to see if one of my readers will also see the illusion.  So far, I seem to be a "unique". 

Those of you who know about the perception of illusions may skip the next few paragraphs.

For those of you who have never studied the perception of illusions, here are a few things to know. Although we "see" with our eyes, what we see is perceived by our brain, and there is a lot of interesting circuitry in there to process and make sense of the data. This is also an ongoing research topic.  If you have never studied issues of color perception and optical illusions, when you first encounter what we think we know about it, you will be surprised. It is pretty wacky. We are very good at detecting color differences for example, more than the precise color itself. We have lots of circuitry to see movement on the periphery. The point is, seeing is much more than just reporting what may be "objectively there" through the lens of our eye. It is being highly processed all along the way.

But be warned, once you start down the path of understanding color perception and vision you will find that it goes on and on and on.   And then on and on.   Its not simple.

Many optical illusions are essentially bugs in the perception system, that is, the image is causing the perception circuitry to see something that isn't actually there (e.g. motion when there is no motion, colors, when there are no colors, etc). 

Here is an example of a famous illusion that most people are able to see. Its called the Cafe Wall illusion, because its discoverers first noticed it as an architectural detail on the facade of a cafe.

All the horizontal lines in the above image are straight and parallel with each other but most people see the lines at an angle to each other, and also bending depending on where they direct their eyes.  Everyone seems to be able to see this illusion.

The Special K Cafe

Now, look at the following blurry image.

Founders of Google in China from The Register (www.theregister.co.uk)

Most people will see this image as completely flat, e.g. no depth.  It is of course a very blurry image.  I on the other hand always see a lenticular depth effect of something like 3/8's of an inch.  

By "lenticular depth effect" I mean the illusion of depth one gets from a lenticular picture or postcard when you hold it in your hand.  These were more popular years ago, they would often be post cards of the United Nations, or of Elvis.   The postcard would appear to be perhaps an inch thick or even more, but you know, because you are holding it, that is just a piece of cardboard.   The same illusion of depth that you get from such  a postcard is what I see above, except of course that it does not change as I move my head.   It is a picture with depth from one point of view.

I spent a day trying to recreate the illusion with other images, and I think I know what is going on that causes the illusion for me.   But I have not yet found anyone else that the illusion works on.  One thing I find interesting is that, for me, this is a robust illusion.  I see it every time I look at the picture.

Depth perception is notoriously individualistic.   There are many people out there who can not see "3D" from stereoscopic projection.  I have heard the number is 10% of the general population, but I have never gotten a formal confirmation of that percentage (e.g. a reference to a study).   Alternatively, there are people who can see what appears to be stereo in circumstances when they are watching a movie projected flat that moves through an environment.  I get that sensation, in particular when the moving imagery covers peripheral vision.  

But the first question I have, does anyone else other than me see depth in this image?

_________________________________

Wikipedia page on the Cafe Wall Illuson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_wall_illusion

Wikipedia page on Lenticular Printing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenticular_printing

Science News article on research into color perception variation:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051026082313.htm

The following two abstracts discuss research in the molecular and genetic basis of variation in color perception.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15811001

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12876837

1st Baron Bulwer-Lytton Writing Contest

The Bulwer-Lytton Writing Contest is a competition to write the worst possible opening sentence of a novel, in a homage to Bulwer-Lytton, one of whose novels began with the infamous "It was a dark and stormy night ...". (1) Any such sentence should be florid, dramatic, and disconnected.

This is not the novel that had the famous sentence, this is another novel of Bulwer-Lytton about the Rosicrucians.

My friend, Steve Speer, in NYC believes that Bulwer-Lytton has been swept under the rug of history, and does not get the recognition that he deserves.  And so, in his honor, I have written my first attempt at a Bulwer-Lytton-like opening sentence.

I can not tell you with what loathing I approach the disagreeable task of presenting to you, against my will, the events leading up to the disaster which you all know so well, which even now brings the taste of failure to my mouth as I write on this bitterly cold and windy morning on the desolate island of my exile, abandoned by all society and left to an undeserved and miserable fate.

[Modified per anonymous's suggestion on 1.23.2013]

Read about the Bulwer-Lytton Contest here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulwer-Lytton_Fiction_Contest

The contest itself is here:

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/

The Wikipedia page on 1st Baron Lytton is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bulwer-Lytton,_1st_Baron_Lytton

_________________________________________

1.  The sentence in its entirety, is "It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness." It is from the novel Paul Clifford by Bulwer-Lytton first published in 1830.

Michel Gondry and "Come Into My World" (2002)

Dennis Muren said, the problem with special effects is that it is not special anymore.

Although true, there are a few cases in which raw talent can take an old idea and make it new again. These talented people are so annoying that they may show off more than once and do several brilliant films in a row thus making themselves all the more hated by the rest of us.

Michel Gondry is such an annoyant (1) that he has done at least three of my favorite music videos (aka music promos) of all time, and all three are among my favorite short films.  We discuss "Come Into My World" here and the other two, "Let forever be", and "Like a Rolling Stone", another day.

Four Kylies and one Gondry showing off in Come Into My World (2002).  In the terminology of Zoologists and Bird Watchers, I believe that Ms. Kylie here can be said to be "displaying".

Unusually for the genre, the first minute of this four minute piece is a complete setup and doesn't reveal what is really going on until 1:07.    The first time I saw Come Into My World (2002), I innocently watched it, wondering what was great about this, "So she is walking around in a city in Europe somewhere.  So what?"  Then boom, at 1:07 the second Kylie picks up her dry cleaning and I thought to myself:  Wait, stop that, what just happened?

Even more astonishing, this tour de force of special effects takes place without a single giant robot or exploding zombie.  How could that be?

