Photo credit: ILM. With Eragon opening Dec. The studio is betting that the source material, a worldwide best-selling novel by Christopher Paolini, will be popular enough to lure moviegoers into theaters. My priority was to design Saphira, the dragon. I worked with the design team at ILM over a period of about six months, testing various approaches. We finally created a shape that we were all happy with, a strong dragon with a very powerful head and feminine blue eyes.
At this point, the wings were bat-like, but when we showed the concept to the studio, they said that they really liked the wings of Angel in X-Men: The Last Stand , which they were producing at the time, and could our dragon have feathered wings? So, we revamped the concept to incorporate scaly wings, which took the whole design away from reptilians. In the end, it was a good thing as our dragon doesn't look like any other dragon in movie history.
At ILM, visual effects supervisor Samir Hoon was initially assigned the whole project, but when the vfx shot count increased dramatically during post-production, Weta Digital, Cinesite, CIS Hollywood and other vendors were brought in. Michael McAlister joined the production as overall visual effects supervisor to coordinate the global effort. ILM ended up producing about shots, all of them featuring the dragon. At one point in the design phase, Saphira's wings were bat-like, but the studio, inspired by the wings of Angel in X-Men: The Last Stand, requested feathered wings.
ILM revamped the concept to incorporate scaly wings. Although ILM had just created a dragon for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , the challenge of creating Saphira was of a completely different nature. She had to communicate with Eragon telepathically, meaning that we had to convey all her emotions through facial animation only.
She was basically delivering dialog without really talking. Also, we had to deal with a highly unusual skin color We had to find just the right skin color, a subtle hue that would allow Saphira to appear in scenes that were lit in warm tones and not stand out.
It was a real challenge. Saphira was modeled and animated in Maya. Her skin had subsurface scattering, and her eyes had the same type of work that would have been done on a digital human. Some times, the geometry wouldn't fold up properly or the scales would end up creating messy intersections. So, we just had a modeler go in and clean it up. When Saphira was flying, since she was not moving her wings a lot, we had simulations running on top of the wings and on the scaly feathers, just to keep them alive.
During principal photography, the crew used simple cutout shapes to represent the dragon and help the cameramen and actors to visualize the character. For shots in which a human character had to be seated on Saphira, the crew used the motion rig that had been built at Pinewood Studios, England, for the Hippogriff sequence in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Then, on the bluescreen set, the dragon animation drove the motion rig, while the CG camera drove the motion control system.
So, the actor followed every move that the CG dragon made, which allowed us to blend CG animation and live action very precisely. This technique was used for complicated shots in which Saphira and Eragon needed to be 'locked. The actor was then shot without motion control, which gave us more latitude to adjust the animation and compose the shot.
Finding a way for Saphira's wings to fold up well was a challenge. Sometimes the geometry wouldn't fold up properly or the scales would end up creating messy intersections. The flight sequences feature aerial backgrounds shot from a helicopter in Eastern Europe. This image was then broken down into different depth levels to create parallax effect. This approach was first developed on Star Wars: Episode III and has since become a key asset of proprietary software Zeno , ILM's main tool for lighting, secondary animation and simulation.
The shots were rendered in RenderMan, with some ambient occlusion passes and specific renders being handled in mental ray. In March , Weta Digital was called in to realize the final battle sequence, and several other dragon sequences throughout the movie, eventually producing more than shots.
In the end, Saphira was created both by ILM and Weta Digital, which could have presented a serious risk in terms of continuity. This ended up not being the case as Weta mostly dealt with an armor-clad, combat-oriented Saphira in nighttime shots, while ILM focused on the emotional aspects of the character in daytime drama-oriented shots. Weta started by adapting the digital assets provided by ILM. This was made challenging because our nighttime battle shots presented Saphira in a completely new lighting scheme.
