Blur_Does_Star

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FLYING OVER THE NECELL
Looking over the wing of the Enterprise D. What's out there is a temporal vortex of the wreckage of a Borg cube. The green glow is a vortex back to the 20th Century. Borg scouts are trying to shoot you down at this point in the ride.

A EUROPEAN CITY
Where you reenter when you've returned to the 20th Century. It's a generic city, using recognizable elements from various European cities. You see thousands of houses and buildings, and end up turning down a small street.

INSIDE THE TEMPORAL VORTEX
This is akin to being in a wild roller coaster ride; but it's not a tube. You go through some "really weird twists, turns and drops," says Blur's Aaron Powell.

TEMPORAL VORTEX ENTRANCE
This has a gothic feel; it's referred
to as the "Borg Cathedral." When
you see this, you've just been shot, and you're being pulled into the vortex.

Venice, Calif. -- Blur, a leading animation, effects and design house, has created the ride film for the traveling exhibition "Star Trek World Tour," it was announced by Blur's Creative Director, Tim Miller.

"Star Trek World Tour" is a fully-themed attraction which recreates the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D and features state-of-the-art electronic, lighting, sound and animation technology. Once on board the Enterprise, visitors are taken on a pulse-racing adventure in the 24th Century. The largest touring science fiction attraction ever, "Star Trek World Tour" also features retail shops, restaurants, and the Star Trek Museum, a comprehensive collection of costumes, props, models and other memorabilia from 30 years of the legendary series. The "Star Trek World Tour" is developed under license from Viacom Consumer Products, the licensing division for Paramount Pictures. It is currently enjoying a highly successful engagement in Vienna, Austria.

"The Star Trek World Tour ride film allowed us to create some very elaborate environments -- from the deepest layers of a Borg Cube to a European city," says Blur's CG Supervisor, Aaron Powell. "The animators had a blast conjuring up places that Star Trek audiences had never seen before."

Animators at Blur used 3D Studio MAX R2.5 on Intergraph dual 550MHz machines with Wildcat 4000 graphics cards and 1GB RAM. Most of the lens flares were done with Pro Optic Suite. eyeon Software's Digital Fusion 2.5 was used for combining all the elements, such as effects and backgrounds, into one.

Powell says some of the file sizes were impressively large; for instance, the European city scene (left) was five million polygons, and rendered at 20 minutes per frame. "Just the fact that MAX could handle five million polys was impressive," he adds. With Blur's 20-machine render farm, though, Powell says they could render the entire thing overnight.

The project took four of Blur's animators seven weeks to complete. Overall, Blur has 15 animators.

The "Star Trek World Tour" ride film was directed by Mario Kamberg and produced by Ellen Coss for their own company, Escape Artists. Blur's credits include Stephanie Taylor as Executive Producer, Tim Miller as Creative Director, and Aaron Powell as CG Supervisor.

Located in Venice, California, Blur has committed itself to creating quality imagery and superior animation across a broad spectrum of projects. The company's other notable projects include feature films South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut and Deep Rising, ridefilms "Star Trek World Tour" and "Meteor Attack," TV shows "The Visitor" and "The Outer Limits;" commercial spots for Pepsi, McDonald's, Mastercard, and America Online; cinematics for interactive games "Ultima: Ascension," for Origin Systems, and "Dark Reign," for Activision; and broadcast graphics for CBS, USA Network, FX Channel and The Game Show Network, to name just a few.

Current projects at Blur include two film projects. For one, a Miramax release titled For the Cause, Blur is doing all the digital effects, over 80 shots. And for a monster movie with digital creatures that can't be publicly named yet, Blur is the only fx house involved.

Source: Blur
Web Site:Blur.com

Viacom Consumer Products merchandises properties on behalf of Paramount Pictures, Paramount Television and Viacom Productions, as well as third party properties. Viacom Consumer Products, a unit of Viacom Entertainment Group, is a subsidiary of Viacom Inc.