Things to look for as you refresh your memory about this film include (a) who drops and who picks up the pink shirt and how many pink shirts are there by the end, (b) the additions each time around of colorful people in the background, e.g. how many beds are thrown out of windows, how many skateboarders, how many men in blue putting up posters, how many balancing boys in green, how many men arriving at a hotel, how many hostesses in blue leaving a note on the windshield of a car, how many people in red on ladders, etc, (c) the strategy for keeping the various Kylie's out of each other's way, (d) what the layered matte strategy must have been, and (e) do any of the Kylie's intersect, and if so, is it Kylie that intersects or the dry cleaning she is carrying? (2)

For those of you who are mathematically inclined, you may wish to contemplate how many times Kylie has to run around the block.   Poor girl, she was probably getting dizzy.

Finally, we may ask if there is some relationship between the audio layering of Kylie (other Kylie's are at various time layered on top of the main Kylie in the audio domain, e.g. she is her own chorus as well as responding to herself) and the layering of Kylies in the image domain.

At this point, the number of hostesses in blue and guys in red have multiplied to four

Students of the history of this technology will note the amazing difference in the capability between modern compositing and the original chemical blue screen process, as discussed in my previous post on Bye Bye Birdie here, in which a major point of discussion was the issue of a moving camera and the special restrictions on blonde and red hair.  Here we have a completely free camera and a lot of dirty blonde hair, and its not a problem.  Actually, a better way to put it is that here we have an avalanche of moving camera and a tsunami of flying blonde hair and it looks effortless.

Come Into My World on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsCS5gdVqkE

Then after watching the film, you may wish to watch the making of documentary, below. Its up to you, I like it just the way it is and have a pretty good idea how it was done.

Raw talent, that's how.

In this case, I recommend not watching the documentary, however, but create your own plan on how you would make the film.   How you would cue the extras, how you would keep the Kylie's out of each other way (One might put a chalk mark on the ground for the path each Kylie should take with a different color for which cycle we are on (3), for example).

Making of "Come Into My World"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw9FAxywDJ8

_______________________________________________

1. We are proud at Global Wahrman to premiere a new word in the English Language. "Annoyant" means someone who annoys.

2. The answer is yes, I think so, maybe twice that I noticed a Kylie intersects with herself and I think there are times when the laundry will intersect, but they don't call attention to themselves and it all works fine, I think.

3. I haven't found them yet, but I am still looking.

(Deprecated) News Providers, Exploding Batteries and the Subtle Nuance

[2-8-2013 Since I wrote this post, I have not read the information cited below anywhere else, so I am becoming more and more doubtful that it is true.  Thus this post is being deprecated]

As always when we at Global Wahrman come across examples of incompetence or stupidity, we have to ask if it is really incompetence or stupidity, or whether it is in fact incompetence AND stupidity or even worse, whether it is an example of how the Space Aliens are using hypnotic mind control as many suspect?

Take for example the latest problem with the Boeing 787 involving the exploding lithium-ion batteries. Second only to Islam for the bad-marketing-award of the last 20 years, lithium-ion batteries have been famously exploding in people's laptops (and laps) for years. So when one exploded on a 787, fortunately on the ground, a picture of the battery exploded, so to speak, across the internet.

Oh, there is one little detail about this picture that I forgot to mention ... 

But there was actually a little detail about that picture of the exploded battery, a subtle nuance one might say, really barely worth mentioning: most of the news articles, well all of them but one actually, failed to tell you was that this is a picture of a battery that had been hit by an ax when the firemen came into the plane. I hope it wasn't a metal ax because that could have had a shocking result, ha ha, but maybe that is the real reason firemen wear rubber work gloves.

Well, yes, it turns out, this is just a technical detail, that if you hit a battery that is distressed for some reason with an ax, hard, it doesn't surprise me that the battery might explode. In general, we recommend to not hit a distressed battery, or any battery at all actually, with an ax: that would be the recommended procedure. The battery is much less likely to explode under those circumstances.

So whatever is going on about the Boeing 787 and their extensively tested lithium-battery (no sarcasm here, it was extensively tested), its not about them just going off and exploding.

Unless you hit it with an ax, of course.

One might wonder if the news organizations thought about the issue that they might have something to do with the fate of the many, many American jobs that lie hanging in the balance on the perception of the 787 in the marketplace?

The answer is no, of course not, they don't give a fuck. They just want to make a buck like the National Inquirer and with all the integrity and relentless attention to detail that the National Inquirer applies to their articles ("Did Space Aliens Steal My Baby and Turn It Into Tom Cruise?"), but with less honesty (the National Inquirer is clear and upfront about their motivations).  Like everything else in America, its not about doing good work, its about lying and stealing the money.

Possible Alternate Career Directions

After many years of wandering in the wilderness trying to figure out how to make a living using the skills and technologies involved with computer animation, visualization and special effects and not being successful, I have started to entertain new directions for my career. I am advised in this by many immensely stupid news articles and boring TED like speeches that "one must think outside the box", which always makes me think about the famous Peace Corps dialectic about the glass half empty or half full. What glass exactly and which box, what are they talking about?

As I suspect that there are others out there with same existential dilemma, here is an essay listing a few alternate career directions that look like they might have promise.

To set the mood, please review this video by a famous scientist explaining to a potential hire the business plan for his new venture, SPECTRE.  The sequence is from Dr. No (1965).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdiq_YcIzg0

SPECTRE executive explains business plan to James Bond

As much as I respect Dr. No as a scientist and admire his efforts to take over the world by blowing up missiles and extorting money from governments, I do not agree that all power is based on counterintelligence, terrorism, revenge and extortion as he so colorfully claims. Revenge is rarely, if ever, profitable. It is more of an entertaining hobby that can only be afforded by the wealthy, like yachting, or polo, or controlling the US Senate.    Nor do I understand how counterintelligence can ever be profitable, it is at best a cost of doing certain kinds of business, not a profit center in itself. Terrorism and extortion have always been big money makers though.

Here is a short list of non-traditional areas that look to me like they have opportunity.

1. Design and Build Submarines for South American Drug Cartels

There is apparently a long standing, ever increasing, effort to build submersibles and semi-submersibles to transport contraband from S. America to N. America and Europe. All ranges and types of vehicles have been innovated and the S. Americans have received helpful technical and design advice from the unemployed nationals of many foreign countries. I believe that submarines are very important culturally and have been looking for a way to get involved in this industry. Perhaps in this new market, submarines for smuggling, an opportunity can be found.