We found out that, when you put a blue dragon in yellow firelight, it turns black! At the same time, her yellow underside glowed These kinds of realities forced us to customize Saphira's texture and shader components to give us the kind of control we needed to adjust her look on a shot by shot basis. Further adjustments in Saphira's physical model were dictated by the needs of her animation and character performances. Certain extreme poses would sometimes cause major intersections in her wing geometry.
Often, we could solve this with sculpting the geometry on individual shots, but certain favored poses regularly broke the dragon. So we went back into the modeling and made some fundamental changes to the way Saphira's wings attached to her body.
This is a good example of a change that developed within Weta's workflow that was pushed back to ILM for matching. Maya was used for modeling, with Mudbox being employed to enhance sculpted details.
While rigging was also done in Maya, it was primarily realized through proprietary extensions. Other internal software was used to drive muscle and skin systems, and to generate hair. StudioPaint and Photoshop were employed to generate or modify texture maps, with the latter the primary tool used for the creation of digital matte painting elements. While these textures were 8-bit, displacements were calculated in float.
Saphira breathes fire near the climax of the final battle, and uses it to distract Durza so Eragon can kill him. Her fire is blue to match her scales. Saphira starts to breath fire right before the battle begins, and uses it to kill many enemies during the battle. Her fire is orange. Brom has a long white beard, silver hair, a carved staff, an elven ring , and a pipe.
It isn't revealed that Brom was a Dragon Rider until minutes before his death. Eragon slips in a small stream, and breaks his right wrist, which gives him immense pain through much of the journey and he is forced to learn how to wield a sword with his left hand.
Eragon forms the ideal plan to leave with Brom and Saphira from Carvahall in order to pursue and kill the Ra'zac. They only travel to Daret ; all the other events that happen in other towns are aggregated together here. Eragon , Saphira , Murtagh, and Arya have a lengthy journey to the Varden, which is chapters long. Arya is unconscious during this journey. After Arya shows Eragon a vision of where the Varden are, Murtagh and him have an argument and fight about it.
Eragon and Murtagh have no fight. Arya is awake at the beginning, helping to bury Brom, but collapses later on. Eragon learns how to summon water from the ground in the Hadarac Desert. This fight heavily parallels the fight between Eragon, Saphira, Murtagh , and Thorn in Eldest , as it begins with dragons grappling at each other and Durza blocking streams of fire with his magic, much like Murtagh, and Thorn crashing into a pillar, much like the Beast.
Once dead, the spirits in the Shade are freed and torment Eragon. Eragon defeats Durza by having Saphira throw him at Durza using her tail. Nothing, besides several wooden structures, was destroyed as a result of the fight. Durza turns to dust when he dies.
Inheriwiki Explore. Discord Forum Fanon. Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? List of differences between the Eragon book and film. Edit source History Talk 0. Some of these are summarized in the following table: Contents. Categories Films Add category. Cancel Save. Fan Feed 1 Eragon 2 Murtagh 3 Galbatorix. Universal Conquest Wiki. Saphira has been lying in her egg for about a hundred years.
Saphira's egg hatches after Roran leaves. Saphira tells Eragon she has "waited a thousand years to hear his thoughts". Saphira's scales are intense blue, she has bat-like wings with membranes and scales and she has white bone neck-back-and-tail spikes along with two white fangs that protrude from her mouth. Saphira is a rather dull grayish blue, and has feathers.
And she has no spikes and her fangs do not show out of her mouth. Saphira grows to full size at a quick rate, but her growth is not instantaneous. She learns to fly due to her own natural instincts, and her ancestral knowledge. She started speaking to Eragon a few days after she was born. Eragon names Saphira after learning a number of dragon names from Brom. Saphira flies with the help of Eragon, who throws her up in the air. After a transitional shot to a short time later she is fully grown and then speaks to Eragon.
Arya is described having raven dark black hair, green eyes, and pointed ears. She is taller than most men. Arya has reddish-gold hair, blue eyes, and human ears. She is slightly shorter than Eragon. It is never shown or mentioned that she has a tattoo, or may not have one. Arya wears dark-colored clothing, particularly black leather. Arya has a cold, stiff, no-nonsense personality, especially towards Eragon.