2. Run for Elected Office of A Small City and Rob Them Blind

The elected representatives of Bell, California managed to steal about $5M in a few years, and Bell is not even a well-off community. Admittedly, most of the local governments in California are already corrupt, and there is no sense in entering an already crowded field, but it might be worth examining other states and see if this technique can not be adapted to a new environment.

3. Bad User Interface Design

America and the world in general seem to have an insatiable desire for really bad, incredibly stupid, user interface design. And now that the car industry has jumped in with both feet, the floodgates of shit are really going to open. One way to make money at this is to have a consulting design firm to help people misapply technology and ignore fundamental principles in order to torture their users. Another way is to review various consumer electronic / whatever devices and threaten to publish how stupid and incompetent they are unless the manufacturer hires you as a consultant for a six figure consulting fee. 

4. Start a Religion and Write A Book

Its been done many times in the past, sometimes very successfully. Its tax exempt which is a great advantage.

5. Go Into Finance, Fuck up, Get Bailed Out and Award Yourself a Bonus

The state-controlled news media in this country has not reported it, but Goldman Sachs in the UK is awarding its employees a modest 8.3 billion bonus this year. That's not a lot of money, but its pretty good.

This is not an exhaustive list, of course, and there are many other directions that seem to also have merit, such as art fraud and arms smuggling, but I wanted to open the discussion and get these initial ideas out there for your consideration.

Archive of Books on Cryptome Courtesy of Aaron Swartz

[January 22, 2013: Cryptome has added more books from the archive, and a discussion of the issues related to how they got the archive.   This is the link and it has the most comprehensive list of books that are available from this source on their site.    See http://cryptome.org/aaron-swartz-series.htm]

Cryptome is an internet site that acts as a reporitory of documents, usually government documents, that are related to freedom of speech, cryptography, spying and surveillance. In the aftermath of the Aaron Swartz suicide, they listed on their website approximately 40 different books in PDF form that were probably part of the cache of documents that Swartz had taken from MIT.

But these books are actually a selection from the larger group of books that Swartz 'liberated' and that Cryptome has supposedly archived.  For a  complete list, see below:
http://cryptome.org/2013/01/aaron-swartz/swartz-dl-docs.txt

The first thing I noticed was one of my favorite books, about the Mitochondria by Nick Lane is on this extended list.

A few favorites out of the 40 or so that are posted include:

The MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Sciences, by Wilson and Keil, a 1000+ page encyclopedia of topics in the field of Cognitive Science.

The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis by Heier, Jr,, CIA book on the psychology behind Intelligence analysis, addressing such issues as bias in intelligence analysis and reporting.

A Culture of Conspiracy by Barkun, which is a discussion and history of apocalyptic vision in contemporary America, including a review of how the radical right wing started picking up aspects of UFOlogy, as well as the relationship between apocalyptic prophecy and various right wing fringe groups.

Complexity and Cryptography: An Introduction, by Talbot and Welsh, which is a book derived from a course taught by Talbot and Welsh at Oxford as part of a MsC course in Mathematics and the Foundations of Computer Science. It introduces basic complexity theory and cryptography together.

Information Technology and Moral Philosophy by van der Hoven and Weckert, a collection of essays on information ethics, the epistemology of blogging, etc.

Principles of Cybercrime by Clough, which is a 500 page introduction to the history, theory, law and practice of international cybercrime.

And about 35 other books.  Go to http://cryptome.org and look for entries marked "Aaron Swartz:".

The Wikipedia page on Cryptome:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptome

Statement from Thrift Store Art Exhibition by Jim Shaw (1990)

In the early days of computer animation in Los Angeles, the community was made up of people who were interested in both technology and the visual arts.  Among our community were people who were interested in making a career in the complicated and challenging world(s) of "fine art".  Such people included  Larry Cuba, Rebecca Allen, Jennifer Steinkamp, Lev Manovich, Jim Shaw, Victor Acevedo, and Michael Naimark to name just a few that come to mind, but there were others as well. 

One thing that distinguished all the people I know who are successful in that world, is their immense dedication and single minded effort. Each of the people mentioned above are notable in this way, they are some of the hardest working people I know.

I found in my papers the other day, a handout from an exhibition curated by Jim Shaw on the topic of Thrift Store Art. The year might have been 1990, and Jim was working with us at deGraf/Wahrman as an art director on a huge and completely incomprehensible Japanese motion platform based stereoscopic theme park attraction. He was working with us for the money, while he worked on his real career.

It was all typical Jim Shaw.

Unfortunately, now that the field has matured, if that is what it has done, the artists are off in their own complicated world and I never see them.

Here is his listing on www.artnet.com

http://www.artnet.com/artists/jim-shaw/biography-links

Google Books has "Thrift Store Paintings" by Jim Shaw published in 1990.

http://books.google.com/books?id=yxQDAAAACAAJ&source=gbs_similarbooks

Amazon.com has the same book, out of print, with the subtitle "Paintings found in thrift stores"

http://www.amazon.com/Thrift-Store-Paintings-Found-Stores/dp/1879158000

A listing on Google Books has "A Primer on Thrift Store Art" by Jim Shaw, ICA London, September 28 - 5 November 2000.

http://books.google.com/books/about/Jim_Shaw.html?id=AY5PAAAAMAAJ

Fraulein Usage in Modern German and Its Effect on Cinema and Special Effects

[Global Wahrman has had an admittedly ambiguous policy towards comments, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, having its origins with so many spam comments in the early days.  But in a stunning reversal of policy, we wish to encourage user comments on this topic: are these pictures sexist and does it relate to the term "fraulein"?]

There are few more important things to people than what they are called. One person's diminutive is another person's mortal insult. And there are many rules here, culturally specific rules. Eddie Murphy can use the "N-word" but under no circumstances may I use the "N-word", for example.

So fair warning for those of you who are not up on your contemporary German: "fraulein" is a word that is strongly discouraged these days, through a German social process that is the equivalent of our "Mrs/Miss/Ms" dialectic.

When I first heard this, I was not all that impressed.  But I just did a test and it occurs to me that there may be some subtle issues here (sarcasm, sorry).    Just do the following experiment.  Go to Google, type in "fraulein" and then go to images, then stand back.  Holy moly!  See for example:

Is there something sexist about this image?

From a latex couture magazine, yikes, fraulein, please, put some clothes on!

What could be sexist about this?

Click here for the Google image search.

So, to be clear, to the best of my knowledge one may still use "fraulein" in a way that is not insulting when addressing a very young girl, either sternly or genially (e.g. humorously, perhaps, just guessing, one might say "perhaps the fraulein would be so good as to clean up her room" when addressing a six year old gal, perhaps, and that might still be OK). But otherwise, one uses the term "frau" so far as I can tell.

Now I have a few friends who are far more knowledgeable about both feminism and modern German, so they will enlighten us all, I hope, but in the meantime, a word to the wise is hopefully sufficient.

Now does this mean that we should go back and change all our World War II movies and television shows? That is a question with no single answer, I think. If one were going for authenticity in the movie/show, then the answer would be no, it would still be correct to use "fraulein" in that time period. But if one were doing a new show, today, about the period, then one might think about using the modern usage if one did not intend to provoke a reaction. It could go either way, depending on what you wanted to achieve.

Now to get to our final topic: the potential effect this language change will have on the practice and art of special visual effects.  To the best of our knowledge, this change will have absolutely no effect on special effects, now or in the future.   Just wanted to reassure those of you who may have been concerned.

For a wild screaming match on the topic, see the Wikipedia discussion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AFr%C3%A4ulein

For a more balanced discussion and presentation of the issue(s), see:

http://german.stackexchange.com/questions/966/why-is-fraulein-considered-offensive-as-opposed-to-frau

The Importance of a Classical Education for Writing Renderman Shaders

[NB: Scott Anderson supervised the visual effects of Starship Troopers for Paul Verhoeven, and many facilities participated, including Sony Imageworks, ILM, Tippet and MASS ILLUSIONS.  The pictures below are just to illustrate the movie and, in a few cases the types of elements involved, e.g. thrusters.   I have no idea who did these particular shots, with the possible exception of the one of the escape pod, which was probably done at MASS ILLUSION.  People are very touchy about their credits and who can blame them?]

Through this story I hope to demonstrate the importance of knowing Latin, or of at least having a classical education, when writing Renderman Shaders. It is also a story about what a small world the world of visual effects is.

In 1997 or so, I had been hired by MASS ILLUSION to help them finish their work on Starship Troopers (1997) and get it out the door. They had two other projects that were about to start, What Dreams May Come (1998) and The Matrix (1999), and people needed to segue from Starship onto the new projects. MASS ILLUSON won two academy awards for these latter two projects, an amazing achievement. (1)

If you look closely at the lower picture, the thrust exhaust has a detailed structure which animates slightly

So new talent was needed to help finish the project so that the regulars could move on, and I was available, on the East Coast, and actually like to help finish projects. Often bringing in new people near the end of a long complicated project can be a help, because the new people in many ways are, frankly, unaware of the history and can just look at things with fresh eyes, and they are not yet tired of the project, so they can be energetic. Its not unrelated to some of the tactics of replacements in sports.

I had some credentials for this because I have supervised lots and lots of shots and projects and happen to be very good at rendering, having a Scitech award for writing a renderer, and very good at using Renderman (2), having helped bring it into production in its earliest form at deGraf/Wahrman and enjoyed using it.

MASS ILLUSION was a pioneer in attempting to do visual effects projects remotely from Los Angeles, in this case Western Massachusetts, and not all the bugs were worked out yet, and there was friction which I attributed in part to the problem of communicating 3,000 or so miles away, as well as other complications having to do with a very complicated project and a famously demanding director.

One of the ongoing and unresolved issues was matching the thrusters, or exhaust, of the starships. The exhaust in the starships done at Imageworks had a specific look and we were not close enough to that look for the starships we were doing. But it wasn't clear what Sony had done to make their thrusters, though, because as is so often the case, the people who had done the work at Sony had moved onto other projects, and possibly also because they had used a consultant who was no longer with them to write the primary Renderman shader for the thrusters.

Escape pod thruster detail 

They were hesitant to give us the shader and when I got on the project this was one of the long standing issues between the facilities. But obviously, given that we were having trouble matching the look, having the specific shader would be a big help, and communicate to us in no uncertain terms what was going on here. We thought that they might have some proprietary technology in the shader, but that was probably not the concern. It may have been nothing more than caution, or concern that they would be asked how the shader worked, or didn't know where it was, or who knows.

The shader was called "ROSASRF" for some reason.

Finally, after some effort, I had a success and many, many months after MASS ILLUSION had first asked, we got the source to the shader after a particularly colorful telephone conference call in which I quoted a famous biblical prophecy of what would happen if they did not give us the shader. (3)

Now, I have to backup a little. I have read and written hundreds, perhaps thousands, of shaders, about half of which are written by other people and about half of which were written by myself. Of those which are written by others, if you find a single comment in their shader its a miracle from Jesus himself. Shader writers do not often write comments, it seems, perhaps they believe that it is all self-explanatory.

But ROSASRF which was a very dense and complicated shader was not only well-commented, but one of those comments was highlighted with the cryptic two letters: NB.

NB?

I started laughing. I hardly ever read shaders with Latin abbreviations, in fact it had never happened before. NB, of course, is Latin for "Nota Bene" or "note well", its a convention used by mathematicians of the old school and classical scholars of all types. It basically means "pay attention".  Its the sort of thing one would expect to find when reading a scholarly treatise about St. Augustine's City of God (de Civitate Dei) or perhaps the notes of a 17th century alchemist. Or a mathematical proof.