She treats him respectfully, and shows no romantic affection. Arya acts warmly towards Eragon. She even appears to be attracted to him romantically, as she tells him they "might meet each other again soon. Arya is in self-induced coma all the time before reaching the Varden. Arya doesn't show any signs of such torture. Arya is awake and speaks to Eragon with words. Murtagh 's hair is brown. Murtagh's scar is on his back, and goes from his right shoulder to his left hip.
It is white and silvery, like scar tissue. Murtagh has a horse , sword , bow , dagger , and horn. Durza the Shade is tall and slim, with very pale skin, crimson hair, maroon eyes, sharp teeth, and ordinary fingernails. Durza is not particularly slim or pale. He has crimson hair, white eyes, ordinary teeth, and sharp fingernails.
Durza's primary weapon is a sword that carries a long thin scratch on its blade from his duel with Ajihad. Durza's primary weapon is magic. He carries a sword, but does not use it. Galbatorix is only ever mentioned ; no one knows what his identifying characteristics are like except for his "black eyes" as testified by Murtagh.
He knows that the 'stone' is a dragon egg. Galbatorix makes several appearances with a movie-director-chosen appearance. He refers to Saphira's egg as just a 'stone'. Galbatorix does not know the location of the elven or dwarven cities. Galbatorix possesses a map that shows the exact location of every city of the elves and dwarves.
Galbatorix wants Eragon and Saphira alive so they can join him in order to rebuild the Dragon Riders. Roran first tells Eragon the news about his departure and he leaves because someone had offered him a job. Uncle Garrow gets to know the news about Roran's departure first and Roran has no idea what he is going to do.
Angela is a cheerful mature woman with dark curls of brown hair. She talks like everybody else, meets with Eragon twice, and tries to prove that toads are really frogs. She lives in Teirm and has the werecat Solembum as her companion. Angela is young, blond, and ornately-garbed. She talks in the third-person, meets with Eragon once, and has no interest in frogs or toads. She is not a witch, but a mere fortune-teller. She lives in Daret, and has no pets or companions.
While traveling, Brom and Eragon get some help from Brom's merchant friend, Jeod. The Ra'zac are tall, hunched, twisted, insect-like creatures with beaks and black eyes as large as fists. They talk, carry swords and Seithr Oil , and wear hoods and cloaks to cover their "twisted hideous bodies". They are organic creatures hatched from eggs, who joined Galbatorix after they were born.
The Ra'zac are artificial creatures summoned from insects and dirt, apparently created under Durza's command. They are covered in rags and resembled a mummy. Nasuada and Hrothgar are referred to by name.
Hrothgar , King of the dwarves, is four feet tall with white hair and a long white beard. Urgals are tall, yellow-eyed, gray-skinned, and horned. Urgals are shorter, stocky, have red-eyes, and red skin.
They do not have horns, and resemble savage cave-men. All non-human races have key characteristics. The elves have pointed ears, the dwarves are short, and the Urgals have horns. These characters are always labeled appropriately. None of the non-human races has any key characteristics, and are never referred to as elves or dwarves.
Horst is described as a big, hulking, bulky blacksmith with brisky black hair, and a rumbling voice - he harbors the characteristics of being confident, brave, whole-hearted, and optimistic. His wife Elain is blonde. Horst is portrayed as somewhat a rather smaller man with a balding head and it is never mentioned that he is a blacksmith. His voice is not husky. He turns out to be vulnerable, pessimistic, worrying, and broken-hearted. His wife, Elain, is a brunette.
Orik is an important dwarf character who appears several times late in the story. Zar'roc has a gold pommel with a ruby, and the handle is wrapped in silver wire. The sheath is of a wine-red color. Morzan's insignia is on the blade and sheath. Zar'roc has a silver pommel with a sapphire, and the handle is wrapped in leather.
0コメント