So whoever Rosa was, as by that time I had determined that ROSASRF was named for the consultant, someone named Rosa, clearly she had a classical education and was not one of the "repurposed garage mechanics" we normally get in visual effects. The shader was very well written, well commented, and indeed, without it, it would have been very hard to figure out how to solve the problem. So we were happy.

But I was even happier to discover that I already knew Rosa, that in fact this was my old friend Rosa Farre, whom I had met a decade before in Barcelona at a company called Animatica, and who had married my friend Darnell Williams of Symbolics. I had never seen her work before, I just knew her as this very pleasant person from Barcelona, but now I had seen her work, and clearly she was not only good at what she did, but most important of all, had a classical education and was comfortable with her Latin abbreviations.

I hope that everyone reading this will take away the final thought that they should study Latin and incorporate Latin abbreviations in all their shaders.

Thank you.

_______________________________________

Notes:

1. By the time these two projects were done, the company had gone through at least one and possibly two different reorganizations, and may or may not have been called MASS ILLUSION by then. However, the people were the same for the most part and the same spirit and sense of excellence existed, so far as I can tell. Also, a facility does not win an Academy Award, only people do. But they had been the primary facility on those two films (What Dreams and The Matrix).

2. Technically, Renderman is the standard and the actual renderer was called Photo Realistic Renderman or PRman. The name may have changed a few times since then.

3. I dont actually remember exactly what was said during the call, but I vaguely recall telling them that we really, really wanted the shader and for them to remember the prophecy "The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood when the great and terrible (day) of the Lord shall come", which in Medieval Latin, by the way, is SOL TENEBRAS ET LUNA IN SANGUINEM MAGNUS ET HORRIBILIS DEI VENIET, which I think has a nice feel to it. Anyway, they gave us the shader.

_______________________________________

References:

Starship Troopers on Imdb

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120201/

City of God (De Civitate Dei) by St. Augustine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_God_(book)

Latin Abbreviations on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_abbreviations

White House Rejects Death Star Petition

In a stunning reversal, the White House has turned its back on the popular petition to build a Death Star, citing administration policy not to blow up planets and budgetary concerns.

Darth Vader appeals to Congress not to abandon the Death Star

See
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/01/12/white-house-rejects-death-star-petittion/?tid=pm_pop

2013 VFX Nominations

The visual effects nominees are: Life of Pi, Prometheus, Snow White, Avengers, and Hobbit. My unnamed academy award winning source got four of the five right; he had picked Dark Knight over Prometheus.

Run away!

See here for an editorial about why I think Life of Pi is important for computer animation. 

Lets talk about what these nominations mean. There are five films and four people per film or a total of 20 nominations. Each of those individuals, and to a large extent the company they work for, receive a certain credibility and what I think of as gravity (e.g. mass) because of the nomination. Its a very good thing. It has a half life of about 5 years, I think. Thus the value declines by 50% in five years, by 75% in 10 years and so forth. The same is true for an academy award, but of course they start with a higher mass.

Also, do not confuse the Technical Academy Awards with these awards. I am very fond of the Scitech awards and believe that they have a lot of merit, and I am certainly grateful for the one I have. But do not confuse the chess club with the varsity football squad. Its a lot rougher on the football field.

If you, or someone you knew, who was talented and technical, and they wanted to get a Scitech award, then with a lot of hard work you can probably achieve that.  Maybe not, but you might be able to.  But you can work in the effects business all your life and still not be nominated for an academy award.  Its a whole other kettle of fish.

I think that Life of Pi is or should be the favorite, and that would be very good for Rhythm and Hues.

This all reminds me that I have to write up my John Hughes and Mary Lambert story at Robert Abel & Associates.

Some Points to Consider Before Starting a War

[Revised 1-12-2013]

I wrote this silly essay not because I am a genius who knows everything, but because it sounds to me that people around me (and people in Washington) do not know much about this very complicated and emotional topic: what it is you should expect if you start a war.  Since I think I know a lot of what you can know about the subject from reading history, and because I keep getting irritated by some of the things I hear and read which sounds appallingly naive, I have written down a short list of things that I think everyone should know, more or less, before advocating a military solution (e.g. attacking Iran, Syria, etc).  In other words, if the things I describe below do not happen, you should be pleased.  But if they do happen, you should not be surprised.

Why can't war be fun, like on television?

1. Wars are generally easier to start than to stop.

History is filled with examples where some nation (or kingdom, whatever) was able to start a war, but having started it, discovered many reasons why it was a mistake, but could not disengage. Things had spun out of control.   

2. Wars are very expensive.

Very expensive indeed.  In all the ways we might define the term "expensive", e.g. money, lives, civic discord, etc.   Historically, nations have underestimated these costs, sometimes willfully, sometimes because they are hard to predict, and other reasons.  But at the end of the day, when a nation reviews a war after it is over, rarely do they say that it came in under budget. And these costs continue long after the fighting stops.

3. People die and get hurt in a war.

Well, golly, you may say, that's pretty obvious.  But I swear that there are people who do not know this.  They think they can have a war in Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever and somehow people won't be killed.   But that's what happens in war.  You throw a lot of munitions around and they explode and kill people. Some of those people are in uniform, and some are not in uniform, and some of the latter are civilians and some are not.     You try to mostly kill soldiers and kill as few civilians as possible. Sometimes you end up killing your own people by mistake or carelessness. It happens all the time.

4. Mistakes happen during a war.

Wars are barely controlled chaos with real opposition and all sides using what are essentially dangerous prototypes and throwing bombs at each other.   Ever watch any of those videos on youtube from aircraft talking to people on the ground?  Notice how often they are yelling?   They're not yelling to be heard (well, maybe they are yelling to be heard), but they are also yelling because it is really stressful where they are.  People make choices and make mistakes.   People go the wrong way, people get the wrong coordinates, some people did not get the word, people got excited when other people were shooting at them. Mistakes happen.

Sometimes they are not mistakes, sometimes they are only mistakes after the fact.  Oh you blew up a wedding where a lot of the bad guys were going to be?   I see.  Maybe that was an intentional mistake, or maybe it wasn't.

But nothing makes me laugh harder than the civilian quarterbacking after the fact.  Why didn't they do this?  Why didn't they do that?  That sure was stupid.  Easy for you to say.

5. The laws of war are more guidelines than laws.

Not all cultures agree with the so-called laws of war. Not all nations have signed the Geneva Conventions. Even those that have signed them have a lot of leeway on how those laws or conventions are applied on a case-by-case basis.  So don't go throwing around words like "war crimes" without spending a lot of time figuring out what it is that people mean by this today, because you will just sound like an asshole, which you may very well be. 

6. When the war is over, the war isn't over.

Win or lose, someone has to clean up the mess. And someone has to pay for it. Win or lose, if you get into a war it is likely that you will have some obligations or costs going forward however it turns out.  

7. People care passionately about what happens in war both during and afterwards.

I use the story of the Smithsonian exhibit on the Enola Gay to explain what I mean by "strong opinions".  As far as I can tell, by far most soldiers in uniform at the time the nuclear bombs were dropped believe/believed that those bombs saved their lives by causing Japan to surrender.  Now it turns out that maybe that is true and maybe that is not true.  People will be debating that for a very long time and we may never have a definitive answer that makes everyone happy.   But the people who were in uniform at the time, of which very few are still alive, have strong opinions on the topic.  And when the Smithsonian tried to do an exhibit which was so-politically-correct about whether or not the bombs caused Japan to surrender, they were torn to pieces by the veterans.   That's what I mean by "strong opinions".

Therefore do not start a war unless you are willing to have people around afterwards who have very strong opinions on the topic that you may or may not agree with.

8. Do not have a war unless it is OK with you that people will hate each other.

One of the most irritating recent issues regarding the war in Afghanistan was the investigation to find out if one of our soldiers had urinated (e.g. pissed) on a dead enemy to show his disrespect.  How could that be!  That's not very civilized!  War is not very civilized, either.  War is about killing people and being killed, about people being betrayed and dying. And about hate. Therefore do not go into a war and expect that people are going to be completely dispassionate. No offense or anything, but that would be extremely unrealistic.

9. Some people do not appreciate our good intentions.

Its hard to believe, but some people do not want Americans to come in and "show them how its done". They do not care that having a base in the desert saves us a lot of money. They don't trust us. If something happens that they don't like or don't understand, they are very likely going to think that we are doing something evil, or that we planned it, or otherwise take the worst possible point of view on the topic because, as I said, they don't trust us.

And other nations, watching what is going on somewhere else, maybe also doubt our intentions and maybe fear us because we went to war in order to "fix things" and they may wonder if they are the next to be "fixed". 

10. Some people have longer memories than you do.

America as a culture has a selective and self-serving amnesia and tends to disregard other people's history, or history in general, as unimportant.

Americans may have neither known nor cared that the French were in Vietnam before we were, but the Vietnamese certainly did.  I know many of my fellow citizens who neither know nor care that Israel exists because of events in Europe over two millennia, but the Jews who live in Israel know this very well.  Most people I know may not know or care that the Grand Army of the Republic raped, murdered and burned its way through the South (1), but the people who live in the South do. 

Other people know their history, whether or not you care to know their history.  Maybe you don't agree with that history, maybe you think they got it wrong.  That doesn't really matter, what matters is what they think their history is.

11. Do not get involved in someone else's problems without thinking twice.

I think this one should be self-explanatory but obviously not.  If you break it, you buy it.  I am not sure we were much responsible for Iraq being a nightmare of problems before we got there, but we sure are involved now.   Afghanistan is an amazingly complex, historically rich area (note, not country, area) and we did have something to do with making it what it was before 2001, but not as much as some people think (2).  But the Sunni and the Shiites in Iraq are at each other's throats, again, and that is not going to stop anytime soon.  The people who live in the place we call Afghanistan are never going to stop growing and selling opium as long as there is a demand for it. And they are never going to stop being corrupt in our eyes, because in a deep and fundamental way they don't see it as corruption or they don't care what we think.   And the rich of Kandahar will famously "keep" little boys for sex as they have for a long time and you wont stop them unless you kill them all. And I don't think we should kill them all, personally.

12. Be careful what you ask for and think about what happens next.

Saddam Hussein ruthlessly suppressed his Shiite majority in Iraq, I hear.  Those Shiites are the cousins of the Shiites that rule Iran with an oppressive, women-hating, Jew-hating, Sunni-hating theocratic dictatorship.  You get rid of Hussein, the Shiites who are a majority in Iraq come into power, and wish to ally with and maybe imitate that lovely theocratic Iran next door.  Good move, boys.

13. Wars do not always go the way you want or expect.

Many Americans are used to believing that a war will go their way, that they will be victorious in some sense of that word.   This is sheer delusion and ignorance.  First, Americans have not always won wars but many wars end with ambiguous results.   Second, you can win and lose a war at the same time.  Third, you can win every battle and still lose the war.   Fourth, wars have a life of their own, and unexpected things happen.  A small war may become a big war and a big war may become an annoying small war.   You will not know for sure going in.

Therefore and in conclusion, if a war is discretionary, and not all wars are, think real hard before you start it. All of the points above apply now and in the future. And if somehow one or two of them do not apply, then consider yourself lucky.

Now, are you really, really sure you need to start that war?

__________________________

1. Sherman's "March to the Sea".

2. Read Steven Coll's "Ghost Wars" about our involvement in Afghanistan after the Soviet Invasion.  We did support the resistance against the Soviet Union, but our involvement was always with the Pakistani's and the Saudi Arabians, and they have had much more to do with what transpired than we did, in spite of our self-image as being all powerful.   We were one of many players in that episode.
http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/0143034669

The Noble But Futile Gesture of Paul Rand

As part of our passive aggressive effort here at Global Wahrman to educate youth, we feature today one of the greatest American graphic designers, Paul Rand (1914-1996). You have seen his work all your life.

In 1992, Paul Rand, resigned from the faculty of Yale University as part of a protest against postmodernist theory. Exactly what good his resignation could possibly accomplish is a mystery to me, but no doubt it was a noble gesture.   When he resigned, he wrote an essay, "Chaos and Confusion: The Seduction of Comtemporary Graphic Design". (See http://www.paul-rand.com/foundation/thoughts_confusionChaos/#.UO0TS-Sw-Gk)

Complaining about postmodern criticism, which is truly worst case academic drivel, is like complaining that we live in a shallow society: of course we do.   In the case of postmodern criticism we just have that manifestation of shallowness that comes from a self-entitled community of elitist shallow people in contrast to the other types.  And this particular type of shallow people have the career imperative to publish, and furthermore to publish in journals that encourage that kind of shallowness.  Its a positive feedback loop, some would argue, the arts criticism equivalent of the peacocks tail feathers leading to preferential selection by sex-crazed peahens leading to an even more flamboyant set of tail feathers in the next generation.   One day it may disappear in a puff of smoke and itself become the topic of PhD thesis trying to explain the phenomenon.

Since we at Global Wahrman wish to honor the noble and futile sacrifice of one's career in order to make an ethical stand, here is a paragraph or two from this essay.

The Perception of Time and Historical Events

I am fascinated by how we perceive the passage of time and how this effects our perception of history. These perceptions are probably also affected by the region that we grew up in. America is famously said to pay very little attention to history, their own or anyone else's.

I use the following story to illustrate how events that we consider to be very distant in the past were actually not very long ago at all. Growing up as I did in Virginia, the story involves the American Civil War.

My father also grew up in Virginia and when he was ten years old, his elementary school brought a man to speak who had been Gen. Robert E. Lee's personal assistant and valet from before and during the war. He was a black man, probably in his 70s, and he had started working for Lee as a very young man. He stayed with Lee after the war and was with him when Lee passed away in 1870. 

The man my father heard speak was probably the Rev. Wm. Mack Lee.  Mack Lee was well known in Virginia, helped to build many churches after the war, and spoke very highly about Lee.

A short biography of William Mack Lee is here:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/leewilliam/summary.html

The electronic edition of his autobiography is here:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/leewilliam/lee.html

Since my father was ten years old in 1920 and the Civil War ended in 1865, that means that the Civil War had been over for about 55 years. What I find fascinating about that is that World War II, which was one of the defining events of my father's generation, has been over for longer than that (almost 70 years).

In other words, we think of the Civil War as being impossibly long ago. But for our parents, it was more recent than World War II is for our 20 somethings that we work with.

Many of the issues that we have in this country today are in many ways a result of those two wars. They were just the day before yesterday in the bigger scheme of things.

________________________________________

For those who are interested in such things, Mack Lee, who has the same last name as R.E. Lee was a slave originally for the Lee family, and stayed with Lee when he was freed in the course of the war.   What I find amusing is the southern tradition of keeping the same last name, e.g. if you were a slave for the Lee family, you were also a Lee.   I have many friends who are part of the Carter family (e.g. Carter Burwell, Carter Emmart, Jimmy Carter, etc) and they report that there are a lot of African American Carters around.  Well, maybe I should say this is interesting, not amusing, given what we are talking about here.

The Shocking Truth about Roman Architecture in France

[Revised 1/7/2012]

This is the story of the first time I actually saw a Roman ruin. I think it is very funny for what it says about me, and maybe, just a little, about how some of us perceive various cultures and periods, perhaps without realizing it.

My high school had a fabulous Latin teacher (1) and I took advantage of the situation, taking many years of Latin and learning a lot of Roman history.   I may have been somewhat influenced by the fact that my high school combined the advanced Latin classes between the Boys and Girls school, so you had to go to the Girls school to study Latin.   Such were the lofty motivations of my youth.  I read Roman and Aegean history and related topics even now and I assure you the past isn't over, it isn't even past yet.

If you never studied Latin, to give you a feel for how nouns are declined and verbs conjugated, see this sequence from Life of Brian (1974) in which anti-Roman activist Brian is trying to write "Romans Go Home" and is corrected by a Roman Centurion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbI-fDzUJXI

But, to my chagrin, I have never been to Rome. We were not of that economic class that could afford such things when I was growing up, and when I was productively employed as a young adult, I had not arranged a trip. Then I got involved in computer animation and of course my life went to hell and I still haven't been there, except of course in books.

But like so many others of my generation of computer animation, I was invited to speak at various European conferences during the late 1980s, which provided an opportunity to see at least some of Europe. So, after one of these conferences, Imagina, I arranged for a friend of mine to meet me in Monaco and we would sight see for a few days in the south of France.

So my friend, Paul Cross (2), met me at the conference and we rented a car and started driving through Nice on our way to Nimes. As we stopped in Nice, I pointed to a building and said, "Look, Paul, someone has built a building and made it look Roman."

I am still looking for a suitable picture.  This one has some of the right feel, but it is not integrated into a major current building on a busy street, like the building this post is about.

Paul looked at it and said, "No, Michael, it is Roman".

I thought that was a weird thing for him to say, so I repeated myself and tried to explain, see, someone has built a building and made it look really old and Roman. Isnt that nice?

In Los Angeles, you see, we regularly theme various venues based on classic European and other civilizations, including our own. We might have a Chinatown, for example. Disneyland would have a Fantasyland including a notable synthesis of many medieval castles at the center of the park. The little tourist town of Solvang in Southern California has a Danish theme, complete with windmills. Our Japanese restaurants such as Benihana entertain guests with a performance that is alledgedly at least somewhat Japanese in origin. Santa Barbara is zoned for a traditional Hispanic style.  Although most studio backlots have been repurposed as real estate development, a few still exist with their various themes: a New York street, an Old West street with its saloon, a small town America main street, and so forth. Theming is a major design concept in use in our local commercial architecture and culture.

So clearly, what we had here was a modern building that had been designed using Roman antiquity as a theme. I thought it looked good, although perhaps they went overboard on some of the "ancient" aspects of it, as the Roman section clearly had seen better days.   

My friend just kept explaining to me that no, they were not pretending to be Roman, that Nice was in part an ancient Roman city, and it actually was Roman.  That's interesting, I thought, it had never occurred to me that it might not be fake.

_____________________________

1. His name was Anthony Ruffa, I think.   Before taking an exam, some of us would say to ourselves, "AVE RUFFA MORITURI TE SALUTANT"  ("Hail Ruffa!  We who are about to die, salute you!")

2. Paul Cross is a very amusing person, and an alumnus of Symbolics.  He moved to Taos, New Mexico and helped set up one of the internet not-for-profit web sites for the Taos Pueblo.   He has disappeared, and is hopefully doing well wherever he is.

Visual Effects Bake Off 2013, Part 2

I find the Bake Off to be extremely valuable and always regret missing it, even when I can not stand it anymore and have to walk out to the lobby. (Procedural note: since I am not a member of the Academy VFX Subsection, I can not vote, so I am not required to watch the whole thing).

Among the positive attributes are running into friends and colleagues whom I rarely if ever see at any other time of the year. One of my favorite people, Dennis Muren, I *never* see except at the Bakeoff. Last year he said one of the best things I have heard about the current state of visual effects:

"The problem with special effects is that they are not special anymore."

And there is value in seeing the current state of the art from many different projects projected in an excellent screening room one right after the other. Its amusing to try to guess what the theme of the year will be in advance: space battles? giant robots? hordes of zombies?

Notice the reflections on the bottom of the martian attack vehicle

One of the annoying downsides of watching these 10 minute sequences back-to-back (with some gap between them for the introduction of the next one) is the sheer volume of noise involved. You see, visual effects are occassionally used for those gentle and romantic moments, but not all that often, actually. Usually they are used when the director feels the need to blow up a city, or drop a spaceship on a bridge, or have one giant robot sensitively punch another giant robot in the nose, and these are loud, generally speaking, even in a vacuum in outer space. I remember once being in the lobby of the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood (on the telephone of course) while an unnamed very successful effects film was screening, and noting that I could always tell when there was a major effects moment because they were usually synchronized with the subwoofers in the theatre, which from the outside, sounded like a big truck slamming into a wall at 90 mph. About every 30 seconds or so, another truck would slam into a wall, it was sort of amusing. But at the Bakeoff, it may be more like every 15 seconds or less, and it is not muffled. The first 100 or 200 times that happens it can be entertaining, but after a while it starts to get old.

The Academy Visual Effects Bake Off, Part 1

This is the boring part of the post in which I explain the background of the Bakeoff to those who do not know. The fun stuff is all in the second part, if I write it.

The Bakeoff is tonight which is why I can not attend. It used to be the second or third week in Februrary but it has been moving up earlier and earlier. Now it is Jan 3. And instead of 7 excruciating and boring films to see sections of, you now get to watch 10 boring films.

If you have never attended this event and you are the least bit interested in visual effects, then you should make a point of trying to attend one year. The way it works is that the general public is welcome on an available seating basis. You are not permitted to vote, of course, nor are you permitted to ask questions, or sit in the reserved seating.

We're here for the bakeoff! 

1. Here is how a film gets nominated for visual effects. A smoke filled room of "worthies" meet and choose some number of films that are called the "long list". These films have to fulfill certain rules about how and when the film was screened to be eligible, and the producers of the film have to nominate it in this category, listing four people, generally as the people who will be nominated or win, should they be so lucky. The smoke filled room reviews this list and in a completely impartial manner (ha!) chooses the films that will be considered. You can be quite sure that there are no politics in this choice, as we will discuss at some point. (The politics are not too bad, generally there are always a few questions about which films get on the long list, but the major contenders are always there).

Recalling the Days When People Were Merely Called Eccentric

These days I am always careful to look whomever I am with in the eye. Why is that, you may wonder. Well, it used to be, back in the days when people were merely neurotic, I developed an affectation of not looking people in the eye. Beats me where it comes from, I think it has to do with being a little shy. But be that as it may be, these days if you do not look someone in the eye, you obviously have Asperger's Syndrome, and thus must be a barely functioning victim of an autism spectrum disorder. Thus I always make sure to look whomever I am talking to in the eye, at least once, during a conversation. Clever, eh?

I wish that my colleagues and peers would maybe realize that these DSM classifications are not to be thrown around casually, and that doing so is not only incorrect, it is also rude.

Perhaps we could return to a simpler, more innocent time, when someone was merely eccentric and colorful if he was a non-conformist.   That would be ever so much more accepting and positive, don't you think?   This trend of badly diagnosing someone's mental disorders and accusing them of it (or discussing it behind their back) is neither helpful nor accurate.

Eccentricity

Also, and I hate to mention this, but those who live in glass houses should not throw tactical nuclear weapons. It seems to me that the last five people I know who have "diagnosed" me with Aspergers should perhaps look to their own house first.

Even a casual study of the history of such things, these labels for eccentricity, show that society moves fast here.  One period's classification, for example, "moron", becomes a later periods' schoolyard insult.

In fact, I am "in touch" with my mental disabilities, if that is what they are, I think I have a good handle on them.  I am well aware that I am in many respects an outlier.  Some of the issues that some would see as a disability, I have become quite fond of, anyway.   The problem is not their diagnosis or management, per se, it is paying for their management in a society that seems to thrive on punishing the poor.   In other words, my problem is not ADD/ADHD or whatever, my problem today is cash flow.

Thus if you want to be a help, rather than throw diagnosis at me, throw money and that would certainly help me to be better adjusted.   Just trying to be practical here.

_______________________

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_Disorders

DSM-IV TR (Text Revision)
http://www.psychiatry.org/practice/dsm/dsm-iv-tr

DSM-V (In Development)
http://www.dsm5.org/Pages/Default.aspx

Eccentricity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eccentricity_(behavior)

Outlier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier